(Post-Rock, Ambient, Electronic) Ernest Gonzales - Natural Traits - 2012, MP3, 320 kbps

Perhaps most known for his lucha libre guise as Mexicans With Guns, San Antonio's Ernest Gonzales wears many masks. Gonzales doesn't buckle under the weight of multiple personae. Rather, he draws inspiration from his multifaceted background, producing a diverse swathe of sounds covering various states of introspection. 'Natural Traits' is an album that blends Gonzales' gift for melodic songwriting with his understanding of electronic craftsmanship. Composed of vivid rhythms, emotive melodies and aerial harmonies, the album blurs the lines between analogue and digital worlds. Gonzales juxtaposes live instrumentation with classic electronic tropes to produce tracks that float, flit, bump, and pulse with grace and subdued movement. Tunes like Peaks & Valleys , Beneath The Surface , and In The End highlight EG's ambient side with swirls of trilling guitar chords, painting an analogue soundscape of natural emotion and sincere serenity. Others, like The Heroic Lives Of Particles and The Scattered Thoughts Of Raindrops , bumble with digital angst and glitchy disquietude, venturing deep into the technological world and casting a shadow of electronic mystique. When Synchronicity Prevails represents the perfect balance of polarities, with luscious synth waves and delicate guitar lines materializing halfway through with a four-on-the- floor rhythm of tactile texture that round out its ethereal feel. When needs must, Natural Traits can be reductively categorised within the Hypnagogic / Chillwave / Glo-Fi genus, but like nature itself, it s unique flowers in bloom define nothing more than it s own beauty.