Having previously graced labels such as Good Morning Tapes, Gi Gi brings their sample-based sorcery to Mood Hut with a 10-track set titled “In Lieu”. A cool quote from the press one-sheet neatly lays out the method, and thinking, behind the music:

“A borrowed sound, looped and bent, eventually forgets where it came from; it stops referencing anything but itself.”

This is the essence of everything here. The tracks may be built on samples, but no clues remain of their sources. Tiny snippets are tailored, treated and woven into warm fuzzy layers. Resulting in frantic, flickering, feathered oases. Hypnotic and calming creations, dense with deeply buried, doctored details, and full of whispers. Kinda like a dub techno reimagining of Jon Hassell’s Fourth World. 

The sonic aesthetic of each piece is largely the same, but every number throws in something extra, like a slither of sax, or, say, the opening timbale rattle on “Downswept”.* Melodies are muted. Buoyed by blurred broken beats, that once might have been breaks. There’s a groove, but only your brain need move. That said, the puckered, programmed percussion in places feels tribal, and “Pink Dirt” is a terrific taste of funky, dubbed out, trippy dance floor orientated tumbling. Spectral, ethereal, with a sexy, seductive, “sometimes I get lonely” hook. “Harmless” harnesses the percolating of what could have been a preset Bontempi bossa nova rhythm. Its cymbals shimmering like the song of tropical cicadas. 

To my ears, there are parallels with perhaps kindred spirits such as James K., Purelink, Shinetiac, folks on and behind the label West Mineral Ltd,, and the title track is a final highlight. Sticking to the template of what’s gone before, but introducing washes of heavily reverb-ed guitar. The instrument’s gently plucked chords are pulled out, into strange shapes, while synths sigh in swells, textures splash, softly, like turning tides and strings cry like seabirds and gulls. Gi Gi’s vaporised choirboy vocal further upping an already serene, shoegaze-y quality. The effect like the progeny of A.R. Kane’s dream pop.

*Despite the one-sheet’s credo, this actually reminded me of an old Sybarite tune.  

Gi Gi’s In Lieu can be ordered directly from Mood Hut.