While undoubtedly one of dance music's greatest party-starters, Daniel Avery has never been a dance music purist. Over the years, there have been various quirky, downtempo-minded side projects and DJ mixes that show the impressive breadth of his musical knowledge. It's for this reason we're not that surprised to find that Song For Alpha, his first album since 2013, combines deeper and more trippy takes on his club-ready sound (home listening fodder, despite the drums) with escapist, early morning cuts inspired by ambient greats (Brian Eno, John Hassell etc.) and the after-hours electronica of Warp's pioneering Artificial Intelligence series. By mixing things up in this way, Avery has delivered what could well be his strongest body of work to date.
OBSERWUJ NAS