Los Angeles producer, singer and remix artist Joe Boston, who records under the name Shallou, makes downtempo electronica sound more like fun than it usually does with his 2018 full-length Souls. Like the work of similar electronica act Petit Biscuit, Shallou’s productions skirt the edges of ambient music, and it’s interesting to contemplate the line of descent from, say, Harold Budd and Jon Hassell to Shallou. Still, Shallou strives for a pristine sound that the Memphis-born Hassell usually avoids, and while Shallou’s music is far from conventional, there are times when I wish it had some of the weirdness of Hassell’s great 2018 album Listening to Pictures. On the other hand, Shallou inhabits a world of pure pop surfaces that Hassell only alludes to, and Shallou’s Souls track “Vignette” is a gorgeous mix of neo-soul, ambient sounds and vapor-trail keyboards. In fact, Souls may work best as neo-soul — listen to the way Boston finesses his vocal on the record’s closing track “Skin,” which suggests he really does understand the beauty of surfaces. EDD HURT
Shallou
