- A 90-minute opus many years in the making.
- Daniel Gomez plays the long game. His career stretches back 26 years, and in that time he's gone from local wedding DJ and breakdancer to Hot Creations Ibiza hotshot. He worked the international DJ circuit, straddling life between Barcelona, Berlin and his hometown Miami, before abruptly returning to his roots in IDM and electro with releases for Kompakt, Ultramajic and Schematic. Back in 2013, Gomez completed what he thought was his debut album, but it was "only 80 percent him"—so he scrapped it. Now, another ten years on, he drops ::BLUE:: via his own label, Omnidisc. He says this time it's, finally, 100 percent him.
::BLUE:: is a statement record, reflecting the risk-taking he relishes as an artist, 19 tracks and 90 minutes long, mastered in both regular stereo and Dolby Atmos. Live, he performs it as a unique audiovisual show designed for a planetarium. Going against the grain of contemporary listening habits, Gomez wants people to "sit down and forget that time exists" while listening to ::BLUE::. In nearly every way, the album pushes against the status quo, and the music is as bold and imaginative as Gomez's approach to it.
::BLUE:: is an overwhelming listen, but that's the point—Gomez has never been into instant gratification. Throughout he tests his listener's patience, building tension to near peaks before petering out and shifting into another mood. He does this from the get-go: the glitchy robotics of opener "Tone Ring" recalls the fuzzy sci-fi lean of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (especially "...And the Gods Made Love"). The slowed arpeggios on "Exosphere" and "Lass Los" provide small tastes of euphoria early on—check the ravey harps that flutter lower in the mix in "Lass Los"'s latter half. But just as Gomez builds to his first minor climax, he clears the momentum altogether and resets with "1234." Here, the match between glitchy sound design and a floaty melody mirror the lift-off stage in a mushroom trip, when the high breaks away from reality and enters a fuzzy and colourful dreamlike phase.
Listening in full as Gomez intended, ::BLUE:: expands and contracts like a turning kaleidoscope. But there are also tracks that jar the listener out of that trip momentarily—shards of reality that cut through the mushroominess—like a good shoulder shake. The bass on "福島 (Fukushima)" demands attention, just like the robotic voice that opens "Communication," which is a palate cleanser at the album's midpoint. Then there's "Nobot Nobot," the album's most disturbing track whose vocal sample sounds like an ogre beatboxing down a plastic tube directly into one's ear. In the album's final third, "Nobot Nobot" caps off a particularly dark stretch before things lighten in the floaty videogame synths of "Time Lapse" and "Void" (a 16 second track where another robotic voice announces "an everlasting void, of mind expansion, the balance, between self, and time" to seal off the trip).
Gomez has always been a fierce champion of his hometown, Miami, and in recent years he's opened up his studio space (and his record label) to the city's crop of up-and-coming talent. Several of these artists pop up on ::BLUE::—Deroboter, Nick León, Jonny From Space and Push Button Objects. "Silver Box," featuring León and Jonny, is a masterclass in multi-layered sound design that wouldn't feel out of place on an imprint like Planet Mu. Its foreground is crunchy and hair-raising, while the harps in the background register lush and heavenly. "Entity," with Push Button Objects, sees the Miami producer return to making music after over two decades and strikes the right balance between weirdness and euphoria. The arpeggios are triumphant but the squelchy textures further up in the mix feel claustrophobic, accented by voices that zoom in and out of focus.
Gomez completed ::BLUE:: over a three-year period, when he felt he finally had the knowledge, time and energy to put down exactly what he heard in his head. Breathwork helped him get that out into musical form and construct a coherent story from his subconscious. The effects of that practice are a more obvious influence across ::BLUE:: than any of the myriad genres Gomez has dipped into or been inspired by over his career. "I'm Fallin,'" for example, literally feels like floating down a dreamy wormhole—albeit while gasping for air. Throughout the deep breaths and long exhales of ::BLUE::, Gomez lulls listeners away from the outside world for 90 minutes. It's clear Gomez was thinking long-term with this album, not just in terms of his own legacy but also for those that receive his music. Just like all great albums, a revisit to planet ::BLUE:: not only offers the chance to discover something new in the music, but also something new within oneself.
Tracklist01. Tone Ring
02. Exosphere
03. Lass Los
04. 1234
05. 福島 (Fukushima)
06. Drowning Again feat. December
07. Smack
08. Communication
09. Fizmo
10. I'm Fallin'
11. Silver Box feat. Nick León & Jonny From Space
12. Antigravity Machine
13. Vaz2009
14. Room 115
15. Entity feat. Push Button Objects
16. Blue Orbit
17. Nobot Nobot
18. Time Lapse
19. Void