tdstr’s Signature Style of Plunderphonics Adopts a Mysterious New Atmosphere

In the past few years, tdstr has quickly become one of the most engaging new artists in the electronic music space: their quick release turnaround, innovative production, and unique album conceits have made for more than a dozen releases in the past few years all worth spending time with. Whether it’s improvised granular ambient or EDM wholly in seven-beat time signatures, his music is engaging not solely from how it plays with norms of whatever style he’s focused on, but because it always sounds like his music no matter how extravagant things get. After a successful 2024 run of three excellent EDM releases, his first album of 2025 strips things back while giving his signature style of plunderphonics a mysterious new atmosphere: There’s Still Tomorrow trades in the bombast of his last few albums for shiny hypnagogic pop and gloomy downtempo, letting misty pads and thick percussion settle so that bits of shimmer through pop all the gray. It may be a less inviting listen than, say, 7 Grand Dance or 2023’s DnB Suite, but the slow burn across the album’s eleven tracks is more than worth experiencing despite its cold exterior.

His unadorned, straight-ahead style of sampling comes in handy here with the softer songs on offer, constructing the instrumentation around pitch and time-shifted pop vocals that bring out those vaporwave undertones. The two intermingling choruses bleeding in and out of one another in “There’s No Turning Back” give direction to its lethargic percussion and keyboards, major-key melodies warped just enough for you to notice the dread tdstr paints onto them. “Don’t Be Afraid” slowly builds from its sultry early-2000’s pop vocals into icy dark ambient, reintroducing the melody at the end now buried under layers of white noise and synth pads. This industrial vaporwave sound works perfectly in turning tdstr away from bombastic EDM, allowing them to play with structure and texture without going so far into the shadows that he loses you along the way. Hardvapour highlight “Igneous” center itself around a looping piano figure embellished with explosive 808s and whirring synths, setting up the following “Biohazard” to be even more of a left turn with its shuffling dance beat – There’s Still Tomorrow bounces around different corners of nostalgia heavy electronica and suffocates them under noisy industrial beats, exploring their interplay and how changes on one end create ripple effects along the other. 

Changing his tone while keeping his attention to detail high as ever, There’s Still Tomorrow kicks off the new year with one of tdstr’s strongest releases yet. Strange and dreamy and confident in its ability to keep you in its orbit even as it songs pass the eight and eleven minute marks; there’s rarely a point in its hour runtime where he isn’t taking the music somewhere, always subtly altering things you only fully notice when your mind wanders for a minute and you’re in a completely new space from just a few minutes before. It strikes a perfect balance of haze and heft, letting the music catch its breath just long enough to send it back into the depths and continue harnessing all that tension. While it’s now one of the moodier offerings in his discography, There’s Still Tomorrow still invites you to pick it apart and sink your teeth into it like all his other records, to methodically cut through all the noise and find the beauty tucked away in its many dark corners. 

There's Still Tomorrow is available now on Bandcamp and streaming services.