Picks Of The Week (10.09.22

1. SOLR - Kupalo EP [Fokuz Recordings]

Recommended if you like: Edlan, Dawn Wall, Mohican Sun

Close your eyes. It's Sunday, you are recovering from a busy weekend, full of meeting friends and family, but even fuller with live music. You wake up at like 4pm because you only got back home at 6am and your whole body was so tired it needed way more than the full 8 hours. You look outside the window, it has been raining all day and the weather report says it's not going to stop anytime soon. You know what that calls for? Some relaxing liquid. The kind that's not falling from the sky I mean. Good thing we've got mister sun emoji himself, SOLR, providing the goods with his brand new EP!

No, not the artist formerly known as SØL and no, not Soul:r either. Today we'll be talking about SOLR, Hari George's electronic music project! This Oxford-based producer's journey starts before the name SOLR came into the picture though, for that we have to go way back. Back to 2011/2012 to be specific! Back then still known under his Tritech pseudonym, Hari was throwing out Dubstep bangers left right and centre, honing his skills further and further with each newly posted WIP. While finishing his studies, he also ventured out from Dubstep to other genres like Dub (a huge leap, I know) and Ambient, but after a while he was craving a new start. One that wasn't bound to expectactions built up from something he started as a kid in school. One he could form to his liking. One that would involve more DnB!

Skip forward to 2018 and there we have it: SOLR debuts on GLOCKWORK Records with his silky smooth DnB debut The Cold In Me. While he didn't just abandon Dubstep completely, with the occasional steppy dubby single dropping here and there, he was and still is very much focussed on DnB for this project. After a few years of regular releases on GLOCKWORK, he became a part of the extended Fokuz family of labels, with his All Of You EP on Influenza in 2021. From there on, things quickly snowballed into all kinds of label releases, with appearances on Four Corners, Liqüid, C Recordings and none other than Liquicity sister label Galacy! Furthermore, he also continued filling out his Fokuz-family label stamp book with EPs on Celsius and, since this week, Fokuz Recordings itself. So let's talk about exactly that!

SOLR starts this sunday sooth session™️ on said Kupalo EP with the terrific title track Kupalo. Distant vocals that you can't quite make out fading out into the nothingness, wind chimes chiming in in the background, a sheer endless stream of steadily rolling drums, and some soulful yet funky pianos giving us a glimmer of hope in this dark and gray world. That's Kupalo for ya. Now that we're fully in the mood, SOLR, this time in cahoots with Heidelberg-based Minos, hits us with the follow-up, Purify. Just like its predecessor, it has got multiple minimalistic melancholic melodies by mysterious musical instruments, these wonderful Ekho-y drums and bass that just wraps itself around your ears like a comfy blanket, but this time, there's also a way bigger emphasis on the vocals. After a short while, in which the heavily processed female vocal sample blesses us with its heavenly presence, all kinds of short yet beautiful vocal snippets begin to appear in the mix, keeping us company until the end.

But wait, we're not quite at the end just yet! Next up we've got Shatter keeping up the high levels of immaculate vibes, while also pulling us down into some pretty deep and dark depths. Right off the bat, a particularly hard-hitting kick-and-snare combo smacks you awake, with a set of hypnotically shuffly drums surrounding it, already making this a certified headbopper. Soon enough, SOLR treats us to a set of vocals that, while sounding very much like a transmission from an alien world, still makes you want to close your eyes and drift away, while this all-encompassing atmospheric bass provides you the warmth you might have to cut back on in your apartment at the moment. Lastly, Exonerate gives us the smooth send-off we need before we hit the bed again. This EP closer's arrangement of vocals is probably the most diverse one of the EP, going from thoroughly deepened ones to one that sounds almost autotuned to various different vocal samples enriching the background as much as possible. As with the other tracks before it, the instrumental is of course also just lovely all-around again, with my personal highlight being the moody guitar.

This whole EP is just one big vibe after another. I couldn't have asked for a better soundtrack to my sunday blues.

Other liquid stuff from this week:

Thystle - Patchwork Tapestries EP 💎
Lenzman, Redeyes, Private Joy - Playing It Off
Random Movement - The Remember Sessions Vol. 2
Duoscience - Triumph
Genesis Elijah - Undeniable
BOP, Subwave - Wait For Me