d'Eon

Lush, overly ambitious and bursting with neon-coloured sounds that harken back to the late '80s and early '90s, it might easy for some to write d'Eon's music off as hipper-than-thou posturing. For those who don't get squeamish about his hyperactive amalgam of soft rock, R&B, new age, jungle, juke and various other EDM styles though, his music is quite rewarding and intriguing. You also realize that while he's being a tad playful, it's a mostly earnest affair. Generally assuming a bigger, thicker and brighter sound than on his previous effort, Darkbloom (a split with Grimes), his dense, plastic-y spirals of ersatz orchestra and synth confetti showers envelope the listener throughout. This fine matrix of bygone preset sounds gets pretty taxing for the listener, at points, but it's also hard not be charmed by d'Eon's sensuous hybridity. "Chastisement" opens with ornamented "piano" figures, evoking Ethiopian music, only to be joined by an Auto-Tuned vocal line and 808-programming right out of some weirdo T-Pain track. On "Signals Intelligence," '80s faux-Shakuhachi sounds emerge from clouds and cascades, accompanied by frantic, junglist break beats. Exciting, but occasionally frustrating, in terms of its duration and constant density, LP is sweet, idiosyncratic and worth investigating.