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File under: AmbientMinimal-Synth
Patricia
Songs for Josephine (LP)
LabelBalmatGenreElectronic
Preorder: Releases December 11th 2026 (ships as soon as it is released)
€29.00
VAT exempt
+
-
Tracked express shipping from Italy, no customs or import VAT in the EU. Shipping costs
Since his 2013 debut album, Body Issues, Max Ravitz—better known to you and me as Patricia—has been zeroing in on the kernel of an idea. Across seven albums for labels like Opal Tapes, Spectral Sound/Ghostly International, and Acid Test, he’s applied his hand to a lean, focused vision of electronic music, paring away excess to lavish attention on carefully sculpted acid lines, stealthy drum programming, and warmly emotive melodies. For all their restraint, though, his tracks could never be called merely rote or efficient; even at their simplest, they’re steeped in atmosphere and shot through with layers of mystery. Now, on his first record for Balmat, he strips things down even further, revealing the ambient essence of his music.
Across eight tracks, he pours everything he has into the most minimalist music of his career. Many tracks seem to have been made with just one synthesizer patch and some carefully applied effects—a honing of his materials that brings the nuances of his music to the fore as never before. Elastic pitches warp and drift; fleeting harmonies bring out new dimensions in his synths’ timbres. “Murmuration” sounds almost like Baroque music in its lithe, undulating counterpoints. “Birdsong” takes a classic choral pad and stretches it horizon-wide. And songs like the closing “Yearn” allow the expressive dimension of his music to fill the frame as never before.
The title Songs for Josephine pays tribute to Max’s wife. For years, she’s told Max she’d like to hear him make an album without drums; he assembled these songs over time, always with her in mind. “Even with my beat-driven music, I’ve gotten a lot of comments in the past about the ambient textures tucked into those tracks, so I feel like people have been drawn to that aspect of my music for a while,” Max says. “It’s been an interesting change of pace making a record with that side of my sound as the focal point.”
For listeners familiar with Max’s music, the effect may be uncanny: This is Patricia through and through, but heard in a whole new way.
Across eight tracks, he pours everything he has into the most minimalist music of his career. Many tracks seem to have been made with just one synthesizer patch and some carefully applied effects—a honing of his materials that brings the nuances of his music to the fore as never before. Elastic pitches warp and drift; fleeting harmonies bring out new dimensions in his synths’ timbres. “Murmuration” sounds almost like Baroque music in its lithe, undulating counterpoints. “Birdsong” takes a classic choral pad and stretches it horizon-wide. And songs like the closing “Yearn” allow the expressive dimension of his music to fill the frame as never before.
The title Songs for Josephine pays tribute to Max’s wife. For years, she’s told Max she’d like to hear him make an album without drums; he assembled these songs over time, always with her in mind. “Even with my beat-driven music, I’ve gotten a lot of comments in the past about the ambient textures tucked into those tracks, so I feel like people have been drawn to that aspect of my music for a while,” Max says. “It’s been an interesting change of pace making a record with that side of my sound as the focal point.”
For listeners familiar with Max’s music, the effect may be uncanny: This is Patricia through and through, but heard in a whole new way.
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