The Night Land

A Nordic DJ/producer known for sunny atmospheres, and a Mediterranean one known for gothic darkness, Sweden’s Axel Boman and Catalonia’s John Talabot make for a perversely complementary combination. But actually their team-up is greater than the sum of its parts: there’s some deep magic in Talaboman that seems to spring from somewhere mystical or interdimensional rather than any one person’s aesthetic. It’s based in slow house and disco grooves, but there’s a sense of uncanny realness to the synthesised flute-like tones and percussion that makes some tracks feel like a ritual from an exoplanetary idyll, and others like a zero-gravity beach bar. It’s all dreamlike, all bubbling with mischievous promise, and all completely absorbing.