UK producer Michael Greene, aka Fort Romeau, takes his quest for meaning up into the heavens on Beings of Light. In the years since his last LP, 2015’s Insides, his distinct remix work has filled dance floors with dependable streams of cosmic, multilayered tracks that call on disco, house, and techno. Though he ventures again towards these thrills here, his search has expanded for greater depth—in sound and symbolism—with a rich, eight-track serving of celestial compositions, both beat-driven and meandering.
Proving the road to heaven is paved with pulsing synths and mesmerizing rhythms, the blistering intro (“Untitled IV”) kick-starts the journey before Beings of Light—featuring Greene’s hallmark blend of warm samples—gives way to pounding, granular anthems that rise and fall under repetition and strain, as a searing tribute to the power found within our subconscious. Absorbing the epochal scale of recent global trauma, Greene imagines a hopeful, post-pandemic renaissance for dance, where captivating, ethereal moods turn from bleakness (“Power of Grace”) to renewal (“Beings of Light”) and reach out to new, atmospheric pastures (“Porta Coeli”).