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an Holo's album1 is a beautiful, bold, breathtaking debut — one that won't disappoint any tried and true EDM / folk / pop / post-rock / trap fan who's heard, vibed, and got down to it all. (Not that anyone's ever heard of this kind of sound before.)

In this 12-pack of a musical production that runs more like a series of personal stories than party fillers, San Holo delivers just the right dose (and order) of anthemic buildups, solid drops, epic ambient and trap textures, organic guitar melodies, and just enough sentimental flourish — all forming a strangely beautiful and attractively unfamiliar musical terrain.

Here, he flies full throttle in the musical space of his own doing (and experiencing) — diving and soaring with the listener all throughout.

SHOP ON  

Dutch DJ, musician, record producer, and singer-songwriter Sander van Dijck studied guitar and music production early on, teaching children to play the stringed instrument on the side. (No surprise, the same guitar sound — electric hum and acoustic strum and every vibration in between — permeates throughout album1.) Later, after working with bands and ghost-producing for DJs — gaining artistic and commercial success in the process — he went solo and took on the name San Holo.

album1 showcases my love
for all kinds of music, from EDM
to post-rock to classical to ambient.
I can't wait to take you
on this journey...

(We know the name is anagrammatic to that of one of the lead characters in the Star Wars saga, but perhaps the use was more for heuristics than homage. But we digress.)

On SoundCloud, San Holo writes of the album as a side note:

"To me, one of the most exciting things of making music is expanding my own taste and giving listeners an opportunity to expand theirs. album1 showcases my love for all kinds of music, from EDM to post-rock to classical to ambient. I can't wait to take you on this journey, [I] hope you're with me..."

A

lbum starter Everything Matters (When It Comes to You) is a fitting first track — a sort of dramatic entrance without the drama, with a melancholia hook that weighs down the dance vibe beautifully. It transports you like from a dream to the dancefloor (and to somewhere in between), strings and vocal textures finishing the piece like a brief moment of breathlessness.

In Worthy, San Holo's intentionally unpolished vocals run throughout: I remember you said / Do you even need me? / Is it outside my head? / ... Do you even see me? / Go find someone else instead / Tell me am I worthy? / Am I even worthy?

"One day a girl asked me," he shared, "Do you even need me? and deep down I knew that the answer was no. I don't think you should be in a relationship with someone because you need him or her. You cannot make each other happy. You can, however, enhance each other's happiness, and that's what the song is about."

Forever Free comes across as atmospheric yet sparse, pleasantly repetitive, an anthemic spectacle. Here, multiple variants of synthesized vocal sampling make for a catchy hook, with a mellowed down faux coda, "It's OK, we don't have to fix it now," before finally climaxing into the familiar choral refrain and a synth-symphonic finale. This track's outro fades seamlessly into Surface (featuring post-rock band Caspian) — on its own an exquisite study in drum work, daring, and dreamscapes.

All in all a flight of emotions (not fancy) deeply felt, album1 opens a new horizon for music, the fans of the genre, and most importantly, the artist whose name comes across, at first, as derivative of one of pop culture's famous fictional names. No derivatives to his music here, for sure — just drivers to a whole new, brave musical frontier.— ANPJ/²

Listen to album1 on iTunes: