Matthew Dear - Black City

Ooh 2010, you are spoiling us with your variegated, melodic electro. First came Four Tet’s There Is Love in You, then Caribou’s Swim, and now Black City – the bewitching fourth album from Texan DJ and techno-pop lord Matthew Dear (you may also know him as Audion, False, Jabberjaw or the co-boss of imprint Ghostly International).

If unlikely references reveal themselves via the ace, disorientating ‘Slowdance’ (The Bloodhound Gang) and the slacker alt-pop of ‘Shortwave’ (Beck / Micah P Hinson), they’re outshone by Dear’s penetration of art-rock, electronica, and cosmic disco: the album’s epic ‘Little People’ is a delirious case in point.