FROM THE STACKS: The Psychic Stewardess

We get a lot of crap CDs at the self-titled offices. But once in a while, a pleasant surprise slips into our promo stack. Here’s a recent delivery that knocked the s/t staff on its collective ass.

The Artist/Album: The Psychic Stewardess, Spiritual Foundation CD-R (Strange Life, 2010)

The Vibe: You won’t find a Psychic Stewardess photo on the Interweb, but a quick Google search will uncover the guy behind it: Danny Wolfers, the Dutch producer who goes by a million aliases but is best known as Legowelt. Burnt CD beginnings aside, this is one of Wolfers’ strongest records in a while, an unclassifiable series of compromises between dance and Deep Space Nine music. A few tracks (“Ghost Apparitions,” “Telepathic Synthesis System”) even dip into the same drone/hauntological sphere as Oneohtrix Point Never, latter-day Broadcast and the entire Ghost Box crew. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say this is easily one of the best electronic efforts we’ve heard all year.

RIYL: Betamax bootlegs; Warp’s triple LP pressing of Geogaddi; CD-Rs that are better than most proper CDs