Album Review : Actress - Splazsh
- Written by Johnny Stockford
These are exciting times for UK dance and dubstep. Mount Kimbie and James Blake have both released great, forward-thinking post-dubstep records this year in the wake of Burial's Untrue, and now Honest Jon's Actress is set to join Zomby in further widening the pool of talent. Wolverhampton-born Darren Cunningham, the man behind Actress as well as the founder of the Werks Discs label, has returned with an album that almost defies categorisation. His fascination is evidently with the mechanics of electronic music, and his sophomore LP such demands close attention because of its preoccupation with dismantling and reconfiguring dub, house and techno in such microscopic detail.
This is a record to get completely lost in. It comes across like an archaeological dig for fragments of deformed, decaying sound. 'Take Get Ohn (Fairlight Mix)' for example: its whip-like beat is met with tiny bleeps that occasionally jump out of the grainy mix, only to slip away back into its depths. It's an artefact of house music, fed through a computer and filtered, the samba drums barely distinguishable from the computer generated layers that flirt with them.
The London-based producer has broadened his scope here - Splazsh explores and engages with dubstep in more intricate ways than debut Hazyville, each track covering new territory from the previous one while remaining glitchy, dirty and defiantly abstract. The attention to detail is staggering, Cunningham often slowing the tempo right down barely a pulse so that he can work his magic. So low, in fact, that at points parts of the machinery of this music seem to be in some kind of dormant stage.
'Bubble Butts and Equations' sounds like an old, barely-functional piece of equipment spitting fluids, dripping like a tap and occasionally finding a signal. The combined effect of all the grimey sounds on 'Bubble Butts' is disturbing on the ears, but nothing quite like the ear-fuckery of the appropriately-titled 'Supreme Cunnilingus', a track which sounds like a room full of mobiles going off on different levels of vibrate. It's like having experimental work done on your ear canals, this being very much a headphones record. Try listening to Splazsh on your stereo and it will lose its intensity. Given a room to disperse into it comes across as anaemic and distant.
The 8 minute long opener, 'Hubble', avoids huge basslines and beats in favour of ambient noise: it's built out of minimal techno loops that rise and fall, click and shuffle against clipped female vocals. It constantly regurgitates itself to the extent that time feels monumentally huge, almost overbearing as the beat sticks so rigidly to its course. You could easily expect the record to slip into more of the same monotony, but whenever Splazsh comes close to classification it breaks loose and redefines itself. 'Lost' values build and development just as Hubble's circular patterns justify repetition. It begins as a hazy intro of pulsating bass and muffled vocals but buckles and breaks into a far brighter chunk of treble-heavy techno with twinkling synths and hi hats. Album highlight 'Maze' also sounds bright and radiant alongside many of the more ghostly, jittery tracks here, bubbling and purring with tiny chemical explosions. It's a rare moment that hits the pleasure points rather than shocking or agitating.
This is undoubtedly a weird and unsettling listen. It's also one that grips you and sucks you in to its intimate, futuristic worlds, making you come back for more.