Continent

This past January, Montreal's Mike Silver, riding high on a handful of high-profile remixes for Crystal Castles, HEALTH and Sally Shapiro, released his debut eight-bit electro manifesto EP, Panesian Nights. Continent, Silver's first full-length, does much to position his CFCF sound as an ongoing work-in-progress. Silver reinvents his songwriting style by simply messing around with the blueprint; album opener "Raining Patterns" pulls Italo disco into a 21st century state of mind, subsequently turning the genre's often misunderstood sexuality into a stylistic tool. "Big Love" has no problem pilfering Detroit techno, with the track's R&B-inspired vocals, chorded piano and skeletal beats working in direct contrast to the 16mm crackle and sandpaper guitar of "Summerlong." As CFCF's contemporaries, such as Bibio, Delorean and Air France, choose to filter their influences through layers of reverb and effects, Silver finds nothing wrong with keeping things extroverted, allowing Continent to become less fashionable and more fashioned with each listen.