Audiopile Review: Khotin’s debut full length, the appropriately titled Hello World, celebrates ten spins around the sun with a new cassette reissue. Released during Khotin’s brief but fruitful tenure here in Vancouver, arriving at a time when the twin electronic institutions of Mood Hut and Pacific Rhythm were finding the footing, Hello World was initially issued via the long defunct 1080p cassette imprint, and eventually put to vinyl by Fauxpas Music, remaining out of print on all formats for years. Much dancier and house-focused than what would eventually follow with the cerebral New Tab, Hello World is one of the more memorable releases to survive the short-lived “lo-fi house” tag, though hints at what was to come can be found throughout. Khotin’s trademark textural imprint, those smeary BoC tones and watery keyboard melodies, are dripped across the album with a heavy hand, the fizzy drum machines punching it all up with daydream danceability. While he has since moved on to a premier slot on the Ghostly International imprint and garnered plenty of attention outside our borders, Hello World will always feel like a Vancouver album to us, marking a creatively explosive and magical era of our city.

Light, textural daydream house from Edmonton’s Dylan Khotin-Foote, whose debut 1080p release under the Khotin title lands in the middle of close, bedroom zones and more club-friendly grooves.

Since his initial moves towards house and techno genre experiments two years ago, Khotin has refined his unique slant on gentle acid and blurred yet effervescent hybrid house, with a stack of hardware: Roland TR-505, 606, 707, SH-101, Juno 106, Korg MS-10, Yamaha DX7, and various casio keyboards.

Khotin’s lightly dusted grooves are inflected with a bedroom pop sensibility as much as reverence for heavy techno greats, scattering samples over breezy house rhythms. Loose themes of flight and brightness coast in and out of each side (mixed live); loose house drifters like “Flight Theme” and title track “Hello World” float on gentle bongos and hi-hats and brightly hued melodies (that are consistently focal and catchy across the record) while darker techno heavy hitters like “Why Don’t We Talk” and “Infinity Jam” bring a distinct take on cosmic hardware vibes.