After Graal (Prologue) in 2019, German producer Christian Löffler has made a swift return with his follow-up, Lys, no less influenced by his surroundings: the shores of Graal-Müritz, a seaside resort on the Baltic Sea, in the very north of Germany, where he lives 200 meters from the beach and 250 km from festive Berlin. The man who had caulked himself into a forest hut for his first album A Forest in 2012, has shifted his focus to the light, “which is different in northern Germany”, and which became the theme of this record. A painter and photographer in his spare time, Löffler has painted a poppy, techno, sunny, soft album which wears its own spleen lightly. A seaside record, then, with some more club-friendly titles (Roth or Sun), a cast of winning sirens including the Swedish Menke on Lys or Josephine Philip, who sings the stormy pop song The End. And when she does, it sure feels like it. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz