Gi Gi
In Lieu
Mood Hut
Over the last several years, Gi Gi has become something of a leading figure in the world of modern downtempo music. While the Texas-based artist and DJ’s earliest releases found tentative footholds in pure ambient drift—the saturated, low fidelity glow of OST Circadia making way for the high-definition dreamweaving of Lumino Pieco—it was in the weightless grooves of 2022’s Sunchoke and Lamella Pressed that the project began to find its true shape. These albums arrived to a world only just emerging from lockdown, one with a newfound appreciation for the gentler side of electronic music and the understated bliss of the chillout room, and led the charge for a new wave of dubbed-out downtempo that continues to gain momentum to this day.
With 2024’s Dreamliner, Gi Gi’s name became synonymous with the slow chug and dazed-out nod of the afterhours, but with In Lieu, he leaves the distinction between bedroom and club feeling blurrier than ever. Not entirely a dance record, and yet nearly impossible to sit still to, In Lieu moves with the dreamy air of one waking from a deep slumber and wandering straight into a party, the body leading the way as the mind slowly emerges from a pleasantly delirious fog.
Establishing the album’s sleepy sense of immediacy right from the get-go, the elastic-band snap and sassy sarcasm of album opener “Optimo”—which plays out like the soundtrack to a slow-motion vogueing sequence—is somehow both dramatic and relaxed. Coasting along on this lazy momentum, tracks like “Pink Dirt” and “Some Of” seem to drift within the margins of half consciousness, a sleep-deprived stumble into the morning light in last night’s dress and high heels, held upright by nothing more than an undeniable groove. Though the vibe remains consistent throughout, there are some pleasantly unexpected turns scattered throughout the record; the off-kilter chug of “Going 2” brings to mind the smoked-out, Latin-tinged electronica of DJ Python, while the titular closing track casts a decidedly skyward gaze, its reverb-drenched guitars and whisper-soft vocals retracting the ceiling of the chillout room to reveal an infinite sea of stars.
Dynamic yet entirely unhurried, In Lieu is an album that thrives within its own contradictions, its relaxed pace emphasizing a barely contained internal energy as its steady pulse provides the calm within a dizzyingly kinetic storm.
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