MOUNT KIMBIE Schallplatten & CDs

Review: 10 years old... Depending when you were born, this reissue of Mount Kimbie's benchmark-setting album will either make you feel a little old or open up a whole new musical world. Either way, it's aged incredibly well as the duo took the dubstep essence and reinterpreted it through more of a hip-hop and beatmaker context. Sketches, all conjured up with heavy levels of emotion and textures, Crooks & Lovers still sounds like no other album and hints at some of the more melodic beat work (think Flume) that came a few years later. Highlights include the gentle lollops of 'Would Know', the glitchy dark garage funk of 'Blind Night Errand' the Clark-like dreamy skips and bubbles of 'Ode To Bear' and the overwhelming emotion of 'Maybes'.

Review: Following up the runaway success of Crooks & Lovers was always going to be a daunting task for Mount Kimbie, and they've wisely taken their time to come back with a step forwards from a sound which gave rise to the more folky strains of the dubstep aftermath. Sounding fresh and invigorated on their LP for Warp, Kai Campos and Dominic Maker have built on their love of shoegaze indie and brought their component parts into a clearer vision where they used to hide them behind heavy editing and microsampling. There are plenty of reminders that this is a Kimbie record, not least in the winsome melodies that shape the LP, but the duo have succeeded in shearing away their self-conscious trickery to write full-bodied songs that hit on first listen, rather than ten spins down the line.