Elaenia

Sam Shepherd was finishing a doctorate in neuroscience while DJing London clubs, and Elaenia is his first proper album, named after a small bird. It is not dance music, though it comes from a dance producer: seven tracks that drift between live drums, analog synths, strings, and quiet stretches where almost nothing happens. Silhouettes opens with patient build and a video shot over six months on the Spanish-Portuguese border. The record refuses to settle into one genre, which is the whole appeal.