Solitaire

Released in 1995, reissued in 2023, Solitaire has long felt like one of David Moufang’s most resonant works. It’s an ambient album, notionally, and as with much of Moufang’s music, it tends to feel fairly pacific in its mood: much like his deep house productions, it’s gentle and lithe, but Solitaire moves at a much slower clip. Maybe it’s the synth strings that snakecharm through “In/Out”, but Solitaire has a faintly regal, almost neo-classical tint at times; tracks like “Damaskus-Dakar” complicate that, though – they’re emptier, slightly hesitant, with weird little squirrely melodies peeking through tiptoeing beats and hazy drones. It’s a curious collection of studies that captures something about mid-nineties electronica (or IDM, I guess it was called back then) – a sense of a genre still figuring out just what it could do.