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Shanti Celeste: Romance review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week
Six years on from her acclaimed ‘fast house’ debut, the UK singer-producer invites listeners into a sunlit space between night out and morning after
But its signature sound was the author’s own, in which the subtlety and depth of classic US house productions by Moodymann, Masters at Work and Mood II Swing was melded with a giddy, rave-y euphoria and rhythms that proceeded at pacy tempos more common to techno. There’s something very telling about the fact that her career – first as a DJ, then a club promoter, record label boss and ultimately an artist – flourished after she quit university, irked that tutors on her illustration course kept asking her what her work meant: “I wouldn’t be able to explain it. Too drowsy and blurred to function as straightforward pop-R&B – the songs largely eschew verses and choruses in favour of a more scattered, mood-building approach – and too obviously sunlit to soundtrack the curtains-drawn post-club comedown, a lot of Romance exists in an appealing space of its own.
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