With All Due Respect

This Montreal duo lurk behind their twilight imagery and surprisingly broad style on this second expanded release. Perhaps due to geographic proximity I’m reminded of Ghislain Poirier, whose spare, early 12k releases gave way to unorthodox hip-hop production a few years later. WADR compress the timeframe and squish smoky machinery-hop ("Plateau” with guest vocals by Myriam Bois) next to dub-y micro-house ("CCTV”) next to jittery, transistor-infected reggae ("Montreal Protocol”). The works are granted a turquoise hard gleam by producer Yahik Daunais, who gives the decay as much detail as the notes. It’s an ambitious and intriguing portrait of an after-hours landscape where steam and neon bleed all markers of identity together. For all its genre-hopping, it mistreats none of them and masters several.