29S x Ace Hotel New York

Ben Bondy is an expert purveyor of diaphanous ambience and he’s never short on wares. In the past two years the Brooklynite released nearly a dozen albums, all of them essential comforts bearing subtle moods and gentle demeanors, dubby pulses and blissed-out reveries. From time to time, he’s gracefully ventured into peripheral territories like downtempo or IDM, and his collaborations have extended his sonic boundaries further: the Blessed Kitty, with Pontiac Streator and Ulla, features vocals, while his stint with producer uon as xphresh includes a celestial breakbeat. Bondy’s secret is approaching liminality not as conduit or provocative end point but as something beguilingly uncertain. It’s this recalibration of expectations that makes his sound a marvel— Bondy sells ephemerality as something irresistible.