Brooklyn-via-Gothenberg, Sweden artist hab's
maPOd was the first full-length to appear through the Swedish Dot label, and among the first and most significant releases of new-school electronica to (sort of) originate on American shores. Similar in some respects (though at the same time quite singular and original) to the emotive, deeply melodic machine music of Warp artists such as
Autechre and the
Black Dog, hab's lilting, slightly melancholy, downbeat melodic electro lies somewhere between those two artists, fusing a charming, engagingly human compositional sensibility with the oddest of sounds and shifting, curiously syncopated rhythms.
maPOd is easily on par with the best of hab's international contemporaries, and equally as essential. ~ Sean Cooper