To keep the mellow mood going from the previous days; yet change the genre a lil’ bit, I picked today’s track from my beloved lofi deep house playlist. This playlist has to be the one with the least variety in artists, half of the 50 tracks are either from Terekke or Aleks ahah. Let’s start with Aleks today, and I am sure I will write plenty about Terekke another day.

Aleks - Quiet Daze (2016)

I first discovered Aleks through his ambient release called Body / Astral, but I am unclear where exactly I came across it. Back when I stumbled upon it in 2017, I think I was still relatively active on Facebook groups like Melodies From Mars, so it may very well be there. Nowadays I avoid Facebook like the plague, but I have to say I did not find yet a good replacement for these groups, which occasionally provided some nice gems, and in general helped me entertain a certain culture / lore around recent releases.

Anyway, going back to Aleks, after being blown away by Astral, with an almost out-of-body experience on my first listen, I quickly went through his other releases. He is the one who made me discover Natural Sciences, a label I dig deep, the inventors of “Dungeon Rap” (to the best of the author’s knowledge.. kek), some kind of mix between dark ambient and early memphis hip-hop, which is the closest thing to trap from the 90’s. The early releases though, from circa 2015, are knee deep in the fade of that era, lofi house. Aleks signs the first ever release in Natural Sciences with the EP Low Definitions. A1, Ulterior Motive, is a classic lofi track of mine, featuring a lovely acid stab, deep ambient pads and groovy 303 bassline.

Aleks - Ulterior Motives (2015)

Quiet Daze however is a personal favorite of mine, one that will probably survive the test of time. A deep groover, a melancholic dub, the sonic canvas of a washed out coastline painted with smeared pastel colors of analog film. A profound bassline will make you travel through this track via a low hertzian vibration bridge, sprinkled with mesmerizing and echoey vocal samples. While the recipe to make a lofi track was followed to the letter, reserving no particular surprises to the listener on the actual composition of the track, it is hard not to applaud such a brilliant execution.

To close off the article, I have fond memories of listening to this track when driving in my car in San Diego back in 2018. We travelled all the way to Sequoia National Park with my colleague Armina… traveling from the coast to the mountains with the giant trees and back, very tired from jet lag… yea this track encapsulates my headspace at that time pretty well I suppose, some kind of magical myst. Peace out.