Mike Shannon

Throw this in your car stereo for a late night drive down a long road in the brush. The mood has been set for this, Mike Shannon’s third full-length artist album, Memory Tree. That is, if you’re scouring the hills for roots techno that’s soft, mellow and glitchy. This record should have a place in your collection for nights to relax by the figurative fireplace. Shannon makes his entrance unassumingly, with the low, crackling audio of "Beyond Incubation” reminding us of the mood warm vinyl can set. The album carries on into cleaner and more defined sounds that resemble brilliantly polished metal. The third track, "Wolf Module,” continues down the urban road, creating a sound backdrop for a factory filled with underground machines and gears. "Dr X” brings in sounds deep and upbeat that could mix into any deep house set in a club paying homage to the classics. Memory Tree is airy, luminescent, deep and rhythmic. It holds elements of many electronic styles — Detroit techno, ambient and house — bringing them all together in this warm place where a genre is merely a noun, and music never ceased to be real.