Blair French – Sandbar Caviar – 10″

Claremont 56

On his first Claremont 56 10″, Blair French is in full-on, head-in-the-clouds, feet-on-the-sand mode. The A-side boasts the soft-spun delight that is “Sandbar Caviar”, a gently undulating exercise in aural bliss built around sparse drum machine hits, pitched-down Balearic disco aesthetics – think bubbly bass and humid flashes of Afro-influenced guitars – and the kind of fluttering synthesizer melodies that would once have been described as “new age” in tone.

The sticky, tropical-tinged humidity continues on the flip, where “Inland Island” showcases French’s love of dub disco bass, atmospheric field recordings, bongo-laden South American rhythms and the kind of hazy, tactile vocals that seemingly drift between the speakers on a cloud of pungent marijuana smoke. It’s an intoxicating and loved-up experience; you can dance if you want to, but it sounds just as good if you’re lying flat on your back.

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