The album format, in the world of Electronic Dance Music is most often a self-defeating gesture. There is, traditionally, little need for a long-players worth of club bangers and too often artists who try their hands awkwardly at variation and deeper meaning find they have too little experience and come up short, or even empty. Not so with JIN CHOI's A THOUSAND WHALES OF LOVE. A true artist album, where the artist has so much to communicate that it didn't even fit on a single CD. All told, 14 songs of emotion using the dance music idiom, but meaning much more. CHOI's previous work with ARCHIPEL, LESSIZMORE, CONTEXTERRIOR and his own PRIVATE GOLD imprint have brought this subtle yet forceful sound into a view, but with WHALES there has been extra care afforded to create a vivid multicolored and multifaceted sonic picture for the public to enjoy in places other than just the dancefloor. The album encompasses such disparate genre influences as ambient soundscapes (album opener DON'T LOOK INSIDE), 60s soul (SHE'S GOT GOLD), 80s neon disco soundtracks (eponymous cut A THOUSAND WHALES OF LOVE), smoky and moody blue-note jazz (CIRCLES-DARK MIX), and his often played with tough yet subtle minimalist (but not minimal) house excursions. Truth be told, to pick just a few songs to highlight the album would be a fallacy, as they all fit together into a larger whole. A THOUSAND WHALES OF LOVE is an album that says so much without saying it through a bullhorn. Full of shrouded emotion teased out of detail, in unlikely forms and places. A treatise on a subject that must be close to the artist's heart but is left up to interpretation by the listener. Nothing is forced, but a lot is gained. My interpretation: that one can hear the events lived in JIN's life over the time since he moved to bustling Berlin and changes were abound. At times melancholic and at times hopeful, at times subdued and at times ecstatic.
A THOUSAND WHALES OF LOVE is a proper album by a proper artist. Drink it in.
Tracklisting
01. Don't Look Inside
02. Godspeed Soul
03. She's Got Gold
04. A Thousand Whales Of Love
05. The Hour Glass
06. Amber & Gold
07. Brother Ash, Sister Dust
08. There Must Be Ways
09. Love & Soil
10. Solstice
11. In The Dark
12. Circles (Inhale Mix) - Digital Bonus Track
13. Stealing Gold - Digital Bonus Track
14. Circles (Exhale Mix) - Digital Bonus Track
More

Jin Choi is a musician, producer, DJ and live artist based in Berlin, Germany. Equally focused on groove and melodic structures, his music fuses electronic and naturalistic sounds to move the head and body. Once coined modern minimal, Choi's productions are equal parts emotion, melody and rhythm. "Full Range" is his first release on Serialism Records. In a recent interview, Choi described himself as a Burial loving music-nerd who is simply trying to create his own musical language. He has released on Lessizmore, Contexterrior, RomanPhoto & Archipel, to name a few. For SER10, he joins forces with Maceo Plex (aka Maetrik, the moniker he saves for his darker techno productions) to do just that. Most known for his recent revered deep-house single, "Vibe Your Love" on Crosstown, Plex makes the release the perfect late-night tool. First up is "Full Range", a dubby tech-house number with ominous and increasingly glitchy repetitive vocals that remind the listener of what Choi seems to already know - "music is the universal language, music is no longer irrelevant". Next, "Half Baked", the EP's star, manages to perfectly fuse industrial sounds with melody making a blissed-out, deep- house track. Mysterious squeaks, hisses and factorial inner workings provide the backdrop while warm time-stretched freestyle vocals guide us through the production. Maceo's Deep Remix is around 9-minutes of Chicago house inspired sounds layered with snappy high hats and emotive chords. More

Since entering the scene in 2006, Jin Choi has released a string of EPs on a number of respected labels, such as Lessizmore, Systematic Recordings, Contexterrior and Archipel. Now, after carving his own aural aesthetic that emphasizes emotional expression over formulaic dancefloor functionality - and after his recent move from Cologne to Berlin - Jin felt the time was right to form his own imprint. "Private Gold" is a new homebase for his productions as well as those by his friends from Berlin and beyond, which will bring us soon wonderful music from Tolga Fidan, Jay Haze, Walker Barnard, Axel Boman, Martin Beume and many more. "You've Done Me Wrong" kicks off the label's first release and is also the EP's title track, and as such, it serves as something like a manifesto. Some music glows as if it was made of gold, and this kind of music shines in the dark and reveals the artist's heart and soul. "You've Done Me Wrong", emanates warmth onto the dancefloor and into the listener's psyche, showing Jin's influence from both Soul and House. "Love is You" follows a similar path, although this time utilizing jazz sounds over a house template, exploring the theme of love as a sickness, but not wanting to be cured. On the flip side, Jin takes his sound in a tropical, psychedelic direction with "Private Gold", featuring the abstract vocal styling of Sam Leigh Brown (who's previously lent her talent to Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Frank Popp Ensemble and most recently Bloody Mary and many more). This one radiates the most passion, composed from almost completely organic sounds, but subtly chopped-up edits and a jazzy beat. And for a cooldown, Mr. Choi offers "Cardboard Love", a winding, grooving track with a typical melancholic mood and catchy melodies for the hours after.
More