Even on a gently-ebbing number like 'Gliding Squares', which seems to call back directly to 'Ascending' and 'N.E.W.' –– the chokingly tender bookends of "R.I.P." –– there’s a tactical decision to play it straight, rather than Cunningham showing us a past self through a gauze. Maybe he got bored of the murk and obfuscation; maybe he’s merely getting a prettier album out of his system before doubling down with a dense tome of glitch.
But as well as integrating singing into his compositions, what’s interesting is that Actress no longer operates alone in a wider sense, either. You can point to a lineage of Black British musicians –– including cktrl, Dean Blunt, Coby Sey and Klein –– who work within a roughly similar framework: cloaked in shadow, leaving breadcrumbs in the trail, engaging with light and the dark, all crafting beautifully poignant, categorisation-eluding music with a range of tools. It makes "Karma & Desire" the first Actress album in a minute to chime with the contemporary mood. And if that leads to another round of collaboration from here, we’ll be all the richer for it.
