Rating: 4/5 Verdict: Weird and minimal electronic intrigue
Many of the songs on this debut album from the London-based duo of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos sound like unfinished snippets or vignettes - and that's not even counting the three short interludes on the record. But the overall effect is strangely intriguing, and it makes Crooks & Loverscome across more like one long song than an album.
The pair, who only started making music together two years ago, create unassuming and strange sounds that pillage unashamedly from a minimal electronic music aesthetic. It takes as much from dubstep (although they apparently coined the word post-dubstep to describe their sound) as it does from Detroit techno (on the spare boogie of Mayor) and beautifully lush ambient music (on Ode to Bear, which settles around you like a creepy mist). But it's never cold, lacking in life, and machine-like, as some of this sort of music can be, and there's a crispness and meditative mood to their sound. Even the churning clamour of Field, with its out of kilter and detuned strums, has a meditative mood to it; there's a twitchy two-step-meets-dubstep bleep and glitch to Blind Night Errand; and Before I Move recalls the oddball electronic pop of Royksopp, or something even more odd like Lemon Jelly. So nestle yourself into your bean bag, take a load off, and let this inventive pair whisk you away on a wistful, and sometimes haunting, sonic journey.
