Lockbox - Spiritual Malware (2021)

Jesse Briata’s latest album is a sprawling 22-track epic that stands as the multidisciplinary artist’s most fully realized work to date. Recorded over the course of several years, Spiritual Malware contains a number of tracks composed with the E-mu Modular System at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Briata studied art and technology.

In comparison to the club-ready heaters of 2019’s Neo Druid, Spiritual Malware’s pieces are more experimental and structurally complex, such as the mesmerizing IDM jams “Purify” and “Juice Spiral.” Across its 78-minute runtime, the album seamlessly blends an array of electronic styles, including ambient, techno, and breakcore. The entire thing is an ambitious, schizophrenic, boundary-pushing masterwork that could only have been made by Briata, who is easily one of the most innovative underground producers in recent memory.