

Cristiano Crisci’s second album is an intricate mosaic of world music and club culture, fusing fragmentary beats, samples, and hooks into cohesive wholes. Spidery oud melodies, jazz piano, and glitch-pop become natural bedfellows on “Ode to the Pleiades”, while Afro-folk singer Bongeziwe Mabandla glides over “Nguwe”’s squelching synths and scattershot beats. It’s dense with ideas but never overwhelming, and even the relatively spacious “Hope” weaves a frenetic kora riff into drowsy R&B.