Since arriving in 2009, LA’s Sweatson Klank (Thomas Wilson) has played around with hip-hop’s ever-flexible template, veering from heavily sample-based cuts to those built up from his own mastery of vintage synthesizer sound programming. For Super Natural Delights, this musical polymath offers up a sun-drenched series of twelve relaxed pieces showcasing his enduring ability to mix instrumental dexterity with engaging rhythms.

‘Walking On Air’ is the first of many highlights on the album, built up as it is on a bed of rich, elastic basslines and 808 beats, all carefully overlaid with gauzy strings and languid flute hooks to present a crisp, carefree, summery simplicity. Elsewhere, ‘What A Night’ captures a jazzy, 80s atmosphere with squelchy synth lines, snatches of vocals and uncluttered drum machine rhythms, while the sedate ‘Island Life Calling’ sounds like the kind of sultry, inoffensive jazz muzak played on the porch at a branch of Bahama Breeze, replete with the sound of ice cubes rattling around in a Mai Tai and a crisp beat prised straight from a vintage Sadé number.

Towering above everything else is the chunky, all-too-brief slowmo disco of ‘Fat Cookie’, containing a groove so infectious it could literally cause a musical pandemic.

Super Natural Delights by Sweatson Klank is released June 7 2019 by Friends Of Friends.

Words: Mat Smith

(c) 2019 Further.