Fairmont

Jacob Fairley from Montreal has been filtering through slight gems for the past couple of years now, dividing loyalties between the two predominant european cities, Berlin via Sender records and Köln’s Traum imprint. And it is the Traum massive who benefit from this ambitious full length album. This year the label has consistently backed winning formulas in the album stakes, an excellent worldwide view on «Interkontinental», an inspired selection of kindred spirits for the recent «Reprocessed» set just plain old, good roster management for the sterling Iquinn set from earlier in the year. And Fairmont add and enhance this rollcall of quality with a diverse, glowing vibration at its heart. The title cut could be plucked from an outer orbit of Karaoke Kalk just across town in Köln, yet there are fourfour based tracks which give a fresh brush to tired old house arrangements. «True North» promises to navigate a path through magnetic wastelands, tasty heavy bass synth on «Last Words» just has to be on vinyl, this totally stopped me in my tracks and only improved on second encounter. The sense of melody and definition here is remarkable, top job Jacob and good work Traum. Look out for an extended play sampler twelve for this next week, lovely.