Mura Masa’s ‘Someday Somewhere’

“An exquisite oriental experience”

Zen. That is the first word which comes to mind when thinking of this album; Mura Masa combines elements of far eastern instruments along with EDM to create a relaxing yet all consuming vibe.

As an avid EDM listener, I love a good beat and strong baseline to carry me away from life and bring me into nirvana however, sometimes you just want to zone out and become at one rather than rave to a raging diplo banger ( although this can be great) and so ‘Someday Somewhere’ was a perfect compromise.

Alex Crossan, better known as Mura Masa, is an English electronic music producer from the Channel Islands and his preceding album was ‘soundtrack to a death’ which is just as aesthetic as it sounds.However, I believe his second album was where he really shined, one of my favourites ‘When you need me’ features a soft harp instrumental and is truly an experience not just a song; you feel like you are on top of a Vietnamese mountain opening up your heart chakra with the gentle yet lively beat.

One of this albums signature elements and which also features in a lot of popular EDM music is high toned voices however, this has seemed to be a big hit as  ‘Lovesick’ the original featuring A$AP rocky, which includes steel pan drums and high pitched tones something very unique,  reached 16 million views on YouTube and was used in a misguided advert not so long ago.

Some favourites of mine include, ‘what if I go?’ (which is actually from soundtrack to a death but worth listening to) which is cleverly structured as the song replies to the title, another is ‘terrible love’ which adorns a deep base and if you’re more into big beat drops then ‘firefly’ may be the one for you, Masa also intergrates other genres into this album as with ‘low’ which embraces rap.

However, it is not just the music which makes this album unique, but the artwork which is truly sublime and carries on the theme of the far east and relaxed vibe, here are some examples:

The album cover

‘What if I go?’

Overall, I definitely recommend anyone looking for new music to give this album a listen as you will become enlightened and perhaps find a new genre which you never expected to like.

-R