Post-Euphoria is an album forged in the heat of dance music’s peak moments yet far removed from the dancefloor, as it inadvertently captures the strange and dislocated mood of the current, cultural moment. Where its predecessor Ultimate Lounge’s introspection was calm and elegant, here Semi Precious truly takes flight: his production, his songs and his vocals all soaring into rarefied atmospheres.

Two years in the making, singer-songwriter-producer Semi Precious (real name Guy Baron) has created a body of work that interprets the notion of an “afterglow” as a reflective, in-between state that lingers once the initial, euphoric rush of a night out subsides. This idea of a party afterglow is further expanded through his musical experimentations to encompass notions of “reminiscence and retrospection of bygone, blissful experiences” and to “explore how they may be reimagined at a distance”, says Baron. “I was interested in this mode of recollecting and romanticisng something that seems beyond its peak point”, he adds. And of course, as he came to the end of the process, lockdown began, meaning “the whole idea of missing or longing for clubbing or euphoric experiences or being around other bodies got an extra level of meaning that wasn't there before...”.

The new album is musically ambitious and reveals a multitude of subtle layers and hidden depths – shattered sounds of both underground and commercial dance music managing to blend seamlessly with Baron’s singing and songwriting, which draw from a broad range of listening to experimental acts such as Caterina Barbieri, Barker and Baltra. Interpreting his notion of post-euphoria, Baron presents a collection of interlinked, ethereal pop songs and fragmented, ambient compositions, wherein production motifs are used expressively and symbolically. From excessively slowing down dance music samples as metaphor for prolonged reminiscence, through recreating fragments of lyrical ideas dealing with memory and recollection and to using MIDI, reverb and delay effects to connote notions of transformation and reincarnation, the album is rife with sonic tropes and nuanced references that create a layered and distinctive aesthetic language.