Spectral

This summer has been dominated by a few acts: Fela Kuti, Black Lips, Panda Bear, Lee Hazelwood, and Matthew Dear. Matthew Dear's Asa Breed is easily one of my favorite albums of this year. It is a pop album, but Dear takes his Detroit Techno roots and puts it with it. Dear is established as a producer in all forms of Techno. On his other name, Audion, he makes more direct harder sounding Techno. I feel like under his own name he feels like he can branch out and not stick within the boundries of just straight up Techno. That's the thing about electronic music, for a being such a forward thinking music, it can also be very conservative. People might get upset that a certain song doesn't fit within the characteristics of a genre. Dear is that person. There is a mix of great pop songs, dancier songs, and even dark American Gothic music. Asa Breed is an album that shows people that there is so much more to what makes a pop album. It is more than the conventional sounds and instruments. I just think he deserves as much credit as he can get.