Flabaire - Bandwidth (2018)

D.KO regular Ralph “Flabaire” Maurani returns to the label with his sophomore album. Given the quality of his 2016 debut, It’s Just a Silly Phase I’m Going Through, hopes are naturally high for this follow-up. Happily, Bandwith is superb, with Maurani working his way through a range of dusty deep house and blazed, MPC style beat cuts while retaining an attractive rhythmic looseness and dreamy melodiousness throughout. Check, for example, the gentle acid lines, bustling beats and glistening electronic melodies of “Life & Times”, the slowly unfurling early morning bliss of ambient techno cut “The Royal Scam”, the woozy, Rhodes-laden techno bounce of “AM/PM” and the surprise space-jungle shimmer of “A Storm in Heaven”.