Dunmore Park’s St Martin EP

The debut EP from Canada’s Andrew Williams, St Martin is one of those records which immediately demands your undivided attention. Opening with a spine-tingling old sample of a church choir, title track “St Martin” gradually adds warm synths and shuffling, Saint Germain-esque drums, creating an utterly blissful cinematic atmosphere. Mixing aged, powerful vocal samples (particularly religious ones) with electronic sounds can often go nauseatingly wrong, but the respect and subtlety with which Dunmore Park has crafted his track around these voices borders on reverential. In other words, he’s not taken us too far from church.

Lounging second track “Shore” continues in the same smooth, warm vein; comforting chords and mallet percussion sharing the stage with filtered synths and downtempo, unfussy beats. Calgary’s Essette takes “Shore” into Deep House territory, raising the tempo and building a spacious, melodic and atmospheric groove which stays the right side of “proggy.” In a world which seems to just keep getting faster and more frantic, Dunmore Park’s music provides a much-needed musical moment of quiet reflection.

Out now from Juno Download.