Over the past couple of years, Erol Alkan has built up a diverse but cohesive roster for his Phantasy label. Most of his artists have one foot on the dancefloor and one foot elsewhere—the indie scene, the modular synth builders' club, the clouds—which is a pretty good approximation of the style of DJing that Alkan has practiced since the days of Trash, his fondly remembered club night from back in the days of electroclash.
At one end of the spectrum there's Tom Rowlands, of the Chemical Brothers, who offered up a pair of noise-besotted throwback acid-house tracks for the label; at the other end, Brazil's Babe, Terror, whose fuzzy layers of looped vocals sound like doo-wop from a world spun off its axis. Daniel Avery's sawtoothed throb swings the pendulum towards techno again, and Connan Mockasin's idiosyncratic psychedelic pop draws it back into the singer-songwriter's realm. Ghost Culture, Phantasy's latest addition, falls squarely in the middle of that array. The alias belongs to the 24-year-old London studio engineer James Greenwood, and his debut album carefully fuses canny song-craft with clattering machine constructions; it offers an unusual balance between muscular grooves and whispered intimacy, as though erecting a bedsheet fort smack dab in the middle of a throbbing basement party.
The most immediate point of comparison might be Swim-era Caribou and the clubbier music of his alter ego Daphni. Greenwood is similarly fond of loping drum grooves and burbling synthesizers, and his breathy voice is faintly reminiscent of Dan Snaith's, except that Snaith tends to soar, while Greenwood's delivery is more downcast—literally, as though he were singing into his jacket lapels. (Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that he apparently recorded his vocals with a microphone salvaged from a tank.) But that muted tone is just what the mood of his songs calls for. In any case, he's got a way with sing-songy melodies that stick in your head; the bulk of these songs would probably work unplugged, though that's no reason to wish they were any different than they are, if only because their sound—Factory Floor does bubblegum pop, basically—is so unusual and delightful.
The opening "Mouth" is full of simple pleasures—the satisfying oomph of a well-rounded bass synth; the delicious crispness of a well-tempered machine clap—and supple nuance. The nervous spring reverb that accompanies his keyboard trills is a small detail, but it amps up the music's quiet, visceral thrill; it adds depth to the song's ample negative spaces. The principal synth riff rolls like a fistful of agates, and everything sounds as polished as a bauble in a raccoon's paws.