8/10
It’s been 3 1/2 years since Mtendere Mandowa, better known as Teebs dropped his debut album, Ardour, that shocked the futurebeat community. Teebs is signed to the Brainfeeder Collective, the brainchild of fellow beats producer Flying Lotus. The difference between the two producers is like night and day. Where Flying Lotus takes wonky beats and thumping, driving rhythms, Teebs prefers to make more atmospheric beats, full of beautiful chimes and lush soundscapes. If Flying Lotus embodies a futuristic alien environment, Teebs can be compared to spending a day outside gardening and sleeping on a hammock.
In a genre saturated with electronic beats, Teebs continues on this path of beautiful sampling with ESTARA. From the beautifully thumping beats of View Point to the clangy jingling noise of coins off of Wavxxes, this album packs enough into the soundscape of songs to make the music have an interesting texture, but not enough to overwhelm the ear. Most of the songs off of this album hit this sonic sweet spot quite well. This album did leave me disappointed in having some slow filler tracks featuring almost nothing going on, including the opening track, Endless, and the last track, titled Grattitude. Overall, this album is the same-old-same-old with Teebs, but that’s not to say it’s a bad thing. Teebs is experimenting in his own genre, something more beats producers should be doing. Ignoring some low-spots on this album, I loved it.
