2016 is apparently the year of expectations tragically or gleefully upended, and in his own microcosmic way, I’d like to place the music of Gainesville, FL-based artist Euglossine a.k.a. Tristan Whitehill in an innocuously unpredictable category that few musicians (outside of the jazz world, perhaps) are capable of adeptly occupying these days. It’s underrated tough work trying to maintain a degree of coherence in one’s personally conceived world of musical adventurousness, and going back to his Complex Playground LP, which was certainly the one to initially garner attention here at TMT, it sounds on the whole simultaneously organized and not. Whitehill’s guitar and synth proficiencies could’ve easily been harnessed for straightforward purposes, but thankfully, he seems content letting us figure it out for ourselves.
Two albums in 2016!? We’re reaching Cubs-winning-the-World-Series levels of craziness here, so thankfully, Euglossine’s unofficial follow-up to the magnificent Canopy Stories (one of our favorite albums of the second quarter) is delivering some serious mental remedies in conjunction. Puzzle Gallery comes out November 18, and it’s a little less blatantly positive and uplifting than its predecessor. Expect a similar degree of pleasant wandering though, and if you ask me, you should probably make a note of this guy and his music for future reference.
Look to the Apothecary Compositions’s Bandcamp page to pre-order, including a limited-edition purple casstte version. There’s also this track for previewing purposes:
Puzzle Gallery tracklisting:
01. Gate Puzzle
02. Unfurling Sphere
03. Pretzles
04. A Heart Gesture
05. Cosmic Muscle
06. Shimmering Castle Magic
07. Bezier Puzzle