Natalie Beridze's music is of a rare, bewitching beauty – even when her beats are shredded or when she rocks with an abrasive four-to-the-floor. She moves within her own characteristic tonality of diminished chords that frequently extends into the minor harmony – a tonality within which an unsettling, questioning undertone often resonates alongside the sense of melancholic longing. Beridze rises to the highest of spheres on Guliagava. While in her older releases lines could be drawn to IDM and Broken Beats or Detroit Techno, and an admiration for musicians such as Autechre, Aphex Twin or the Cocteau Twins could be detected, here there is a suggestion of R&B over Dubstep. But its a kind R&B over Dubstep based on the bold assumption that both styles clearly trace their lineage to Kate Bush. Of course, that's not to suggest that Natalie has any need to imitate. She is well-versed and looks back on 15 years of musical production, including several film scores, on the setting of poems (Tsvetajeva, Brodski, Breton, ...), on collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Antye Greie/AGF, John Beltran, or Thomas Brinkmann. Where previously it was often enough for Natalie Beridze to suggest, to persevere, to imply the breaks, here she formulates. Her vocals have never been so animated, her songwriting has never sounded so complete, and her arrangements, for all their complexity, have never been so round. Guliagava is Beridze's tenth album and it is nothing less than her masterpiece...

A distinct entry into the current pantheon of sultry and synthetic art-pop... Think Polica, think FKA Twigs, think Grimes, think Natalie Beridze.

By Jack