Angelides is clearly a phenomenal producer that has managed to create a unique sound, best demonstrated on the superb “Cloudlight.” In fact, it’s such a good tune that it almost covers the price of the LP by itself.
[Listen | Purchase] San Franciscan producer Brendan Angelides, known as Eskmo to his rapidly growing fanbase, has seen outings on some pretty big electronic labels during his early career, including Warp and Planet Mu. He’s also recently collaborated with Brazilian master of sample manipulation Amon Tobin in a project called, well, Eskamon, of course (though they probably should have thought about Pokémon associations). Added to this, his clutch of finely crafted singles and EP’s eventually caught the attention of another legendary UK label and he has since gone on to drop his eponymous debut album on Ninja Tune back in October 2010.
Eskmo begins with an absolutely amazing tune called “Cloudlight,” which also has an accompanying promo video that is equally brilliant and can be viewed at the bottom of this review (…or visit the YouTube page). Kicking off with the sounds of distant rave ringing in your ears, Angelides instantly gets inside your head and lulls you into his musical world, before bringing in the rolling subs and his distinctive broken beats. These percussive elements feature layered samples of things like cracking eggshells and swords being struck together, employed in a similar manner to which artists such as Burial, Mount Kimbie and the aforementioned Amon Tobin tend to use them. On top of this, highly abused orchestral stabs flood the sound field to form imaginative and interesting counter rhythms to the main beat. The true splendor of the track begins around 40 seconds in, however, with the introduction of a haunting lead line, warm synths that bend majestically around the beats and eventually Angelides’ weirdly effected voice. But it’s the way everything comes together that really makes this track stand out, at once sounding like the music is buried deep underneath the ocean and yet soaring upon currents of hot air, all of which is implied in the additional sample layers and Angelides’ sparse lyrics.
Unfortunately, Angelides has set himself an impossible task, as the rest of the album never quite lives up to the magic of the first track. There are some beautiful moments further on, for sure, but generally the track elements never quite fuse as wonderfully as they do on “Cloudlight.” Second track “We Got More,” for example, brings a far more electro rock flavour to the fray, with a rather Gary Numan-influenced feel and Angelides somehow sounding a little like a Southern version of Trent Reznor repeating the same lines over and over. In short, it’s less than inspired. Things pick up again on the third number, “Color Dropping,” which takes a more laid back, atmospheric and jazzy approach, showing off Angelides’ ability to mix dense layers of found sounds to the full. “The Melody” has some decent synth work, too, building to a rather epic, melody-driven conclusion before the crunchy beats rejoin the proceedings. A welcome respite to these broken halftime rhythms comes in with “We Have Invisible Friends (Washed Mix)”, where Angelides opts for more of a juddering house beat instead. Another variation on Eskmo’s core sound is the track “Moving Glowstream,” which this time pushes the pitch-bent synths to the fore, bringing Vangelis’ ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack to mind.
Later on, “Siblings” opens up with some beautiful upper-octave piano lines over effected chords and washy drums. There are also some lovely building synth sections that are reminiscent of Boards Of Canada, especially when samples of a child’s voice occasionally comes in to play, with the gorgeous piano continuing to twinkle away throughout. Eastern sounding string instruments and percussion also take the Eskmo formula in another direction, producing the album’s second best cut as a result. Penultimate tune “Gold & Stone” also builds nicely, marrying an intricate web of harmonies provided by several warm synths and Angelides’ heavily processed voice. It’s backed once again by broken post-dubstep beats, made up of slightly mangled drum hits and additional layers of field recordings. However, these do start to grate by the end of the album, principally because all the snares/claps sound pretty much the same throughout.
Angelides is clearly a phenomenal producer that has managed to create a unique sound, best demonstrated on the superb “Cloudlight.” In fact, it’s such a good tune that it almost covers the price of the LP by itself. However, the rest of the album, though occasionally brilliant in places, does begin to recycle Eskmo’s trademark sounds a little too much. It’s definitely an album worth checking out, but whether you’ll regularly listen to it in its entirety is doubtful.
Eskmo is out now on Ninja Tune. [Listen | Purchase]
