Release Date: 20/03/26
Blumenfantasie is the second album from Xylitol, the alias of producer and DJ Catherine Backhouse. Expanding on the world introduced on her Planet Mu debut Anemones, she carves out spacious, emotionally resonant electronic music where pointillistic melodies, cascading synths and kosmische calm intersect with bold breakbeat architecture. Through careful subtraction, she balances intimacy and melancholy without sentimentality, delivering a sound that feels raw, intuitive and finely honed. The record moves between detailed, fluttering jungle, beatless ambience and stark, skeletal grime. Highlights include the elegiac Mirjana, a krautrock-tinged slow-burn, and Halo, a bare-bones rhythmic rush that nods to industrial experimentation and early Eskibeat. Collaborations with experimental audiovisual duo Sculpture and Reading’s The Leaf Library weave musique concrète swirls and radiophonic folk textures into aquatic jungle and shadowy breakbeat, drawing lines between Source Direct and Broadcast. Shaped by Xylitol’s increasingly frequent DJ sets, Blumenfantasie flows with a confident, self-effacing cohesion—music for head, hips and heart, inviting deep listening while never losing sight of the strobelight and the dancefloor.