★★★★☆

With his brand of enclosed house and down-to-earth electronics staying forever humble, Ernest Gonzales doesn’t ask for much, but gives plenty. Always good for natural glows born out of a delicately and plainly managed analogue-digital relationship, the songs Natural Traits speak volumes, what with San Antonio, Texas’ Gonzales not being much of a talker. “The Sentimental Sea” is deep house that’s hard to disturb once in the zone, waiting to write postcards from memorable experiences. Another budding Balearic memory-maker/road trip taker, “When Synchronicity Prevails”, alludes to everything falling into place at the right time and not being held back by over-thinking. The destiny-seeking “Beneath the Surface,” a solo drive through the desert with Gonzalez never looking back, is an equally stubborn patent brimming with positive self-belief.

Acoustic guitar upholds the backpacking sound of house and electronica: have six strings will travel, and there’s a laptop also in the bag, with 8-bit jettisons about the soundfield and shimmers shunted through an internet connection. “The Scattered Thoughts of Raindrops,” with its electro-drizzle effects, typifies ravers seeing the light with comforting familiarity, leaving one computer-toughened feed, “In the End”, as a rare cold shoulder offered by someone regularly lifting you out of your slump. The momentous moments are captured in miniature, but are always perfectly formed.
File under: DNTEL, Teebs, Mexicans With Guns