A Thousand Skies

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.