MOUNT KIMBIE - Crooks and Lovers (Hotflush Recordings)

London's Mount Kimbie have produced one of the most beguiling records of the year with their debut album "Crooks and Lovers". The duo of Dom Maker and Kai Campos craft music steeped in dubstep that incorporates techno, ambient, and IDM, making for a sound that is not easily categorized. The band caused a stir in the dubstep community last year with the release of their first ep "Maybes" on Paul Rose's (aka dubstep superstar Scuba) label Hotflush Recordings. The recording sounded a bit like Boards of Canada played by Burial. Another ep, "Sketch on Glass", followed raising expectations even further for their debut long player. "Crooks and Lovers" does not disappoint, although it may require repeated close listens to pin down everything going on here.

"Tunnel Vision" begins the album with another Burial/Boards of Canada hybrid that features looped acoustic guitar, a ghostly dubstep shuffle, disembodied vocals and droplets of electronic rain. "Would Know" follows and signals that overall the band is playing with a muted palette of sounds on "Crooks and Lovers". The piece's languid ambient-inspired surface is only slightly disturbed by a far-off pulsating dubstep beat and effects that would normally overpower a track, but here are buried far underneath layers of gentle waves of sound.

The duo are at their best, though, when they liven things up just a tad, as on the dizzingly great "Before I Move Off." The piece begins with hauntingly discordant plucked piano strings reminiscent of a Ghost Box recording. The strings are looped into an Escher-like rhythm that is soon juxtaposed against a counter-rhythm of steady percussive effects, circular bass and electronic squiggles. Eventually the piano strings drop out and chopped up soul vocals emerge taking the song into a brighter territory. It's one of the album's best tracks in part because the band runs the gamut from dark to light effortlessly, shifting moods and textures on a dime.

Unfortunately "Before I Move Off" is one of the few tracks where the band mixes things up so extensively. If there a weakness to "Crooks and Liars" it is that while each track is fairly captivating in its own way, most lack the dynamism evident on "Before I Move Off". Some tracks like "Adriatic" are little more than pleasant wallpaper. "Carbonated" and "Ruby" on the other hand, mixes both approaches. The tracks are not as immediately striking as "Before...", but repeated listens reveal a shifting array of sounds throughout each that will reward listeners.

Complaints aside, nevertheless “Crooks and Lovers” is more than a worthwhile listen. At its best it is a blueprint forward for ambient-dance oriented music. Furthermore the breadth of Mount Kimbie’s approach is pretty staggering. Listen to the meditative “Ode to Bear” followed by the Kompakt infected techno of the incredible “Field,” and you will get two very different approaches to electronic music that somehow comes together seamlessly on “Crooks and Lovers”. If anything at the end of this record, I was left wanting more. I wanted the duo to go further with their experiments, dig even deeper and destroy what few boundaries remained. This is a good beginning that offers the promise of an even better future.

"Before I Move Off"


"Would Know"


"Field"