Track Listing
Arise (feat. Skysia) Bumpin Bass Beatbox (feat. Nok nok) Tahini Kiatsu (feat. Auralponic) Air Bender (feat. Ahee) Saviour (feat. Hohm) Echoes (feat. Zandro) Head Up High (feat. Oliwa, Ruby Chase) Deamility (feat. Bliss Looper, Cyndy Fike) Merging Elements (feat. Geometrae) Equanimous’ debut album ‘Merging Elements’ is a soothing, spiritual journey through the rhythmic world of chill and head-bopping house grooves. There’s a lot of influences to both of the aforementioned genres here, with a confident track selection and a great example of musical diversity. Easing into the atmosphere is the beautiful ‘Arise’ featuring a collaboration with Skysia. It’s a suitably chilled opener that juxtaposes nicely with “Bumpin Bass Beatbox” which holds no illusions over what sort of song this is. The beatboxing works nicely against the groovy bassline, serving as a proverbial bridge for some of the more memorable tracks on the album. ‘Air Bender’ is a particular favourite here, with a lovely rising set of chords that bleed into an electronic synth line. This is only matched – in terms of distinct synths – by ‘Echoes’ which uses some nice high-pitched sonics dipped in distortion. It’s not until track 7, aptly titled ‘Head Up High’, that we get a taste of a more commercially-focused slice of dance music. It’s actually a really solid track too, oozing confident lyrics about following your dreams and staying positive. It’s a particularly important message right now in these times but it also shows a much different flavour to the versatile production skills of Equanimous. This versatility is a bit of an Achille’s heel here because despite how good this track is (and it’s one of my personal favourites) it also stands out like a sore thumb against the more instrumental offerings. It’s not a deal breaker but it’s probably the one critique toward the track selection on the album. All of these songs capitulate into ‘Merging Elements’, which cleverly lives up to its name. It blends all the components we’ve experienced across the album into one 7 minute track. In terms of intelligent track composition, this is an excellent way to end the album and helps to stitch everything together that we’ve heard thus far. Merging Elements is a tightly written showcase of excellent compositional work. There’s some decent musical influences across genres, blending chilled beats with more groovy house tracks to good effect. ‘Head Up High’ is probably one of the weaker entries here because of the above reasons but it’s a minor point in truth. Given every single track is a collaboration of some description, Equanimous shows a versatility in the studio here to work with a variety of different artists. The resulting work culminates in a compelling showcase of talent, soothing chilled beats and a tease of (potentially) more commercially driven projects in the future. While this versatility may not be for everyone, this is a solid debut album and well worth checking out.
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