Review

Mount Kimbie

Cold Spring Fault Less Youth

Warp • 2013

Mount Kimbie’s debut was awesome. Unfortunately it was almost spoiled by its – still ongoing – consequences. One of them is the term »post dubstep«, which is as easy to narrow down as Baha Men’s dogs. On their first record, Mount Kimbie had enriched dubstep by lots of sensitivity, precise rhythms and great attention to detail, so that music-journalists didn’t know what to call it and changed the genre-name ever so slightly. Now the musicians from London have released their second record. »Cold Spring Fault Less Youth« is built on the same foundation as the previous one, however, Mount Kimbie have found some more room behind every clatter, every sequence of chords and every bass line of »Crooks & Lovers«. On their second album, they fill all those spaces with even more creative spirits, melodies – and vocals. King Krule himself has contributed to it with his nonchalant singsong and has perfectly captured the record’s prevailing mood: It’s sunk into the sofa while it sparkles and glistens in every tiny detail. So if you want to catch the dogs again, you’d have to say: Mount Kimbie are more downbeat than before. However, before a song actually collapses on the couch, new percussion sounds start to gurgle up from deep down, new synth-sounds come rushing around the corner, adding new life to the track so that it gets going again. On »Cold Spring Fault Less Youth« Mount Kimbie have written clear melodies in the spirit of Blake, but they deliver them much more casually, almost disdainful. One could start trying to redefine this style again, and would still fail to specify the content behind the label – why not agree on calling it post-Mound-Kimbie then?