Album Review: Tash Sultana - Flow State

"The multi-instrumentalist and loop artist shows off her diverse musical talents"

Electric guitar rings out with delay, opening Seed (Intro), an overture to Tash Sultana's debut album Flow State.

From these opening moments it's apparent that, like on her EP Notion, her vocals, for the most part, seem to accompany her guitar playing instead of the other way around.

Big Smoke and Harvest Love are the types of songs you could imagine hearing both at a dark, intimate pub gig, and a huge festival amongst thousands of fans, with crisp vocals cutting through layers of intertwining guitar parts and grooving beats.

The multi-instrumentalist and loop artist shows off her diverse musical talents with a killer trumpet solo on the end of Mystik, and soulful vocals on the super chill Free Mind and Cigarettes — the latter featuring a serious uptempo gear change towards the end.

Sweet, jazzy Mellow Marmalade, and nine and a half minute Blackbird, which features fingerstyle acoustic steel-string guitar playing with a Spanish flare and a thumping beat, are definite album highlights.

Flow State is a showcase of Tash Sultana's effortlessly cool, rich music with its signature washy reverb sound and dense, lavish textures.