Cahl Sel: Traces

Cahl Sel employs a hardware-focused setup to produce music that echoes mid-1990s leftfield electronic sounds. Reflective Records, dormant since 1997, was revived to release the early EPs and aligns the work with classic IDM and ambient-techno lineage. Traces pairs machine-like drum programming — understated kicks, die-cut snares and diamantine hi-hats — with arpeggiated melodies and glowing pads that evoke pastoral, tropical imagery. The album balances propulsive, jittery techno and more atmospheric, new-age-inflected passages, with tracks shifting from energetic opener moments to drumless, otherworldly sketches that foreground shimmering synthesizer textures.

"Anyone stumbling across the utopian cerulean vistas of Cahl Sel's earlier this year could have been forgiven for wondering if the record was a forgotten gem from three decades past, rather than a brand-new production from a young upstart. For one thing, the label that put it out, Reflective, is itself a vestige of leftfield electronic music's golden age, having lain largely dormant since 1997. Reflective was resurrected in 2022 to release Cahl Sel's debut EP, Every Moment; in its prime, the imprint had been responsible for a wealth of mid-'90s classics-records from bright-eyed mischief-makers like label founder Spacetime Continuum and IDM pioneer µ-Ziq, recording as Kid Spatula, who lured curious ravers in stranger, squirrelier directions."

"Cahl Sel's debut album, Traces, sounds even more like a lost ambient-techno classic. The drums move like precision-engineered machinery: sturdy yet understated kick drums, die-cutting snares, diamantine hi-hats spinning in tricky clockwork patterns. Arpeggios twirl in elegant arcs against airy pads that glow like a tropical sunrise. Tracing the path of Cahl Sel's serpentine synthesizer melodies, it's easy to imagine hothouse flowers filmed in stop motion: green shoots whipping upward, uncurling in midair, and slowly exploding into star-shaped blossoms tinged with cadmium and azure."

Read at Pitchfork