Review Summary: A Quick One Before the Dormant Sun Rises
This is that review that falls short of the mark. This is that review that attempts, fruitlessly, to explain how
Nothing 2 Loose, Traumprinz’ latest record under the DJ Healer moniker, is a masterwork. This is the review that tries its hardest not to implicitly liken subjective experience to the quality of such music as it stands against other, similar works. Spoiler warning: it fails spectacularly. This is a review falling short of the mark.
And this is that album that fashions quiet hymnals out of ambient house music; produced with a steady hand, sounding effortless yet nevertheless proving quite meticulously crafted once you glance beneath the looped vocal samples. This is that unassuming album; one that never set out to exist for -- or have an impact on -- anyone but the man who created it (file under: self-help) but it does so anyway, wandering in on your daily routine like an old friend rocking up on your doorstep after years of radio silence on their end. This is that album that uses said restraint to induce a spiritual experience in secular minds. It’s one that creates an unbreakable link between the idea of introspection, of taking a step back, with the idea of divinity; ergo creating a world in which God is found in the quiet spaces, the sparse synth motifs signifying the hibernation of an anxious brain. I don’t believe in Him. This is that album that makes me feel like I do. Above all, this is that album I've come to love moreso than any other this year. It's comfortable in its spirituality and gentle in its approach. Other producers may well be on the level DJ Healer is, but none can parallel the judicious use of samples, the perfect synthesis of minimal house beats and ambient swathes, that this record so deftly exhibits.
This is a review that grapples with the ineffable, the implacably lovely, and because of it, it doesn’t quite know where to begin.
