LA Priest - La Fusion

When Sam Eastgate – aka LA Priest – found himself stranded in Mexico due to travel restrictions, he did what anyone else would do: write a dreamy album about the sea while travelling around Central America, thousands of miles from his shed studio in Wales. And so, the resulting record, last year’s ‘Fase Luna’, still had many LA Priest hallmarks – the blurps and burbles – but felt altogether more meditative. ‘La Fusion’, then, is the ideal companion piece to that record. Written at the tail-end of his Costa Rican experience, these four tracks see Sam wondering whether the life he knew before ‘Fase Luna’ is still accessible to him, the return to society looming. ‘La Fusion’ might have been crafted at the same time as ‘Fase Luna’, but this is the sound of a man reemerging from the wilderness.

From the rough and ready funk of ‘Too Cool’ to that signature bubbling synth making a reappearance on opener ‘Apple’, it’s clear he has the vision and skill to shift between the two worlds with ease. “Will I survive?”, he sings towards the end of ‘City Warm Heart’, questioning whether this step back into society will be worth it, but it’s that moment which sees a return to the funky LA Priest of old – still as warm, inviting and intoxicating as ever.