If one goes looking for quotations about Canada, what one finds is a towering pile of praise from famous figures. Obama speaks of one of the most impressive countries in the world, while Bono observes that the world simply needs more Canada. It is a beautiful place, though. And if you were to ask John Beltran for his opinion, it would probably be just as positive after his extended stay there last year – not for nothing has he named the third album since the return of his Placid Angles project after it.
Beltran himself, of course, was never really away; his four-page Discogs entry speaks for itself. But under the name Placid Angles, in 1997 he moved the dancefloor into the headphones and added ambient, IDM and new-age influences, before deciding to leave it at that. It took 22 years before Matt Cutler, aka Lone, himself known for richly coloured house music, insisted and persuaded Beltran to return. And on all the records released since then – very much to his credit – he has not rummaged around in his own past, but allowed himself instead to be influenced by the younger generation who built their sound on top of his.
Even in its most overt moments – on Canada, for example, he audibly draws on Burial’s »Near Dark« – this feels less like brazen copying than a conscious homage. »We Cry With You« is both trembling breakbeat and rumbling post-rock, while »I Want What I Want«, with its clattering Y2K beat and the processed vocals of guest Sophia Stel, would have suited the most recent James K album perfectly well. On »Hands of Love«, Beltran throws himself confidently into kitsch, and the subtly euphoric »Sun«, with its pop-inflected rave, could not bear a more fitting title. Canada is an impressive late work that does not even sound like one.
Canada
