February 9, 2018 - Anjunadeep
Sometimes some artists can successfully create a piece of music that occupies a somewhere, a someone, and a sometime all somewhat vaguely and with some level of nostalgic ambiguity. I like to personally label these pieces as “all-season” tracks. Such pieces ooze personally and mood, but can be successful in a wide range of places and times. “All-season” tracks remind us of summer when it’s summer, winter when it’s winter, sadness when we are feeling sad, and joy whenever, because no-one really feels joy anymore, but we all love to be reminded of it.
Planète, a.k.a. Dion Tartaglione, is a producer who currently calls Melbourne, Australia home. He’s new on our radar here in the office, but we have seen his name associated with the likes of Kieran Hebden’s Four Tet project, and going off Tartaglione’s first solo outing on Anjunadeep, the association makes sense. Hebden is a well seasoned producer of “all-season” tracks, and a quick listen through the Alone in Parallel/Faded Memory certainly draws direct influence lines. Audio elements aside, Tartaglione also seems keen on the story-telling aspect of electronic music production.
‘Alone in Parallel’ jumps straight into a chipper-chopped sample melody line that steadily incorporates percussive elements into the mix as a buttery smooth baseline is slipped in underneath. The track has a jealousy-inducing air of confidence that’s sure to make non-confident technical producers second guess all their already second-guessed decisions. The track is a multi-layered delight that is relatively difficult to pin down, due to the aforementioned “all-season” nature; subsequent listens even for this critique produced a range of emotion-based feelings/memories, and new elements seemed to be more prominent that before every time. The structure of the track shifts around the six minute mark, doubling back on itself in a sort of reprise that happens in film scores, but this time within the original track. It’s both refreshing for casual listening and also very useful in a live setting, giving the DJ an opportunity to cheat—I mean skillfully craft an expert transition that fools the masses.
‘Faded Memory’ takes a more subtle melancholic two-step approach than the A-side, though the chord progression still allows for one of those “I’m sad, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel” feelings. The track employs a more traditional on-off structure, with bouncy percussive blips and knocks being loosely woven together by a handful of ethereal, drippy pad synths. The birds-in-a-park found audio that opens the track and sits right on the preifereal of the rest of the journey does plant the piece in more of the spring/summer feel, but at the same time, there are winter birds and winter also doesn’t have to mean too cold for birds, so I think the “all-season” analogy still fits the bill.
Tartaglione looks to be starting the spring of his career, crafting a duo of tracks that will continue to mature throughout the seasons this year. We will keep an eye out for more from this producer because we like these songs. 🍍