Summit by Aztek

Originally from Chicago, Aztek relocated to Utah, planting him firmly in an expanding underground music scene, and the source inspiration for Summit's contents. On his way home from working in Park City, Utah, Aztek would drive down the mountain pass and would experience an inversion on the horizon, seeing the buildup of pollution sit over the mountain. The haze that he continued to see night after night became a symbol and inspiration for what he wrote in Summit. This time in Aztek's life also bred a desire to find the peaks within, pushing him to define an album that coalesces with the Courteous Family identity and his unique sense of artistry.

Summit is a beautiful blend between the primal and the abstract, touching on many landscapes within the electronic world. Experimentation and cross-genre blends call to the Courteous Family ethos, extracting elements from tribal, bass, electronic, trap, and zouk. The depth to the rhythms and sound designs creates a valley of emotion, moving in organized frameworks that morph through each section. It's engaging and technically designed electronic music that calls on as much experimentation as it does structural clarity.

“That’s A Dead Guy” launches with the LP’s characteristic purr of dragged-down bass poured over misshapen samples and metallic synths. Ride the high through “Cunninglingus with Joan Sanders,” a quick-changing sonic sculpture carved out of negative space. Title track “Summit” feels breathless as it mutates and “Romper” elevates into a divinely-inspired opus. Labelmate Tsuruda steps in on “Edd Hardy Summer Camp” to back-load the album with a numbing slather of bass.