- Khotin spikes his woozy ambient music with a welcome dose of '90s downtempo beats.
- Khotin's music evokes feelings of beatific innocence. After breaking out with a style of house built on simple but effective melodies, the Canadian producer gradually pulled away the rhythmic elements of his sound until it became an impressionistic blur of synths and voices, as heard on albums like 2018's Beautiful You. This was ambient for everyone—music that pulled from personal experiences and recordings and shaped them into pleasant watercolour daubs of emotion. This shift has coincided with fewer DJ gigs and a return home to snowy, bitterly cold Edmonton, a brusque change from the serene surroundings of Vancouver where he moved to jump-start his dance music career. His latest album, and second for Ghostly International, is something of a full circle moment. Holed up in his hometown, Khotin crafted an album that blends the elegance of his ambient music with the psychedelic swirl of '90s dance and downtempo—the kind of music you might hear in your head while wistfully daydreaming of rave days past.
Release Spirit begins familiarly enough, with the sound of crickets and pitch-bent synths that sound like they're playing off a cassette tape on its last legs. This is one of Khotin's signatures: a warbly, almost decaying sound that lends his melodies a patina of age as well as a sense of wonder. "HV Road," however, hints at a new direction to come, boasting a tumbling, heavy kick drum that lands like a boulder.
The LP is full of rhythms like these, from the heavy-eyed tropical shuffle of "Lovely" to the Fisher Price trip-hop of "Unlimited Love," where stuttering vocal samples melt over a chintzy piano. "Home World 303" features Pete Namlook-esque acid bubbles that spray out persistently but unhurriedly—accented by bright, hissing cymbals—while "Computer Break (Late Mix)" throws it back to Khotin's debut album Hello World. This time, though, the chugging house music drums feel padded, the melody almost deliriously upbeat, evoking the softened edges and pastel colours of a child's bedroom. There's no hint of edge, and there doesn't need to be. The most eyebrow-raising turn comes from Montreal singer Tess Roby's appearance on "Fountain, Growth," a Wiliam Orbit-indebted slice of featherweight pop that makes a convincing case for Khotin's future as a songwriter-producer, sinking into the LP's dreamy demeanour without making too much of a fuss.
If Release Spirit lacks anything, it's the strange vocal samples and occasional sense of unease that defined previous records, though it also sounds more like the work of an artist who is newly content where they are. There is one entertaining Interlude, "3 Pz," which features recordings of a droll Russian lesson that threatens to explode into anger—"This guy is so annoying! You are annoying me! Oh my god, you stained your dress!"—a welcome bit of absurdism that underlines the feeling of lived-in stillness and humour that defines Khotin's best songs. In fact, "3 Pz," as silly as it is, might be my favourite song on the album, and certainly the one that best explains Khotin's appeal. The music drapes over you like an eiderdown blanket, while the voices tickle and prod like the loving nagging of a grandmother. It's music that relaxes and intrigues in equal measure, the sound of an artist hitting his stride with a slow, leisurely gait, and inviting the listener to come along for a stroll through an hour of creature comforts and soft, propelling rhythms.
Tracklist01. HV Road
02. Lovely
03. Home World 303
04. 3 pz
05. Computer Break (Late Mix)
06. Fountain, Growth (ft Tess Roby)
07. Life Mask
08. Unlimited
09. Techno Creep
10. My Same Size
11. Sound Gathering Trip