Francesco Tristano - Surface Tension (2016) Lossless

Francesco Tristano puts a big posh donk on it for Derrick May’s Transmat, including four collaborations with the captain of Detroit’s dance music industry himself - his first new productions for 20 years.

Recorded in Barcelona, Detroit, Rome, Paris and Mauritius, Surface Tension can be broadly cleft in two halves; the good bits with Derrick May, and the bits with crap minimal house grooves.

We’ll focus on the former, better parts, where May balances Tristano’s input with a healthy amount of funk in the nervy swang of The Mentor, or underlines the delicate chords of Infinite Rise with a super slinky ride, and with epic effect in the lush roll of In Da Minor.

However, two tracks do cannily buck that trend. On Rocco’s Bounce, Tristano impresses with a nimble fusion of far-Eastern strings wrapped to a bumping Chicago house swerve, and Esoteric Thing catches the pair completely devoid of beats, just drifting along in a placid pastoral ambient scene and blowing sweets nothings at Ryuichi Sakamoto and Brian Eno.