Actress ft. Sampha - "Walking Flames"

 

Sampha adds his plaintive vocals to this lovely downtempo track from Actress.  It will be featured on Actress' upcoming record Karma and Desire.

Album Review: Actress - Ghettoville

Actress
Ghettoville
Rating: Meh

Producer/musician Darren Cunningham, who performs under the Actress moniker, has slowly moved from the woozy techno of aptly named debut album Hazyville to almost danceable forms on 2012's R.I.P., seemingly setting the stage for perhaps more crossover appeal. Prior to the release of his fourth album, titled Ghettoville, Cunningham announced that this would be the end of his work under Actress, and even implied that this would be his last artistic record for good. Whether this is a true statement or just a marketing ploy, Cunningham's music appears to be a perfect amalgamation of his statements, a scorched earth policy record, taking his touchstones, techno, acid house, fragmented hip-hop, early Warp records IDM, and boiling them down to their bare essence. Ghettoville is an unrelentingly dour, bleak record, one that feels like all happiness and joy in making music has been leeched out. As a totemic statement of purpose and finality, it is a brilliant move, but in terms of it being an enjoyable listen, it is too clinical and exacting to gain much from it other than muted appreciation.

Cunningham starts Ghettoville off with essentially a big fuck you to casual listeners. "Forgiven" is 7+ minutes of almost painfully cold, drone techno. Its ice cold percussion slapping you in the face like a sheet of ice, while the samples are looped into a painfully repetitive black hole.



This approach to structure is mirrored throughout the record, from the burbling, lurching strains of "Towers;" to
what sounds like a sample of the bassline from Daft Punk's "Around The World" heard underwater on the blocky, murky "Skyline;"



while on tracks like "Rap," Cunningham distorts and twists a vocal sample into almost an incomprehensible mantra with a drugged down beat that never quite goes anywhere but further down a rabbit hole.



Tracks start and end with very little interior movement. Ideas are more like unformed sketches, drawn out to interminable lengths. Just when you think he has latched onto an interesting idea and might run with it, either the track abruptly ends or just settles into that one groove without going anywhere.

The only time a little light and levity are allowed in the mix are on tracks like "Birdcage" with it's almost danceable beat, fractured vocal samples, and watercolor keyboards; the delicate and playful keyboards shimmering through "Our;"



a thumping 4 to the floor beat elevates the almost cheerful "Gaze" with its house piano stabs and thick bassline;



while a funky, playful rhythm track takes over the track "Image" bumping up against ping ponging percussion and woozy synth textures.

But Ghettoville never quite breaks through the black grey clouds that permeate the whole record. Songs mostly edge along with bare, basic elements with little to no texture and movement, all bleak, oppressive atmosphere that over a lengthy 70 minute runtime can start to get to you. Ending track "Grey Over Blue" has a haunted grace to it, but like opener "Forgiven" it rarely moves outside its rigid confines, washing over you like a powerful wave of gloom, thrashing you against the shore, dragging you back into its cold depths.



Ghettoville is a polarizing record that basically seals the coffin so to speak on Actress' output. While there are some impressive pieces scattered throughout, and Cunningham's steadfast refusal to work on anything but his own terms is admirable, the record itself is that solemn, unwanted friend of a friend at a dinner party that does everything in his power to bring down a pleasurable evening with talk of homelessness, social inequity, and greed; that wet blanket that clouds everything. Ghettoville is a sobering, cooly distant experience that I can't say you will want to experience many times.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.

Album Review: John Tejada - The Predicting Machine

John Tejada
The Predicting Machine
Rating: Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It

Austrian producer John Tejada's second album for the venerable German microhouse and minimal techno label Kompact is a surprisingly diverse set of tracks that smoothly segues between deep house workouts and more atmospheric excursions, even exploring some more electro-tinged areas. The Predicting Machine hits the ground running with the furious house of lead track "Orbiter," melodic tech house banger "A Familiar Mood," a spacier track "An Ounce of Perception." The only real snag on the album comes when Tejada slows things down with the back-to-back almost beatless tracks "Winter Skies" and "Radio Channel," which show his dexterity but tend to stop the flow of the album in its tracks.



From there however, the album kicks back into gear with a nearly flawless set of tracks. First single "The Function and the Form" throws down a pounding beat amid fluttering keyboards.



BPM's increase with the skronky dance track "Stabilizer," jumpy and jiterry "Horizon to Horizon," and the Orbital referencing "Glaringly Happy" with its cloudscraping synth melodies and hard-edged electro drum programming.



All ending with the gorgeous electro track "When All Around Us Is Madness" which glides Blade Runner synths over crisp, dark beats.



The Predicting Machine is a solid tech-house release that keeps things moving and interesting except for that one section of more ambient-esque techno that almost collapses the flow of the album. While not as stunning as releases this year from John Talabot, Scuba, Actress, and even Orbital, The Predicting Machine still gets the job done well, and is a frequently rewarding listen.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.

Album Review - Actress: R.I.P.

Actress
R.I.P.
Rating: Grrrr

Instrumental electronic records are always difficult to review. Basically, you have to come up with words and phrases to describe something that can, at times, be indescribable. So much of what I hear has an emotional tie to me, that attempting to express those emotions can be an impossible task. There is a :15 section of Black Dog Productions' single "Jauqq" that is the most beautiful piece of electronic music I have ever heard. For me, there is no other combination of sounds that can simultaneously make me weep and smile at the same time. And if it were any longer than 15 seconds I think the spell would be broken. I don't share that song with most people because most that hear it think it's just ok, but not some transcendent experience. That personal connection is what makes it for me, and attempting to describe that feeling to someone is a futile task. There is a moment deep inside Actress' (a.k.a. Darren J. Cunningham) new album R.I.P. that finds me in a similar situation, where a convergence of sounds makes me stop what I am doing and almost slip into a state of semi-consciousness. The track "N.E.W." just has the right layers of sounds that wind around one another and calm my being. It is a stunning moment on a record that simultaneously challenges you and warmly invites you into its home.



Actress has slowly edged away from more traditional dance floor ready tracks into more amorphous territory. There are echoes here of works from Oneohtrix Point Never, Boards of Canada, and some of Pantha Du Prince's pointillistic touches. Frequently, the tracks border on ambient, featuring beatless swathes of undulating atmospherics broken only by underpinnings of white noise and harsh buzzes. There is an underlying menace to these tracks. Even the softer, more fragile tracks have dark corners and edges. The music box twinkle of "Jardin" cajoles and skips along on its charming melody while a skittering, bug-like presence dances and flickers underneath.



Other tracks are outright hostile, like the sinister "Serpent" which combines nervous, repetitive synth bites with a layer of droning strings over a pulsing beat. Somber guitar notes and additional industrial clanging add to the mood.



Which bleeds into "Shadow From Tartarus," which continues the haunted house dance floor vibe, complete with off-kilter keyboard scales and a dense low end of rumbling bass and drums.



R.I.P. is sometimes mind-bogglingly diverse and on the first few listens there doesn't seem to be anything tying the tracks together, or providing some measurable sense of flow. I think this is conscious decision on Actress' part to prevent the listener from becoming complacent and letting the music slip into the background. R.I.P. constantly shifts focus, maintaining your attention. This approach makes you listen more intently to each track individually, but allowing them all to fall back down into a cohesive collection. The almost mini-suite of pseudo-House tracks of "Jardin," "Serpent," and "Shadow From Tartarus," is blunted into "Tree of Knowledge," a difficult, glitchy track where the synths sound like they are fighting against the power going out.



The first three opening tracks bound off one another with sparkling, bright synth washes with "Ascending" barely hinting at a subterranean beat, and "Holy Water" bubbling and gurgling into the harsh thrust of "Marble Plexus" which feels like the soundtrack to some dark subway ride.



Indeed, the tracks here could easily haunt some reworking of Blade Runner. The rough edges to the tracks evoke decaying cities and people in despair. If it wasn't for the beautiful melodies that appear in and out of the gloom, an oppressive air would hang overhead. And when Actress actually delivers a 4 to the floor banger, like the frenetic "The Lord's Graffiti," you are even more grateful for the reminder that you are alive and well.



There are only a few tracks that didn't particularly catch my attention. "Raven" almost buries any semblance of melody in white noise, the pretty, shimmering "Glint" barely lasts half a minute and feels more like a sketch than an actual completed track, and closer "IWAAD" mistakes throb for purpose. But even those slight faults cannot negatively impact the effect some his sounds have on me. There is an innate sense of emotion and connection I have with this record, as if it has taken all these years for these perfect combinations of notes, as in "N.E.W.," to reach me and let me know all is right in the world. R.I.P. is a beautifully constructed record that is easily one of the standout electronic albums of the year.

Rating Scale:

Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.

Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.

Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.

Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.

Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.

Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.

Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.

Panda Bear: "Surfer's Hymn"

Here is the latest Panda Bear pre-LP singles' release. Called "Surfer's Hymn," it is an odd little song, full of sunny instrumentation, and liquidy vocals, but for some reason, for me, never really adds up to much. The album Tomboy comes out on April 11. I actually prefer the remix of the song from Actress, which can be found here.

Of all the tracks he has released prior to the album, this song is my favorite so far:

Panda Bear - Slow Motion by ListenBeforeYouBuy