Ephera – Home

August 18, 2012 • self-released

As always, here I am trying to expand my horizons in the wide world of electronic music. Today's destination: Ephera, an Australian duo who have created a surprisingly diverse collection of sounds with Home. And, well, it's pretty nice; a little something for everyone.

Home puts on display a smorgasboard of different electronic styles—mostly IDM, but ranging to ambient droning, a bit of house, wonky, and future garage, among others. On every track you get something a little bit different, yet rgardless of style the album is still consistent and coherent. The abundance of melody helps quite a bit, and every track is driven by solid, upfront synth melodies that keep things moving along.

The production itself is pretty good; it has this spacey, glittery, yet still somewhat technical vibe to it that reminds me a lot of Clark (albeit a little slower and simpler). There's a huge variety of drum and synth voices in addition to some neat spoken word samples, so things stay relatively fresh throughout the album. Going from glitchy, cut-up, sampled IDM one track to slow, plodding brostep on the next can be a bit jarring, but that's still miles better than everything being totally monotonous.

However—and this is probably more of a personal thing—many of the tracks don't really have a lot of staying power with me. While the album is definitely solid throughout, there isn't much on the album that sticks out as being particularly memorable, especially in the middle of the album; rather, every track is simply "okay". I suppose after all it is a bedroom project and my expectations are a little off; for what it is, it really is pretty high quality.

I see a lot of potential in Ephera, and I hope the project continues on. It will be interesting to hear what happens as their musical ideas mature and grow.

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