The different seeds that have been planted throughout the life of Croatian Amor come to bloom on All In The Same Breath, affirming an equilibrium that's all its own. Spiraling through the half-light electronics are gentle bumps and breaks that are layered into moments of elevation. A coarse edge remains just an arm's length away, but there is an unmistakable element of celebration throughout the album's ten tracks. As the syncopated terrains ring out, their perpetual rhythmic motions call a medley of human voices that speak in security. They sing to everyone just as they sing to themselves. In the years since the seminal Croatian Amor album Love Means Taking Action (ALT 028CD/PI 180LP, 2016), Loke Rahbek has strode a twofold path. There are the delicate, meditative compositions that he has made with Frederik Valentin; setting acoustic instrumentation against affecting digital treatments, each of their collaborative albums are an exercise in the magnificence of subtle restraint. And with the sharpest of turns you'll find Rahbek's parallel universe of rave-shocked rhythms and kinetic helixes that eddy through genre and tempo with few constraints. Collaborations with Varg²TM have yielded the wildest of this, and remain ongoing, yet the traces were already apparent across much of the previous Croatian Amor album Isa (PI 220LP, 2019) with its treated vocalizations and cascading rhythmic mechanics. All In The Same Breath, arrives as a steady handed synthesis of these divergent instincts. Elaborating the distinct techniques and themes that form the wistful essence of the project, the album's quiet composure is a sign that these familiarities have been set adrift to settle into their own private ecosystem. Small vessels travel in a perfect array. Light following shadows, following light. Every movement a signal, every second is camouflage. All In The Same Breath is perhaps more than anything an invitation to be open to wonder.
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