Bleep

After a decade of turning out productions for the likes of Hyperdub and Ilian Tape, calling Sam Walton’s latest full-length a sea change would be a painfully obvious bit of wordplay if it wasn’t a gross understatement.

Maisie By The Sea finds Walton completely out of his element and thriving. Releasing the album via AD 93-offshoot Lith Dolina, the Manchester-based producer is an unlikely fit with the label’s mission of highlighting electronic music’s more experimental fringes, but Maisie more than delivers with a near-abandonment of form in favour of emotive impact. ‘Pluck’ opens the album with an unassuming ambient interlude before contorting into haunted, Burial indebted bass music on ‘Sirens.’ It’s an apt introduction to Walton’s sonic headspace on Maisie, taking a stream-of-consciousness approach as he splices mournful ambience, apocalyptic acid house, and cavernous drum and bass within an eight-song run.

The album’s most club-ready moments, ‘Working Title’ and ‘Whispering Acyd,’ caps a tense opening half, but Maisie’s largely ambient second act is where Walton shines. With a series of soundscapes that oscillate between lush and unsettling, the album’s latter half reclaims its initial tension before ‘Broken Dreams’ explodes with military-grade blasts and operatic vocals. It may make for an uneasy trip to the sea, but Maisie heralds a borderless new chapter in Walton’s career.