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Product Description
Review
The term dubstep is becoming increasingly, wonderfully nebulous, just the right side of meaningless. From Burial to Eleven Tigers and now Mount Kimbie, it seems to function as an ignition switch to embark on vast-ranging explorations into an imaginary, post-nightclub world, in which nostalgia and future horizons loom equally large. What is "dubstep"? Who, in a sense, cares? In this instance, it's Crooks & Lovers, the first album proper by the duo Dominic Maker and Kai Campos, the latest in a long line of similarly unassuming-looking young dudes to get together to create improbably fabulous alchemy in electronica.
Crooks & Lovers is an album of abrupt changes and paradoxes, at once organic and heavily processed, drowsy and yet with moments of eyes-on-stalks urgency, acoustically sweet and electrically charged. It's akin to gently drifting in and out of consciousness on a bus trip, only to be sporadically jolted back into consciousness.
Tunnelvision, the opener, floats down from some odd, hazy place, reminiscent of soon-to-be-revived oceanic 80s rockers A.R. Kane, a mix of short, acoustic riffs, disembodied voices and an adjacent rhythm shuffling by like a caterpillar. Would Know follows, swaddled in grainy bromide, borrowing the Daft Punk opening-the-door-to-the-nightclub effect. Before I Move Off and Carbonated exhibit Mount Kimbie's duality in full, double-vision effect, the latter juxtaposing effervescent pop balm with a dramatic, dub swell. Adriatic, blissful and lapping, is a sweet interlude, the briefest of holiday postcards, while Ruby, with its shimmering, apocalyptic horizon is most noticeably in some sort of neo-Burial, dubstep tradition. But then follows the beguiling, puzzling Field, whose lengthy, faded-in intro features the alien, thrumming sound of a rhythmic device hitherto unknown to man systematically chomping away at everything in its path, before being abruptly supplanted by to a bucolic mid-section more reminiscent of the likes of Bibio.
Unmoored and out there, Mount Kimbie come across in interviews as a little startled themselves by what they've come up with, and continue to come up with, but that's all to the good. They've no idea where they're going. Go with them.
--David StubbsFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Product Description
CD
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By W. Tolley
Format:Audio CD
I'd only heard a couple of tracks by Mount Kimbe before I bought this CD, but it was a massive surprise. It is a beautiful little album. If you're into anyone electronic from Aphex Twin to Zomby, it is highly recommended.
This is one of those albums where a track finishes and rather than getting more of the same, you're surprised by something totally different, that still manages to maintain the pace and flow of the album. It feels like a real record, not a collection of random singles. Songs take their time to blossom, melodies and rhythms cleverly flutter around before you fully get the picture. It manages to sound extremely organic and natural, yet it employs a lot of woozy.. even maybe funky bleeps and bloops warp-style.
Overall I would say this is a stunning album. Call it dubstep, garage, IDM or house, call it whatever, but it most definitely could not describe the clever orginal sound that these guys have cooked up with their beats. I look forward to when these guys get even better at their craft.
This is one of those albums where a track finishes and rather than getting more of the same, you're surprised by something totally different, that still manages to maintain the pace and flow of the album. It feels like a real record, not a collection of random singles. Songs take their time to blossom, melodies and rhythms cleverly flutter around before you fully get the picture. It manages to sound extremely organic and natural, yet it employs a lot of woozy.. even maybe funky bleeps and bloops warp-style.
Overall I would say this is a stunning album. Call it dubstep, garage, IDM or house, call it whatever, but it most definitely could not describe the clever orginal sound that these guys have cooked up with their beats. I look forward to when these guys get even better at their craft.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
It's been said before, but Dubstep is a fascinating genre. And it's one that is fast losing a middle ground, as it splits between mainstream friendly acts like Skrillex who focus on 'drop' intensity and belligerent synth riffs, and the Post-Dubstep community - populated by acts like James Blake, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Mount Kimbie, who favour ambient loops and abstract rhythms over adrenaline pumping decimation filters. This album is a fantastic flagship for the latter, buttery with chords and honey-soaked samples oozing over intricate beats - constantly unfolding and evolving as it progresses.
Crooks and Lovers kicks off with Tunnelvision, featuring soft guitar strums, distant vocals and wonderfully off-kilter rhythms, giving a taste of what's to come. As the track fades away, chatter and ambient noise rises from the ether, and is soon joined a head nodding melody and beat combination reminiscent of 'chopped and screwed' hip-hop. This of course, is the arrival of the second track Would Know, which not only delights with soothing chords but also surprises with synth refrains which break up the action beautifully.
And so it goes on, a constant series of surprises, unexpected sounds and delicately assembled production - from the heart warming beats of Before I Move off, to the frantic agitation of Blind Night Errand. From the toe-tapping vibes of Adriatic, to the slow rocking of Ode to Bear, it is an acoustically dazzling reassertion of what Dubstep is. If you like lo-fi sounds mixed with warm reverb and crisp drum patterns then there really is no question, this is the album for you.
Whilst it certainly features a lot of unorthodox experimentation, it is by no means a painful or challenging listen, so you should be able to dip in and out as you please without losing the feel - although I feel it is best appreciated with a complete start-to-finish play through.
In short then, this album Crooks and Lovers is to Post-Dubstep what Daft Punk's Discovery is to House. Phenomenal.
Crooks and Lovers kicks off with Tunnelvision, featuring soft guitar strums, distant vocals and wonderfully off-kilter rhythms, giving a taste of what's to come. As the track fades away, chatter and ambient noise rises from the ether, and is soon joined a head nodding melody and beat combination reminiscent of 'chopped and screwed' hip-hop. This of course, is the arrival of the second track Would Know, which not only delights with soothing chords but also surprises with synth refrains which break up the action beautifully.
And so it goes on, a constant series of surprises, unexpected sounds and delicately assembled production - from the heart warming beats of Before I Move off, to the frantic agitation of Blind Night Errand. From the toe-tapping vibes of Adriatic, to the slow rocking of Ode to Bear, it is an acoustically dazzling reassertion of what Dubstep is. If you like lo-fi sounds mixed with warm reverb and crisp drum patterns then there really is no question, this is the album for you.
Whilst it certainly features a lot of unorthodox experimentation, it is by no means a painful or challenging listen, so you should be able to dip in and out as you please without losing the feel - although I feel it is best appreciated with a complete start-to-finish play through.
In short then, this album Crooks and Lovers is to Post-Dubstep what Daft Punk's Discovery is to House. Phenomenal.
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Slip off your blazer, smooth down your deck pants and get your finest show pony set for a gambol through Mount Kimbie's engrossing new Garden of Electrotainment. Holster that riding crop and let your charge leisurely lead you through this carefully cultivated landscape of audio cuttings, babbling bass lines and meandering electric licks. By turns playful, pulse-quickening and splendidly soporific, Crooks and Lovers may not be profound enough to entice you to pitch your tent, but it's an extremely pleasant place to take a stroll this summer.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Clever
prodction, but ultimately somewhat uninvolving; some if not most tracks feel if not a little half-hearted, then kind of unfinished. Read more
Published 2 months ago by groucho
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better
This deserves 5 stars.
It took a while to get into but if you persist you will be rewarded. Also check out the EP's.
It took a while to get into but if you persist you will be rewarded. Also check out the EP's.
Published 3 months ago by JasonIvor
4.0 out of 5 stars
Took me a while to...
I ordered this and i listened to the first few songs in my car and rejected it. Then put it on in my lounge whilst surfing the net and i like it. Good album. Read more
Published 9 months ago by J. Fearon
2.0 out of 5 stars
Blips, Drips and Strips
Have listened to this a few times now but I just can't get into it, there is no substance in this music at all. Read more
Published 20 months ago by A. Clarke
4.0 out of 5 stars
A new take on 'dubstep'
In a genre, taking little pockets of people by surprise and wrapping them up in the ever growing snowball of fans, lays `Mount Kimbie' cleverly tripping off into commercial... Read more
Published on 18 Aug 2010 by LX Holden
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb listen
Wow this deserves a wide audience as it certainly lives up to the hype. A real journey into musical pleasure
Published on 26 July 2010 by Ozze;;
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