Bleep

The follow up to Mount Kimbie’s 2010 release ‘Crooks and Lovers’ saw them expand both their artistic vision and the label they called home in a move from Scuba’s Hotflush Recordings to Warp. Their debut album was widely praised for its unique mix of lush field recordings, chopped-up R&B vocals, and jazz-infected hooks and was often mimicked but rarely matched in the period that followed its release.

‘Cold Spring Fault Less Youth’ deliberately distances itself from the crisp character of its predecessor with a focus on a more analogue sound which owes much to the duo’s regular live presence, and includes several guest vocals from Londoner King Krule. Lead single ‘Made To Stray’ is club music with a commandingly strange structure and trademark luxurious chord washes, while ‘Blood and Form’ is a mucky, thumping cut which shows how far the duo have evolved. There’s a boldness to cuts like ‘So Many Times, So Many Ways’, where jazz influences which might previously have been submerged are allowed breathing space amongst cinematic analogue synths, and the bruising hip-hop of ‘You Took Your Time’ which evidence a production unit refusing to rest on tried and tested methods and nonetheless creating as approachable and unique an album as they have before.