Sybarite

If the opening title track to Sybarite’s Cut Out Shape was tangible, it would be a glorious product of geometry. Mirroring cover art of abstract, multi-coloured matter congregating in the centre of a red field, the circular melodies and piercing horns announcing and repealing soothing keyboard hooks, dance on an attention-deficit bed of glitch beats, forming a dense track of textured, embedded curvatures. The accompanying tracks, meanwhile, are less magnificent. "Runaway” featuring Psapp’s Galia Durant, feels just as hyper without the empathic beauty. Lamenting "Oh, I didn’t know that you had feelings too” induces the question of whether or not the artists at work genuinely appreciate the difficulty in consuming art over the laboriousness of creating it. "Memorability” is sometimes traded off for style, as with the prickling, high pitched melody that intersperses with the luscious vocals of "Runaway.” They fit the song, but the song itself fits a need to impress oneself rather than a desire to share one’s work. "Sanctuary” suffers a similar fate, with insistent, split-second samples of sonic experimentation littered beneath break beats and soft strings. The same horns that carried the opener flutter flat and fleetingly, marking its denouement. "Memory End” and "Halfmoon Rockstruck” come out of exciting beginnings and inspired build-ups only to develop out of their strengths and into more ambitious and ambient compositions, while leaving their rhythmic undertones stagnant. Honestly, despite my presumptuous speculation of artistic integrity, maybe all Sybarite needs to convince me is a drum circle for groove development.