Bleep

Japanese producer Kaito returns to Kompakt for a lush companion LP to recent release ‘Until the End Of Time’. Much of ‘Less Time Until the End’ impresses in its sheer gorgeousness of sound: stuttering string washes on ‘I’m Leaving Home’, huge walls of faded orchestral chords on ‘Will To Live’, and twinkling glockenspiels cutting through the warmth on ‘Smile’. It is the artist’s meshing of these potentially saccharine elements with throbbing beats which lifts the record above mere chill-out music and into the strange mixture of folk and dance music achieved by Kieran Hebden on ‘Rounds’.