Marsaille native but now London based producer, Abstraxion a.k.a. Harold Boué, just released his first LP, Break of Lights, through HAKT (Have a Killer Time Recordings). This week the album is also prominently being featured, released, and available to stream on Nicolas Jaar’s new subscription-based label Other People – a replacement of Jaar’s previous label, Clown & Sunset. Every Sunday Other People “issues” various songs from its roster of producers as a digital compilation to their subscribers. This magazine-like method of subscribing to a record label is relatively new but others are experimenting with it as well including Mad Decent and Drip.FM which offers subscriptions to not only multiple record labels but individual artists as well. However, Other People, like it’s name suggests, also helps in promoting new artists with the direction of taste-maker and winner of the 2012 BBC’s Essential Mix of The Year, Nicolas Jaar. This past Sunday Jaar placed the spotlight on Abstraxion.
Break of Lights is a collection of richly textured, futuristic, minimal tech tracks, coming across as a continuation of the 28-year-old producer’s on going exploration of shadowy dark sounds extending from his earlier EPs. Abstraxion shrouds infectious house beats with layers of moody synths, gleaming celestial bleeps, and beautiful soft guitar riffs, to create tracks that are atmospheric yet captivating, with some, such as the final 16 minute track “Les Histories,” ending in a whirl of ascending and descending chords reminiscent of compositions by Philip Glass. Guests include Parisian artist Chloé and Danish singer Astrid Engberg. Abstraxion completed the album in one year, recording at his home studio on Mersaille using old analog equipment. “I’ve built a system in my studio where I can spontaneously compose with all my instruments,” he says, “that way, in the end, the track has the same warmth of feeling as the room during the recording process itself.”
Stream the full album at Other People.