- With last year's second EP and Phonica debut You Will Soon Find That Life Is Wonderful, Glasgow producer Gary Caruth garnered praise for his gorgeously evocative electronica. The follow-up is very much an EP of two halves—its first side is built on field recordings taken in and around Lisbon and has an entirely different character to the second. There are six tracks on Introduction To Lisboa / Sloe, with two serving as atmospheric bookends. The first is "Introduction To Lisboa," which eases us in with muffled field recordings of crowds and looping background horns. It eventually bleeds into "Baixa Saxophone," a dreamlike piece in which these street recordings are joined by the gentlest of beats and swaying, Arovane-like keys. The eight-minute-plus "Scyphozoa" rounds out the first side, with pools of bass mingling with half-sighs, distant beats and gently euphoric synth patterns.
After the unbroken bliss of the first side, the sparky chimes of "Apricot" almost come as a shock at first, but they have a spiky prettiness of their own, and grow with gently lumbering bass and background synth washes into a lovely crescendo. "Sloe" is the longest and most becalming track, as little chimes and key echoes stretch over a bed of soothing hats and far-off strings. A looping spoken-word segment brings it to a close. "Stream," a simple amalgam of the sounds of rushing water and glowing keys, sees out another enchanting release from a producer who is yet to put a foot wrong.
TracklistA1 Introduction To Lisboa
A2 Baixa Saxophone
A3 Scyphozoa
B1 Apricot
B2 Sloe
B3 Stream