The Inner Mansions, the second album this year from British Columbia native Teen Daze, is a serenely beautiful release where the producer’s atmospheric electronica is at its peak. The new album is represented well by “Spirit”, whose beauty emanates from gentle guitar trickles, an aquatic underlying synth pad, and a piercing key note that repeats each measure. Like previously released album track “New Life”, its repetition lends itself more to dance, though listeners should be aware that Inner Mansions expands to areas of post-punk and shoegaze variants as well. The twinkling glow of “Union”, featuring Frankie Rose on vocals, reminds of spacey indie-rock a group like Stars would put out, except with even more nostalgic bliss. Frankie Rose was a great choice to recapture the feeling of ’80s heart-thumping, as evidenced by one of the year’s best tracks, “Know Me“.
