Acclaimed beat producer Odd Nosdam has been pretty quiet over the last few years, only rearing his head in 2013 to drop an LP of instrumentals from the work he did on Serengeti's Kenny Dennis EP. Much to the delight of long-term fans, he's now returned with his first proper solo album in seven years, but if this latest release is any indication, it seems that he spent a lot of that time lost in a kind of nostalgic fog.
Sisters comes off equal parts Pink Floyd and Boards of Canada, but not in the good way: this is more post-1980s Floyd, and just the vague outline of BoC's masterful ambience, a hybrid that doesn't hold a candle to the playful glitch-hop that made previous releases like Burner and No More Wig For Ohio so enjoyable. Shorter tracks like "Center" and "Ten Echoes" feel superfluous despite the latter's attempt to leverage angelic choir samples to sound grand — an unfortunate trait that then repeats itself on the title track. The same tactic applied to some of the lengthier cuts, however, reaps better results: "Burrow," for example, is a gloriously psychedelic stroll through the clouds, while "Endless 432" (featuring Teebs) is just plain beautiful.
Occasionally stunning but largely uninspired, Sisters ultimately fails to reach Odd Nosdam's lofty goals of soaring. He's apparently been meticulously testing the album's low end on world class speakers over the last 12 months, but that might be part of the problem: Sisters might sound mind-blowing on a pair of Moon Audio Opulence speakers, and maybe it'll sound great in Carnegie Hall, but without access to such grandeur, the everyday listener will likely be disappointed here.
(Leaving)Sisters comes off equal parts Pink Floyd and Boards of Canada, but not in the good way: this is more post-1980s Floyd, and just the vague outline of BoC's masterful ambience, a hybrid that doesn't hold a candle to the playful glitch-hop that made previous releases like Burner and No More Wig For Ohio so enjoyable. Shorter tracks like "Center" and "Ten Echoes" feel superfluous despite the latter's attempt to leverage angelic choir samples to sound grand — an unfortunate trait that then repeats itself on the title track. The same tactic applied to some of the lengthier cuts, however, reaps better results: "Burrow," for example, is a gloriously psychedelic stroll through the clouds, while "Endless 432" (featuring Teebs) is just plain beautiful.
Occasionally stunning but largely uninspired, Sisters ultimately fails to reach Odd Nosdam's lofty goals of soaring. He's apparently been meticulously testing the album's low end on world class speakers over the last 12 months, but that might be part of the problem: Sisters might sound mind-blowing on a pair of Moon Audio Opulence speakers, and maybe it'll sound great in Carnegie Hall, but without access to such grandeur, the everyday listener will likely be disappointed here.
