Daniel Avery - Digital Rain / I Miss You

Single

16 Dec

Daniel Avery has become quintessentially London. His lengthy career playing in some of the city's most prominent venues is a testament to his ability to sniff out what's new and relevant. The producer and DJ show no signs of fatigue as new albums, remix compilations or mixes on significant platforms drop year after year. His unwavering presence in the zeitgeist of popular dance music is unquestionable. Still, his willingness to probe into different music, such as ambient under breakbeats, keeps the position firm. Avery's latest offering, Digital Rain / I Miss You (2024), further explores the latter.

"Digital Rain" is an emotive beast of a modern-day breakbeat track. It captures the quiet stillness the city slickers will be familiar with during twilight. It's that magical portion of time when clubs let out, but before everyone else gets up for work, It's finally quiet. Avery combines relatively soft breaks tempered with a cool liquid drum and bass knowledge and a new appreciation for ambient music like Love + Light (2020) from a few years ago. "Digital Rain" shows glimpses of something more profound, but ultimately, the track relies on your imagination to fill in the gaps. It works beautifully because of its cinematic aspect, where you feel like you're the main character swallowed up by your thoughts.

"I Miss You" takes the more hardline approach, with every kick punching through a tumultuous mesh of low-level noise. It feels like Avery is taking a leaf out of Rezzett's book with much grainier textures, adding to its lo-fi qualities. The number of mechanical artefacts throughout the track adds a blissful saturation, filling my brain with nostalgia. It feels as though "I Miss You". It has been a long time coming, especially looking at his recent catalogue, albums like Ultra Truth (2022) and Together In Static (2021), two recent examples. Still, Avery's interest in that drum-centric textual world has taken glimpses since 2018's songs for Alpha.

Musically and rhythmically, Avery only brings a little new to the table on this release. He uses simplistic breaks and repetition from programming related to the genre, but what is apparent is the less is more approach, making them more accessible while also allowing room to breathe. Avery uses simplicity to create space for crackling saturation and luscious reverb to sing. The music Avery is making now fits more stylistically in varied contexts as he combines some of his work's most cinematic aspects and mashes them. With this release being quite self-referential, it could become more cookie-cutter than innovative, partly due to the lack of significant cultural reference points that can act as Eureka moments for the audience, but only time will tell.

Tracklist: