There's no easing in; UK producer ELWD dunks you headfirst into his lo-fi loops on latest release, All Good Things, and it's almost like what you'd imagine to find on the cutting room floor from Flying Lotus. Just like the latter artist, it's often hard to get a grasp on the mood of the album before the winds shift and new soundscapes scratch the skyline — think the Avalanches meets Star Slinger, without the dance floor push.
There's a lot about All Good Things that you really want to love — a track like "inbloom," for example, stands out immediately as the centrepoint the album seems to need, using drum breaks, a wealth of samples and an upbeat synth loop — but it too often feels like we're only afforded a glimpse of what it could be. Pushed up against the rest of the album that's dripping with annihilated samples, scratchy loops, and no discernible start or end point, "inbloom" is an outlier here; and when you toss in often messy and awkward transitions, the draws the album does have unfortunately start to dissipate.
(Bad Taste)There's a lot about All Good Things that you really want to love — a track like "inbloom," for example, stands out immediately as the centrepoint the album seems to need, using drum breaks, a wealth of samples and an upbeat synth loop — but it too often feels like we're only afforded a glimpse of what it could be. Pushed up against the rest of the album that's dripping with annihilated samples, scratchy loops, and no discernible start or end point, "inbloom" is an outlier here; and when you toss in often messy and awkward transitions, the draws the album does have unfortunately start to dissipate.