I’ve been waiting for this album for quite some time. The first Mount Kimbie album, 2010’s Crooks & Lovers, made quite an impression (on me + world) a few years back. The bassy, whiny synths dragging about the pit of your stomach. Moody. Then suddenly some buried beat comes through to tread through the sodden autumn forest leaves and immediately relieves. The vocals seem on their own line. Almost as if they are next door. Wind instruments add depth. Shows that this duo are serious and use theirown samples/recording. I’m tired of a lot of electronic music using the same sample bank and pulling everything up to the line, so that it loses any form of humanity. This retains certain real-time elements that don’t quite fit to the grid, left to float over steady, dragged beats.
I’m impressed with this latest offering. It retains that muggy, emotive drag, with plenty of reverb and delay and the slightly behind offbeat scatters that litter across the steady thud.
As an artist who has only managed to release one album, I certainly empathize with the difficulty and pressures (often from yourself) that come with forging the second record ; ) — that’s another reason I’m impressed with what Mount Kimbie have come up with. It’s a tricky one because people want a repeat of what you did before, but the last thing you want to do is repeat the thing you just did. So it involves taking a leap forward — but not too far forward or too far to the side because then people get mad and angry because it’s all different from what you did before and it propels them into a fit of confusion and disgust. And what do people do when they are confused and disgusted? They throw it back up and say it wasn’t what it said on the tin and that you’d better have a lawyer because they are going to sue you for all you’re worth.
King Krule comes in on the second track, “You Took Your Time.” It’s a slightly lighter composition from Kimbie but gets its balance from the dark vocals, whose smoky vapours seep out from the surprisingly fresh-faced bedroom producer Krule. They float across on top somewhere, becoming intertwined chased down alleyways, trapped, cornered.
The third track, “Break Well,” begins with a pleasant hip-hop/trip beat, really slow, then takes you somewhere pretty dark. Pillow over the face, sink low but left to drift, comfortably, with light relief from a warm guitar line. Pin-prick through to an overcast goose-skin sky.
This album is heavy! I love it!
Now enter the Robocop. Copters overhead, with rotating blades, that rush through the wind like geese with outstretched wings, skidding across lake tops, dripping frames, touch the concrete. School caretakers drag sodden mops across vinyl floors, fibre brushes encircle and collect dirt from marching souls.
Somewhere into it now. I’m lost. Running, callow, reverberate through the mist-drenched maze. Forgotten who or where I am. Clang of hammered metal echoes. Provocations of life elsewhere. But you’re lost. Still searching. Short of breath. Dire frustration. Where is this beast with blazing eyes and dripping jaws?
But you find the way out. Realize you were never trapped. Uncloaked. Left to walk at your own pace under the forgiving sun. Rippling soft.
I don’t wish to comment further. Take the trip yourself.
