Leon Vynehall - Music For The Uninvited

Didn’t go to the party but you threw one anyway. I’ve loved this album for years, and I feel Leon Vynehall captured that somewhat beautiful feeling when you pump your own speakers loud and have a little dance; feeling free in solitude for a period but maybe a bit weathered by the end. He went on to do even more interesting things in ambient and tech house, but this embraces all the best elements of deep in its warm drums and tape hiss that rings in your ears like the walk home after a night out. He plays this happy//sad feeling like he’s conducting a fine string orchestra, with the energetic vocal mantra somehow working in unison with the moody pads on ‘Goodthing,’ or the gorgeous swelling cellos of ‘Be Brave, Clench Fists’ pairing up beautifully with a constantly pulsing synth line that sounds like it should’ve come from a much more joyous track. There are moments where all worries wash away for just a brief second, as the manipulated vocals and bleepy harmonies of ‘It’s Just (House of Dupree) give way to groovy rolling percussion; all a nod to the outstanding documentary I saw recently, Paris is Burning. But on other moments, he lets this deep melancholy dive into the evening, as the soft shakers and scattered hihats of ‘Christ Air’ offer some weight to an otherwise weightless and ghostly synth sound that keeps panning from left to right. While it’s somehow labelled as an EP, this is an incredibly well-crafted and seemingly super personal album for Vynehall that hasn’t lost any of its feeling since it dropped; still grooving in isolation to this day.

KEY TRACK: St. Sinclair - this one stays so close to my heart, with its 90s-tinged melodic line paired against skipping drum patterns and a low-bearing drone playing throughout. To bring such a moody closer to what was a knocking album before it was a stroke of genius from Vynehall.