Will Wiesenfeld released his sophomore LP ‘Obsidian‘ last year, and in the lead-up to his third album as Baths he has just released a five-track EP on Anticon titled ‘Ocean Death’. As the label appropriately wrote in their press release:

“Baths has a rare gift for cloaking melancholy with gorgeous arrangements. The emotions are raw, but the musicianship is refined. Guitars are scraped and processed. Vocals are clipped and layered, drowned and resurrected. But what lingers are the songs themselves; ideas fully formed and immortalized, built to haunt forever.”

Across the five beautiful pieces of music on this release – sometimes akin to the glitchiness of Max Cooper yet sometimes as amazingly confusing as a Teen Daze record – the lyrics are simple and desolate, but the effect of ‘Voyeur’ is ethereal. The 3 a.m. soul-searching and heartbeat pulse of the title track are almost reminiscent of Four Tet or Pantha Du Prince; the pulse is almost minimal techno, but it’s suffused with maximalist emotion and swerves almost uncomfortably close to pop.

The somber lyricism of ‘Yawn’, the direct vocal melodies of ‘Orator’; a delight in subsuming electronic experiments into pop songs. It’s about death, apathy, and loneliness. The lead-up to his third record sounds like a final love letter to a chapter of life that’s already ended — and maybe it has? Two favourites below – buy ‘Ocean Death’ here.