With his collective The Ancient Moons, Damian Lazarus spun house, soul, ambient, world music, and jazz into searching, psychedelic fusions on 2015’s Message From the Other Side and 2018’s Heart of Sky. On Flourish, Lazarus' first solo album since 2009’s Smoke the Monster Out, the shamanic DJ returns from his vision quest with lessons learned on his travels. Where his previous albums swelled outward, Flourish strips down to basics. It’s built around the kind of deep, pulsing grooves that anchor Lazarus’ famously mystical sets at Burning Man and in Tulum, wrapping undulating drum programming in viscous pads, deep-diving sub-bass, and ghostly, wordless voices. Recorded in the Italian countryside, the album also waxes nostalgic for the UK’s jungle scene: “Leave” and “Mountain” both employ rolling breaks and chest-massaging hoover bass, but instead of dance-floor stormers, they’re quasi-ambient meditations. “Everybody,” the record’s purest club track, flashes back to the golden age of dub techno, while strummed harps and Jem Cooke’s coolly assured topline make “Into the Sun” the album’s emotional high point. That peak having been reached, the record's finale dissolves back into yearning formlessness—a reminder that Lazarus’ spiritual sojourn is not over.