Swiss-Chilean artist Masaya runs her own label Mina Records but for her first full length album she gets tapped up by Chapter 24 Records. She uses the opportunity to showcase her diverse dance styles across eleven excellent tracks. It has now been ten years that she has been in the game and that really shows with her masterful balance of pace and atmosphere.

Right from the off you get sucked into her sound world. The whole place is reportedly influenced by the birth of the artists son so it has a truly emotive feel. The opener is a moody bit of scene setting with scintillating hi-hats and broody beats.

From there things pick up with the deep and driving house of ‘The Backstage’ and the wavy, cloudy late night grooves of ‘Agnostic’. ‘Haumea’ hits harder with a punchy, broken drum pattern more great atmospherics and the likes of ‘Flow Of Tears’ then gets angelic and heavenly with some floaty light drums and serene synth stokes all backed by white light and melody.

The second half of the album touches on darker, more unsettled moods and prying synths, as well as some heavenly, delicate vocals that lend an ethereal feel on tracks like ‘Justin Loves’. Inside layers up drums and synths into a high pressure thing that never lets up and Innocence pulls things back to a sombre house hymn. Closing out with ‘Borderline’s’ pinging cowbells and the reflective vocal ambiance of ‘Time Goes Fast’, this is a truly magical and involving album.

Masaya’s ‘Picking Up the Pieces’ is already available on Chapter 24 Records.