Sophistication and elegance have not always been the strobe light honey for die-hard divers into the Dance genre, but it’s been Octo Octa’s strongest suit since his 2011 debut 12” on 100% Silk, and here again are those initial ideas of identity and hunger for intimacy all leading to an adrift, uneasy feeling, only they’ve materialized into that instantly recognizable, authentic OO sound. Promising was an early word used to describe the thoughtful, dedicated producer (who records in a cramped corner of a kitchen in a cramped corner of Brooklyn), and our anticipations were justified; Between Two Selves has a facile sensuality – the reclining nude of Octo’s Blue Period – with more room to breathe or sigh, and the sort of anthemic samplics handily summed up with a single coaxing call (“I want you,” “I don’t want you to go,” “All his kisses taste sweet”). Focusing on fewer elements manipulated, pitched and played with over the course of more extended, abstracted compositions, Octo Octa has become one of the prophetic personifiers of regal melancholy in electronic music, along with James Blake and King Midas Sound. Homoeroticism and homosentimentality, urge and satisfication, celebration and celibacy lay languidly across Between Two Selves, a lofty, soulful statement that Silk is blessed to release on the world.
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