Pinkcourtesyphone - Leaving Everything to Be Desired (2020)

All too often what passes for "ambient" music is pulled towards one of two poles: nihilistic darkness or cloying lightness - manbient or cutebient. We're fucking sick of it. Thankfully, mischievous scene veteran Richard Chartier has unleashed a much-needed corrective here with his latest Pinkcourtesyphone full-length, allowing his darkness to languish in sensuality and the softer edges to present tenderly, flamboyantly and joyfully.

"Leaving Everything To Be Desired" is a dense collection of post-Wolfgang Voigt fog and Badalamenti-inspired Lynchian mystery, spritzed with a cherry-scented mist of queer kitsch. Its cinematic and grand, but never takes itself too seriously, underpinning its woozy, shimmering orchestral blasts with a sense of poised, poignant longing.

There's no posturing here, Chartier has a catalogue that would put most producers to shame, instead this album is here to represent mood, moment and memory. It's not hauntology; there's nostalgia, sure, but detoxed, removed from the churning context of bad cultural tropes and white, cishet self-loathing. "Leaving Everything To Be Desired" is as decadent as a new set of silk sheets so treat urself and slide in.