Ali Azimian has just moved to Vancouver, and he brings with him a wealth of talent. Think Talvin Singh meeting Dzihan & Kamien and you’ve got the gist. Loungey breakbeats with loads of film samples, strings, and movie themeatics. Space-age martini music for the pot-smoking jetset. Caveat: there’s lots of shit out there like this. So what makes this different? It is really well produced, and the orchestral layout of the riffs, choruses, and samples are spot on. The beats are rough when they need to be rough and delicate when they need to be delicate, from Subcontinent Indian style to Japanese guitar pluckings, always with a complicated layering of percussion, scratchings, and deep sounds, from buried film samples to synths. To be honest, Ali should be getting a tasty record deal with this demo soon enough, ‘cause this is great shit for kicking back in that velvet red jacket with the vodka and the cranberry juice with the friends and the Good Times.

tobias v