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MOUNT KIMBIE Love What Sur vives Warp
REVIEWS
After emerging as one of the brighter lights in the embryonic post-dubstep landscape, Mount Kimbie (in a trajectory which closely mirrors that of kindred spirits Darkstar) signed to Warp, went a bit prog, and, to be honest, lost a bit of their edge. It wasn't the pastoral/avantgarde turn that was problematic – this kind of leap has been the making of many acts. But where Mount Kimbie’s seminal debut album Crooks and Lovers felt vibrant, weightless and unaffected, 2013’s follow-up Cold Spring Fault Less Youth felt flat in comparison. But their third offering Love What Survives has recaptured the deftness of their debut while retaining the more experimental tropes of Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. The energy and emotional intensity is back from the first track with low-slung guitars and a motorik rhythm, which blends into a raw vocal performance from long-time collaborator King Krule on lead single Blue Train Lines. Vocal collaborators are plentiful, in fact. Both Micachu and James Blake feature, with Blake lending his distinctive falsetto to two tracks. The first – the playfully psychedelic We Go Home Together – gives Blake a wobbly platform to soar over, and is up there with the best of his own material. Towards the album’s conclusion, Delta – again with a motorik nod – provides a rush of adrenaline, before the beautifully constructed T.A.M.E.D unfolds in a whirl of understated romanticism. Sure, the bar may have been set lower this time, but there’s no question that Love What Survives reinstates Mount Kimbie’s reputation as credible musical innovators.
Living life on permanent caps lock, Jordan Cardy aka RAT BOY is an Essex kid who bangs out baggy beats and saggy half-raps about fake IDs and bunking school. As if fuelled by a steady diet of Monster energy drinks, SCUM zips through 25 tracks and skits of cartoony Brit-pop hooks and chimpunk backing vocals without a single drop in pace. Dodgy rhymes like “When you hear the groove that makes your legs move”) deserve an eye-roll, but Cardy tells stories of an underprivileged upbringing – from the holes in his shoes to the doom of the dole – which are rare in an industry still dominated by the privileged. When he’s not rapping, Cardy’s choruses sound like concoction of The Kooks, Oasis and Jamie T – fit to soundtrack a mid-noughties indie clubnight. Each catchy track feels like you’ve heard it at least ten times before, and in the case of LAID BACK you probably have – since Cardy signed to major label Parlophone, the single has become the scourge of sponsored YouTube ads. Recently the Evening Standard dubbed RAT BOY “the anarchic voice of his generation”, touting him as “best placed” to lead a guitar music comeback. Considering that guitar bands still headline most mainstream UK music festivals, that kind of hype is off-putting – but, to be fair to Cardy, he claims to be totally unconcerned about the industry: "Everything's free if you want it to be/ take my MP3 illegally".
Before trip-hop, jungle and dubstep, Bristol already had a strong heritage of unusual variations on musical phenomena in the heady post-punk years – just look at the sonic chaos of bands such as The Pop Group and Rip Rig + Panic. Maximum Joy were a product of this wildly creative environment in the early 80s, but for all their daring qualities, they were a far more approachable concern. Chris Farrell, of Bristol’s record shop and label Idle Hands, and Blackest Ever Black’s Kiran Sande recognised the brilliance of this seminal band, even naming their new label after one of the finest songs Maximum Joy ever recorded. In line with this declaration of affection, the first release on Silent Street is a collection of the singles Maximum Joy released on Y Records between 81 and 83, and it opens with the haunting perfection of Silent Street (Silent Dub). Janine Rainforth’s vocals never sounded better than on this beguiling ode to the quiet hours between the hurried pace of city life, floating out atop dubby bass, off-key piano stabs and straining brass. Elsewhere, Rainforth could be raucous on punk party-starter Stretch, and sweetly uplifting on In The Air. The emotional range of Maximum Joy was surely one of their greatest strengths, and this collection gives you every shade of their impeccable repertoire.
“There’s a new thing happening,” says a woman’s voice in Rainbow Edition opener Madting, “new and beautiful.” True to form, confusion and intrigue surrounds this “new” incarnation of Hype Williams. It was generally thought that Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland ended the project years ago. But last year new Hype Williams material surfaced, with the band’s (possibly fictional) manager Denna Frances Glass insisting that “dean nor inga are in hype williams anymore, but the ting continues regardless with other cats.” Now, the Rainbow Edition press release claims that all Hype Williams music released since 2011 is fake, and that this new LP is actually the work of two men going by the names of Slaughter and Silvermane. The pair look slightly awkward in the press shot, like teenagers being photographed by an older relative. There is some evidence that Hype Williams is, as claimed, a relay project passed down between members. Silvermane has previous credits, having been featured as a collaborator on London-based artist / nutritionist Nina Cristante’s Complications LP. Strangely, two tracks on that record appear on Rainbow Edition. On The Whole Lay (entitled brown on Cristante’s album) an out-of-tune, auto-tuned voice warbles above dense layers of dreamy synth-flutes and stuttering kicks, while on Baby Blu a bass guitar climbs up and down a gloomy scale, beneath swells of dry keyboard strings. Like most of Rainbow Edition, these tracks are brief, and rife with melancholy. At one point we blast through eight tracks in under ten minutes, and the effect is like that of someone rifling through bundles of old pre-sets on a battered sampler. #Blackcardsmatter is vintage Hype Williams, with ghostly piano chords following a sluggish, down-tuned beat. Ask Yee’s syrup-thick trap hi-hats bristle like a cheap speaker turned up full. On Percy, we get a peek at something sublime – bells descend from clouds, lit up by sunset, and among the lo-fi hiss and grit, we find something majestic. Through the years, Blunt and Copeland have expertly distilled the thrill and fatigue of inner-city burnout. If, as is claimed, their music isn't really on this record, it has been mimicked extremely well. Touching, beguiling stuff.
Much has been made of the painstaking process behind Benedikt Frey’s debut album Artificial. The line goes that the time and care the German producer took over the two years to create the record set it apart from current trends, in which producers, particularly of electronic music, churn out tracks and paint by numbers. This seems a bit of a stretch. A collection of moody, chuggy rollers don’t feel all that revolutionary, nor ‘abstract’ as the press notes claim. Saying that, it’s pretty great. There’s the odd miss-step where a vocal falls flat (see lead single H is for Hysteria) but generally this is a collection of tunes that are satisfyingly meaty, dripping with sleaze. With just enough variety to allow each track to take on its own significance, Artificial functions well as an LP – something which always warrants congratulations with dance music. Some of the highlights include the pounding acid and insatiable kicks of Push, a delightfully loose bassline and nods to The X Files on Roads of Jazz, plus the hollow dubstep and Gregorian chants of Private Crimes. Best of all is the mournful saxophone slithering all over Hang Loose A menacing, sexy and robust debut.
! Adam Corner
! Katie Hawthorne
! Oli Warwick
! Xavier Boucherat
! Theo Kotz
R AT BOY SCUM Parlophone
MA XIMUM JOY I Can’t Stand It Here On Quiet Nights Silent Street
BENEDIK T FREY Ar tificial ESP Institute
HYPE WILLIAMS Rainbow Edition Big Dada