Review: TOKIMONSTA - "Eternal Reverie"

The seventh album of the Grammy-award nominated producer, TOKiMONSTA, continues her journey of genre-bending, electro-focused, fearless yet progressive stamps on the US dance scene. More importantly this project illustrates a meaningful tribute to her late friend - prior to its recording TOKi took a career break to experience their friendship’s last moments.

Eternal Reverie is not only an ode to her friend, but another demonstration of the healing power of music.

Her experimentation, with beats injected by etherealism, clear influences from global sounds, and the amalgamation of weird but surreal soundscapes, shines through. Although there is the melancholic backdrop, these 14 tracks give a sense of light in times of darkness, recognising joy in memories and dancing despite the trials and tribulations of life and relationships.

As you may already know, or have cottoned onto, TOKi is the producer, meaning we are spoilt with features of nearby and compatriot artists in addition to her artistry.

After the instrumental intro, we come to ‘Lucky U’, a collaboration with Gavin Turek, previously released as a single with an accompanying 90s workout themed video. Gavin’s delectable, soulful, melting vocals contrasts the universally-adored ‘Think’ break, with mellow piano chords and playful ad-libs layered delicately on top. There’s self-adoring female empowerment behind the lyrics, with the dance-evoking instrumentals and glitter of jazz guitar riffs, it really announces a sense of optimism, self-love and woman camaraderie for this project.

The first transcendent seconds of ‘On Sum’ introduces another charming set of neo-soul vocals. Well revered Cali-head, Anderson .Paak and R&B breakthrough, Rae Khalil combine for this one, depicting the foundations of human relationship and overspilling optimism of what the future holds. TOKi brings forward influences from LA Beat, hard hitting electronic and a tamed-down trap like rhythm.

Cakes da Killa and GAWD later feature on the album, on a house anthem titled ‘Switch It’. GAWD are a wonderful pairing who provide sultry rhythmic chant-like vocals with Cakes injecting his crude lyrical energy to a sensual dancefloor filler.

‘Feel It’, a hip house avant-garde collaboration between TOKi and grouptherapy.’s takes on a synthy uphill wait to a climactic deep house drop, with a sprinkling of chants and tribal percussive stabs.

The producer then introduces nu-disco on ‘Corazon / Death by Disco pt 2’, a true demonstration of the breadth of her electronic ingenuity. The ‘Corazon’ sample rings throughout with uplifting synth notes and a bath-bomb blend of samba inspiration, hi-hats, filtered vocals and imploding digital effects.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated features appears towards the backend of this encyclopaedic electro soundscape. Kaelin Ellis, known for his multi instrumentalist stamps in the US Jazz/Funk scenes, gets our ears jet-setting, travelling through Kaelin’s organic sounds and gently delivering us into TOKi’s synthesised paradise for one last time

This wonderful composition of TOKi’s electronic toolkit is a cloud clearing collection of tracks, soundtracking a social-filled summer. A fusion of dance-inducing electro, deep rooted LA Beat nods and features of upcoming US talent from paralleled sub-genres.