Amy Root – AvA


Release dates
20 aug - AvA - single
17 sep - Intendant - single
15 oct - AvA - EP



Following up to their latest EP, “Elif”, Dutch duo Amy Root return to Reflektor with their anticipated new release, “Ava”. Recorded on the island of Texel, off the Netherlands’ North Sea coast - which endowed them with the time and space to focus solely on music and nothing else, this new five-tracker spans the widest part of Amy Root’s broad scope of inspirations and, in this case, most specifically five paintings by great British artist, Joseph Mallord William Turner. Known for his tormented seascapes and borderline-abstract approach to depictions of natural vistas, Turner’s pieces pushed Lukas and Sjoerd to translate his hair-raising vision into sound, each cut operating as a portal to an intrinsic mental world, but also cohesive as a whole listening experience.


Breaking the EP in on a spaciously melodic note, “Zeal” entices us on a weightless glide across lush, oneiric hills and seaswept skylines. Caught in a slo-burning loop of kosmische-informed pads, mangled vox samples and organic sounds gone astray, the track hatches into a widescreen ambient voyage across soothingly barren expanses. With its processed vocals evoking a gleeful sense of innocence and piano-strewn melody floating as the groove soars towards BoC-ian heights, “Sofia” offers a more dynamic, though equally poetic entry into the world of Amy Root.


Then comes the title-track “AvA” - a five-minute-odd encapsulation of the pair’s soft touch electronics and all-embracing harmonics. Gracefully nostalgic but stare firmly set onto the banks of hope, it’s a mini-odyssey that unfurls, echoing deeper and deeper as the melody etches itself in your mind and into your soul, triggering off a pulsating kaleidoscope of emotions as it travels you. Going down the club-friendly alley, “Intendant” weaves that distinctive Amy Root melancholia with a further Afro-indebted jacking swing, sure to bring dance floors to a steady, yet truly effusive simmer. The EP’s closing cut “Turmoil” lets loose the hounds of fevered junglism for a furiously hectic finale - fusing knee-buckling audio martial arts moves with a brooding, muscular bass and trancey uplift a la Border Community that will leave the dancers in a state of truly ecstatic daze.