Another slice of winning alternative electronic melodies courtesy of DhARMA, this time from latest signing, classically trained musician Phil Gerus.
Phil Gerus' Tahiti Love EP is a trippy kind of love. Filled with loops and dubs and chill wave shoe gazing, it's both melodic and textural.
The title track rides heavy, looped hip-hop sounding drums whilst sunny eighties synths slice back and forth. The opening section, roughly a minute-and-a-half long, is perched halfway between one thing and the other. It's only when the melodic keys come through that the track feels at ease, a glimpsed slice of paradise sandwiched between smart urbane cool.
Second track Have To Say Goodbye is thick and slow like treacle, caramelized bass poured over the vocals, smothering them in opaque, cloudy dreams. It's the sound of being incommunicado - voices held at bay through the sheer density of the substance surrounding them. It's an explanation of departure that feels like it never quite got through.
Polpette provides a dreamy remix of Have To Say Goodbye to close the EP. It's considerably less thick, but punctuated with shuffling, fuzzy percussion and staccato melodies that maintain the theme but acts as a counterpoint to the slower origin.
The Tahiti Love EP is out on 15 March through DhARMA, check it out via Soundcloud below: