John Talabot. ƒin LP

John Talabot ƒin

2012, Permanent Vacation

by Martin White

8.2 / 10

Spanish producer John Talabot's new LP, ƒin, is one of the sharpest, classiest, and most compulsively listenable techno records I've heard in quite a while.  Talabot builds dark, slightly ominous beats that defy easy characterization but belie a subtle incorporation of micro house and techno, breezy balearic, and R&B.  Talabot's skill lies in his ability to introduce a simple set of loops and beats, then constantly revolve them around one another, keeping the music interesting and the listener off-balance.  You never feel as if you are driving in circles, treading over the same ground.  Instead, the sounds are constantly weaving back and forth between different combinations of the same loops and beats, something added here, taken away there; Talabot's songs are constantly evolving, gradually building up steam until the final payoff.

ƒin is a clean, immaculately-constructed record but it excels because it is not purely intellectual house.  There is a strongly instictual element that complements the intellectual, and both of these sides work themselves out in the masterpiece of an opener, "Depak Ine."  It is the slowest track to develop out of the entire bunch, gradually layering ephemeral atmospherics onto the dark, loud beat.  There is always an element of found sound here, with chirping crickets and birds constantly living in the song's background.  These field sounds combine with the constricting beat to produce a feeling of roaming through the jungle floor.  But during the final third, the beat fully drops and the song becomes a serious, four-on-the-floor banger.  It's fantastic, adrenaline-pumping stuff.  

Of course, the opener may be the LP's best track and not everything here is perfection, most notably the vocals.  "Destiny" has some fantastics sounds and a great beat, but at times comes across as formulaic, mostly due to the nondescript vocal melodies from Pional.  It feels like it's headed for huge club banger territory, but it never fully lifts off.  The build-ups are gentler, less obvious, and when the beat drops for the last time, it happens quickly and without fanfare.  When Pional appears again at the end of the LP on "So We Will Now..." he and Talabot enjoy considerably more success.  On the finale, the two create a glitchy, propulsive sound with cut-up vocal samples all doing some soulful battle over a minimalist, deep-synth rumble.  The tone of the two different vocal elements is very evocative of James Blake's work on his self-titled LP.  But then Talabot just starts growing the atmospheric synths and stretching them out over the song until Pional is finally buried under the suffocating beat.  

Still, the vocals don't always succeed, as on the by-the-numbers "Journeys" with guest Ekhi.  Fortunately the record quickly hits its stride again with tracks like "Last Land," "Estiu," and "When the Past Was Present" which each bring different elements of Talabot's sound and influence to the forefront.  "When the Past Was Present," in particular, rides in on a quick tempo and drops a massive house beat that carries the track straight to the dance floor. 

ƒin is so good and so incredibly listenable because it takes smart, even sophisticated house music and makes it a hell of a lot of fun.  Certainly a simple track like "Estiu," one of the shortest bits here, can roll along just fine on its heavy, laid-back beat.  But it's that slowly shifting and gradually developing accoutrement of crackling tape loops and deeply buzzing synths that make this track worth coming back to again and again.  It's easy to get lost in the beat because these songs just groove so hard that they kind of rock.  But taking the time to explore the album's abysmal depths is equally as rewarding.