Bleep

The thrillingly other-worldly and innovative second LP from Actress entitled Splazsh dropped in 2010, and still sounds light years ahead of it's time now, seeming to skirt all club conventions while pulling the listener into irresistible dancefloor action and intoxicating cerebral zones.

It twitches with all the energy of a producer calling on a raft of influences, from as far as Prince, Peter Gabriel, and John Carpenter to the well-trodden path of Drexciya, Detroit techno, and science fiction. Yet any attempt to reverse engineer these studies of the music canon will likely leave your head spinning, as Actress squeezes them into a sonic experience from beyond known dimensions. ‘Hubble’ steams in with a lo-fi transmission like data from a sunken hydrophone, its coarse pulsations and kicks like strings of pearls split and tear the track’s fabric, with silvery iridescence pouring throughout.

There’s something shiny and playful in the raw nocturnality of Splazsh’s techno energy. ‘Lost’ stumbles with a 6/4 rhythm, its breathy vocal clips ethered, its slinky synth lead frayed, giving way to purring bass tremors and clattering beat ceramics. Glass and metal clink like a turn signal setting the pace, synths wobble like laminated sheets, and sharp edged beats are tangled in shrubbery. Sci-fi acid stabs are laced with dread, possibility, and intrigue on ‘Maze’, while ‘Purple Splazsh’ is full-on vaporwave: Actress twists psychedelic guitar loops to his mercy, while “ooh”s and “yeah”s dissolve into the mist.

Actress shows complex range on Splazsh with a distinctly beautiful set of tracks that sing together in abnormal harmony, a stone cold classic from 2010.