In 2011, an L.A. producer blipped into view thanks to a well-received debut EP on Gerd Janson's Running Back imprint. Credited to Suzanne Kraft, an alias of dublab DJ Diego Herrera, Green Flash did nu-disco infused with a low-slung pacing and a warmth not unlike a cassette tape left on the dashboard at midday. It was soon followed by the Horoscope EP and a handful of more Balearic cuts from Herrera's other band, Pharaohs, suggesting that more floor-filling tracks lay ahead.
But when Missum, Kraft's next release for Running Back, came out last year, it showed Herrera not leaning in but rather taking a step back. The record was actually a reissue, but it showed a different side of him: The drums turned down to register as gentle pulses, samples of old boogie records gave way to chord organs and saxophone lines that mimicked deep breathing exercises, unfurling slowly and deeply across each track. Missum revealed the mellow, contemplative side of Suzanne Kraft, which in comparison to the DJ tracks, might have sounded anomalous. With Talk From Home, it instead illuminates that the unhurried pacing of those first dance singles might be the outliers.
Released on the Melody As Truth imprint out of the UK, Talk From Home isn't an homage to new age music per se, but it does take cues from the more chilled-out end of the ECM and EG catalogs. "Two Chord Wake", with its brushed hi-hat programming and measured snares, might have the most pronounced beat of the album, yet even with flares of guitar spiking above the rhythms, it pads about gently like music for children’s television.
"Never Heated" might be carved out of Julee Cruise’s exhales, a wordless vocal paired with a simple figure on bass guitar and a tube amp buzzing like cicadas. Throughout, Kraft gets the most out of the simplest of ingredients, "Male Intuition" imparting its contemplative vibe with little more than a guitar line couched in reverb and echo that brings to mind Durutti Column.
Other moments of the album sound like something Mark Isham might have cut around the time of Vapor Drawings, just at the border between breezy and cheesy. The pads of the title track at first bring to mind a Muzak version of "King of Pain" but as the track evolves, a bath-warm depth is revealed. The beatific slow swells of closer "The Result" brings this all too-brief outing to a close, but Talk From Home is the ideal soundtrack for taking a leisurely stroll rather than frantically Ubering to reach a destination.
