Fresh air for your speakers.
Air Quality is the argument that this music was never meant to stay indoors. Twenty-seven tracks of vocal lofi, chill, indie and the genres that share a fence with them, picked from years of the scene growing up and airing out. Ivri and Naveih crack the window on track one and the record spends the next hour outside.
If you've been around this genre a while, you'll find a few of your own fan favorites in here; that's deliberate. Air Quality is partly a thank-you note to the records that kept the scene breathing. Day ones will recognize the roll call.
The Super-8 film for Air Quality moves from indoor to outdoor, the counterpoint to Mall Nights. Still places, but full of moving, quality air: open sky, somewhere green, an umbrella leaning into a breeze the camera can't record but you can hear anyway. The blue-tinted artwork repeats its own name like a weather report you actually want. Where Mall Nights holds its breath, this one lets it go.
Twenty-seven tracks deep and generous with company: half the entries are collaborations. Eevee and Cliffe pair up twice, Eery threads three tracks of warmth through the middle, and Eli Filosov appears under both his names, which feels right for a record about fresh perspective. Kudasaibeats, Velvetears, H E R B and Blocktane all put in shifts, and the back half opens the windows wider: Nilöwh., Ais.Hill with Sei, Dreamfield alongside Devon Rea. Design by VicinityLens, film by JoeNora.
