Splazsh

by 
AlbumMay 28 / 201014 songs, 1h 1m 57s
Microhouse Tech House
Popular Highly Rated

*Splazsh* is one of those albums that plays better as an album than as individual songs, giving it a gestalt quality; it\'s a painting more than a series of brushstrokes. Where Actress\' first album, *Hazyville*, used much of the same vocabulary—an echo of deteriorated rave and ambient influence—*Splazsh* is a more perfected evolution of that sound. Starting with the near-nine-minute \"Hubble\" (a song that should by all rights grow tiresome with a persistent four-to-the-floor), there\'s never a sense of lost energy in the gentle ebb and flow of the track programming. In fact, perhaps part of why this works so well as a cohesive piece is the fact that Actress never seems to make anything longer (or shorter) than it needs to be. There aren\'t any intentionally DJ-friendly intros or outros, and some perfectly dance floor–friendly selections like \"Senorita\" are more like tone poems, clocking in at just a few minutes. Whether by virtue of excellent editing, production, or something more ephemeral and indefinable, *Splazsh* is an immediate classic; it\'s an expression carving out its own moment in time.

8.3 / 10

Nominally working under the umbrella of dubstep, this London producer has called his music "R&B concrète"-- a celebration of the abstract and the pop.

Sharper, sprawling, and more bent in comparison to 2008's Hazyville -- Darren Cunningham's first Actress album -- Splazsh is a brilliantly malformed collision of dubstep, IDM, garage, and experimental techno.

6 / 10

Electronic music’s latest “It” kid is Darren Cunningham, founder of the pivotal Werk Discs label and the solo artist known by the transgendered...

Album Reviews: Actress - Splazsh

88 %