Album Review: III by Gui Boratto

Brazilian electronic producer Gui Boratto got his start working in advertising and making pop music, two worlds where superficial sheen and polish are of paramount importance. It's easy to see the connection from his earlier life to his current solo work, for Kompakt and other labels: His tracks are vibrant, ear-pleasing candy of the most licensable order, and his full-length albums have thus far stuck to a fairly simple formula: one or two big, dreamy, tastefully sun-kissed vocal house anthems selling the surrounding tangents into minimal techno. If that doesn't sound like a golden ratio, you're right: While Gui Boratto's Chromophobia and Take My Breath Away are both solid, sometimes spectacular albums, you're most likely to have Boratto saved in your mp3 locker as a singles artist, best known for evaporating vocal tracks like "Beautiful Life", "Like You", and "No Turning Back", or for his subtly percolating Total 7 instrumental "Arquipélago".

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This always happens. Laptop Guy makes Laptop Music; Laptop Guy works some good tones into some (often justifiably) well-received singles; Laptop Guy releases engaging, textural debut album with sonics blending toward something resembling forward motion; Laptop Guy can now have a successful life traveling the world and DJ-ing for masses of swelled pupils. Somebody else can worry about objective quality, I suppose; hence, let’s all raise our glasses to the valiant music writers everywhere who are left holding the bag on this stuff, parsing through the forceful thumps of albums like III and listening for anything that emerges from the mildly anguished blur.

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The experimental side of electronic music is always the most subjective spectrum to delve into. What exactly is experimental anymore and does anybody really care? You have intelligent musicians that craft different shades of dubstep as if they’re simply adding to a compositional phrase of music and then you have techno-driven producers that build swells of walls that encompass everything from beats to strings. Gui Boratto has never been one to stand on the merits of repetition and nothing else; songs like “Scene 1” glisten with spectacular movements in both dynamics and rhythm.

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