A Sagittariun / Dream Ritual
Digital / Vinyl
Elastic Dreams / Released November 2013
We’ve been looking forward to the first long-player from secretive Bristolian producer A Sagittariun since the first EP this mysterious figure released back in 2011. Between then and now we have positively reviewed several of the cuts, marking the studio head out as one of the most consistent fresh faces in the UK house and techno scene, in turn building our expectations even higher for the full length.
In many ways it’s exactly what we were expecting, which is by no means a bad thing. Deeply textured in nature, lush soundscapes and interesting moment abound. There are dancefloor tracks here- firstly with V4641 sgr, which drops the initial beats following a two-track tune up of blissful, futuristic tones, getting the party started with dubby, edgy techno sounds- but this is definitely not just a dancefloor album.
Of course the majority of its contents do fall into the club category, albeit those looking for ‘proper bangers’ might want to keep on with their search. Instead what we’re given is a warm, inviting electronic album that neither wants to spend the evening waiting in line at a bar, not is it looking to get topless and start throwing its arms around people that may not appreciate such gestures. Arguably best defined in work such as the intimate closing number, Network Restoration, with its unabashed declaration of subtle, detailed tech informed as much by today’s rhythms as much as yesterday’s electro; or Trine‘s rather statement-like downtempo breaks, ultimately the results of Mr. (or Mrs.) Sagittariun’s toil is an album that stylistically falls in line with some of yesteryear’s true benchmarks. A journey, excuse the cliche, from beginning to end wherein no tracks represent carbon copies of themselves, it’s an unapologetic celebration of how wide reaching electronic sounds can be, even when they remain within one BPM range (or perhaps two).
