Audiopile Review: Icelandic producer Yagya lands with a new full length that’s a return to his finely tuned ambient dub-techno after the brief detour into gaseous dream-pop that was 2023’s Fading Photographs. While that record was enjoyable enough, we’ve been desperately waiting for a return to the sublime styling that he perfected previously, most notably on Sleepygirls, Rigning, and Stars & Dust, all three now considered classics of the genre. While those albums exemplified the slow-churning dub techno and icy landscape ambience that Yagya is most synonymous with, Vor’s injected with a vitality that does indeed connect it to the luminescent leanings that he toyed with on Fading Photographs. Propelled by his usual hypnotizing dub shimmer and resplendent plumes of bass, Vor makes a marked effort at stepping out of the realm of pure atmosphere that had been his trademark. Beatific and downright pretty synth melodies are front loaded throughout, shining through his rolling dub fog like heavenly rays of sun, resulting in his most gorgeous record to date. If Fading Photographs threw you off a bit, you’ll be ecstatic to hear that Yagya is back in absolute top form.

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Icelandic dub techno legend Yagya returns to his own Small Plastic Animals label with Vor, an album of dreamy dub techno indebted to seasonal differences. After exploring vocal-led composition on Faded Photographs, this new album finds Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson returning to the purely electronic sound he first forged in the early 2000s. It’s an album split between the distinct moods of Spring (‘Vor’) and Autumn (‘Haust’), four tracks apiece. Steeped in the pristine dub techno pulses and broad synthstrokes which made his early albums like Rigning and Sleepygirls instant classics, Guðmundsson delivers a widescreen masterpiece true to his long-standing legacy in Iceland’s lauded dub techno scene.