Thread for Sam Goku

Three increasingly excellent albums over as many years - East Dimensional Riddims in early 2021, Flowery Rave Tales in late 2021 (this is billed as an EP but it's 47 minutes so eh) and last year's The Things We See When We Look Closer - surely merit a thread of one's own for this guy.

But my starting it was specifically inspired by the new volume 4 in Sam's great series of "heads down" single series "Glistening Club Music", the tunes on which often (and especially on this volume) seem to negotiate the space between purported DJ tools and emotional epics, negotiating the space between (say) Shed and Call Super with a kind of "both/and" aplomb I associate with very few artists (Carl Craig? Ame? Underworld in tracky mode)?. Laser sharp dancefloor intensity and urgent shuddering rhythms and layers layers layers.

Something else that I really like about Sam's music is how brightly-lit it feels. Goku describes his music as "optimistic" and says that he's influenced by both his natural environment and his Chinese heritage, all of which you can hear in these really sharply-etched melodies and riffs that seem to leap out of the speakers with a dazzling hyperreal sheen (also his titles which very much capture the vibe: glistening club music, "Wedding Dance", "Everything Between the Sun and the Soil", "Silver Rushing Streams", "Colourful Waters"). It's like a familiar setting that is suddenly rendered alien and new when the light hits it just right; I imagine his tracks would sound amazing played at panorama bar at dawn when they raise the blinds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVOQkah-W7k

I listened to Flowery Rave Tales a lot in early 2022, and enjoyed it a lot, but I can never remember what it (or any Goku track) sounds like when I am not listening to it; that said, I'm listening to it again now, and wondering why I haven't been - "brightly-lit" is accurate.

lol that’s fair - for whatever reason his sound seems to lack mnemonic features. Maybe why he hasn’t garnered a bigger rep

Great DJ too. His new one on Dekmantel might be my favourite so far.