Gojira – Fortitude

This record is such an amazing balance of being full of zest, groove, great tunes and moods, while also being technical and musically complex. And the latter is by no means detrimental to the prior. It’s just extremely smart and also extremely enjoyable metal.

Tosca – Osam

Last time I actively followed Tosca was at the time of No Hassle in 2009, feels like another life. (Indeed, it was another life.) In 2021, when Kruder & Dorfmeister released 1995 and dZihan & Kamien ‎put out IV I noted that it feels like there’s a bit of nu jazz downtempo lounge comeback in the air. This record came with that same bunch but flew under the radar for me then. In hindsight, I don’t feel that comeback in a trending way after all, but these new records take me back and it’s a nice kind of reminiscing. Smooth as silk.

DJ Krush – Saisei

Triphop but with a surprising amount of glitch and IDM compared to a regular DJ Krush record. I recently saw him play live, which was a huge demo of his technical skills, and that shows on this album, too. It’s a diverse ride from smooth hiphop flows to strong industrial bangers.