When I first read the pervertedly emphatic review of the new Actress LP on Boomkat I couldn’t help but smirk discreetly, wondering if the reviewer had just ingested a concentrated drop of acid and had somehow embedded themselves inside the music itself, which had in turn warped their entire perception into a world they may never be able to truly comprehend…
“…Showing a teflon resistance towards easy categorisation, ‘Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)’ swerves down a side street into a footwurkin’ face-off by cyborgs sliding to a mutilated mix of Jon E Cash and Chez Damier played underwater. Next we hit the erogenous interzone of ‘Maze’ and that incapacitatingly lush bassline designed to lock into your central nervous system and send shockwaves of piloerection to every f*cking corner of your soul. After that, we’re cynically dumped, cold post-sex style into the Ferraro-esque Prince tribute ‘Purple Splazsh’, and on into the Detroit ghetto stalk of ‘Let’s Fly’…”
But after listening to it pretty much non stop for the past month it’s fairly easy to see where what they are suggesting, as I think this is in firm contention for my favourite album of the year so far.
Entering with the Orb like tones of Hubble, which despite it only being half as long at a mere 9 minutes you can’t help but draw comparison to ‘A Huge Ever Growing Brain…’ as it strolls through a repetitively hypnotic ambient rhythm which teases with vocal snippets and gravelly percussion…
His remix of Various Production‘s Lost is the next track, which for me is where it really gets started, introduced with a simple house groove and distorted bass that trickles into a deep melodic affair with a breakdown to die for around 2/3 of the way in before dropping back in to fuzzy house overlayed with fragmented vocals.
The real treat for me on this LP though is the filtered house cut of Always Human which sounds like the end product of a late night meeting between Jackson and Jamie Jones with it’s deep summery house feeling and chopped vocals, definitely one for the day parties
By no means is the rest of the album to be shirked on though, especially the romantic robot song Maze and the housier Senorita, basically not one track falters. After listening to those you can probably see why I’m touting it so highly, alongside that Boomkat review. Definitely one for the purchase.
Favourite album of the year? It could well be…