Teengirl Fantasy, the duo of Logan Takahashi and Nick Weiss, return with 8AM, their first full-length since 2012's Tracer. 8AM is music that replicates that headspace when you've seen the sun come up, but sleep is still way off. It's music of the in-between time, between tonight and tomorrow, when you're not ready to let the feeling of right here and right now go. Your body is spent, but your spirit holds on to the memory. A new energy or a different route. The album takes the dream-state of Teengirl Fantasy's 2010 album 7AM deep into the next day, stretching ambient themes in multiple directions, scattering with the morning light. 8AM is Teengirl Fantasy's most introspective and abstracted work so far. It still pulses with the muscle memory of house and disco, slow-motion sub bass, chiming synth melodies, and the airy, perfumed chords of early techno, but takes a line of flight away from songs, immersing the listener in a gently invigorating space. Pieced together from evocative fragments and longer beat-driven tracks, the music is melodic and dreamy, yet sharp and clear. The only vocal comes from Khalif Jones (f.k.a. Le1f) who draws the album back from its gentle turbulence into a time and place on "Seeds". 8AM places the listener in a chilled delirium; one saturated with light, like when the glare from the sun's too bright but you can't stop squinting at it.

• release date: 03/24/17
• music label: Planet Mu 2017

reviewed by planet mu 03/2017