Album Review: Borealis - Glittervoice

Album Rating: B

A two hour mix Borealis (Jesse Somfay) recently compiled for Fenomena Studio goes a long way to explain what has changed in his music since last year’s murky, dubstep-inspired Voidness. The mix is expectedly eclectic, but an overwhelming presence of hard, intense dance music lies at odds with Somfay’s hazily downtempo aesthetic. With the mix in mind Glittervoice suddenly adopts an improved narrative, principally because anything is an improvement on the previous “confused.”

Album Review: Borealis - Voidness

Album Rating: B

If I were to jump off this review and leave you lying there, frustrated and unsatisfied, with only a single word of description, I’d describe Voidness as ‘murky.’ Murky in the sense that everything seems submerged beneath this swirling residue of crackles and ambience; nothing clear except the slow thump of bass. Now it would be tempting, based on the short description you’ve just read, to dismiss Borealis’ debut LP under this new alias as borrowing just a little too much content from Burial. Indeed, a lot of what we now attribute to the work of this decade’s Dubstep superhero is in play here: from the minimalistic structure to sporadic use of pitched-up vocal samples. Both in mood and direction, however, Voidness is very much its own beast. It’s an album that, despite introducing itself as quite downbeat - drawing from the ever popular melancholic, urban feeling - emerges as rather hopeful.