New Territories

iTunes Review

Hailing from London, Eric Lau takes his cues from J. Dilla’s introspective beats and the measured boom-bap of Roots mastermind ?uestlove, but while his sound absorbs hip-hop, it reaches towards soul music. Lau gives the majority of his debut album, New Territories, over to a trio of young London vocalists. Sarina Leah and Rahel could pass for sisters, their breathy, whimsical vocals providing a perfect counterpoint for the woozy low-end of Lau’s tracks. Meshach Brown provides a male voice that is anything but domineering; his vocals seem to blow across “Hope” like a tissue over polished glass. New Territories is club music, but club music that comes from an intimate, understated place. Rather than immediately announcing themselves with browbeating riffs, these tracks sneak up into your bones with insidious intent. In the right atmosphere, such transcendental dance tracks could easily levitate your body and have you dancing on little more than thin air.