Malibu Palaces of Pity (Special Edition)

Opening with hazed vocals layered over submerged Café Del Mar guitar licks, Reese bass and dizzying,
phased strings, Malibu adopts the weightless motion of Chicane or Banco de Gaia if their music was piped
into an empty swimming pool and recorded to an iPhone - like some hazed memory of a hedonism zoomers
were promised but never inherited.
Orbital’s early ‘90s emosh classic ‘Halcyon’ looms large over proceedings; as if Kirsty Hawkshaw’s doe-
eyed lalalalala’s were played at a 10th of their intended speed, draped over that TX81Z “lately” bassline like
velvet. The original was written as a tribute to brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll’s mother, who was addicted
to benzodiazepine derivative Halcion; and it feels fitting that the narcotic sound it inspired has become a
defining marker of our age. In fact, there’s a melancholy, medicinal subtext throughout the album that’s hard
to ignore; blind panic reduced to an emotional cinder, longing strings, soaring vocals and comedown vibes.
Malibu makes music that tries to articulate a blurred emotion that’s almost impossible to define, and while so
much Ambient numbs by design, here feelings are its defining feature.
With cello provided by Oliver Coates and Madelen Dressler-Vollsaeter, and guitar from Florian Le-Prisé, the
album’s sense of intimacy assumes an almost impossibly grand sense of scale, as temporally liminal and
neon-lit as Burial’s ‘In McDonalds’, made for a world that’s now completely out of reach.