- San Laurentino, born Lóránt Talpai, is a name that's only now starting to bubble up, but his sound feels as fully formed as producers you've been following for years. Demurely emotive and sensitively arranged, he seems like a perfect fit for a label like Dial, though a quirky undercurrent in his music has also landed him on Mathematics, where he manages to sound equally at home. Live At Robert Johnson, never a label to shy away from the beautiful or the atypical, has snagged San Laurentino's latest collection of tracks, and it's a commendably low-key affair that continues to show a producer growing into his sound.
"Playmaker" opens with a pulse that's a good deal slower than the already laid-back thump San Laurentino seems to prefer, but its sluggishness certainly doesn't come at the expense of emotional immediacy. The track could perhaps use more compositional shape, but its melodic interplay and dense slippery rhythm lend it a gorgeous intricacy. The title cut moves faster, and while its synthesized bells probably won't stem the Dial comparisons, his fingerprints—adventurous melody, slowly unraveling hook—are all over the thing. "Rainforest Hunters" begins on a tender note, but as its percussion and bassline start churning, a palpable tension surfaces that its calming pace can't tone down. Closing with "Somewhere Under the Stars," San Laurentino once again feels like the Dial signing that got away. (If the title didn't already tip you off.)
Tracklist A1 Playmaker
A2 Forbidden Fruit
B1 Rainforest Hunters
B2 Somewhere Under the Stars