If you’ve been following Gui Boratto’s fast paced musical career you will have noticed that record after record, he rarely fails to deliver the goods. Due to this, he is one of Kompakt label’s fastest growing artists. His Brazilian heritage offers delightful rhythms throughout his productions, evident in the percussive focus of his tracks. Layered on top of beats, you’ll discover epic and deep melodies that really have a tendency to draw the listener in. He seamlessly melds groove with a reflective nature, making his tunes perfect for pumping you up OR chilling you out. This is something I really appreciate about his productions; he can be a mid-set banger or a mellow morning mist. By this I mean his music appears to be malleable and flexible.

Gui’s debut full length album, ‘Chromophobia’, was released on Kompakt in February, and is a journey throughout. The album is a lot more subdued than Gui’s other releases, but this in no way detracts from his usual production style. With a more melodic focus, these new tunes move in and out of the minimal-techno base his audience has grown to expect. I find the title track a perfect example of this. It retains the drawn out and reliably progressive beats and bass elements, but then around the half way mark an esoteric lead blasts its way through, finalising the eclectic nature of the track. The second half of the album seems to focus on waving synthetic leads with an almost electro-pop style influence. Here I would like to draw particular attention to track number eight; ‘Malá Strana’. In this track, Gui has incorporated a fantastic array of digital instruments, topped off with a raw piano riff that creates a very complimentary contrast.

It is a little unconventional to talk of other releases in a review, but I feel one of Gui’s releases on K2 – a subdivision of Kompakt – has definitively informed my own sets and changed the way I receive music. Whether or not you are a Boratto fan, I implore you to check out his release of ‘Arquipélago’, this record changed my life. And so, being an artist that I am personally very excited about, I find it hard to remain objective in my writings of him. You really must check him out for yourself, ‘Chromophobia’ is undoubtedly one of the year’s best albums!