Discover Top Posts Tagged with #001-004

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001: exhaustion.

002: potential character design.

003: what the fuck

004: what the fuck

REVIEW: Unknown - #001-#004 EP (Champion Sound Music)

It has become something of a cliché. The white-label 12” record by an anonymous electronic producer which sets the online soundhound community on its ear simply by virtue of its obscurity. The remarkably hard-to-google artist known as Unknown has no photos, no press bio and as far as I can tell no online presence outside of a youtube channel. As of this writing, nobody knows who he or she is. This can be a great way to drive up interest and speculation, provided the sounds you're putting forth are sufficiently intriguing in the first place. Unfortunately, Unknown is no Burial. That is not for a lack of trying, however. The pop and crackle of dusty old vinyl, the disembodied soulful vocal clips, the 2-step riddim and the general downtempo mournfulness are all well accounted for in these four tracks, but something is missing. Artists like Burial (and Sepalcure and Jamie XX, also applicable comparisons here) are capable of being remarkably subtle. Their best tracks are simultaneously possessed of an excruciating sense both of emotional longing and paranoid seclusion. In their music, nostalgia exists in equal presence with a sort of existential future shock without ever seeming paradoxical. By comparison, Unknown's debut EP seems forced and perfunctory. The production quality is excellent and the taste level is high, but as a composer and arranger, Unknown still has a lot of work to do. All in all, I'm intrigued enough to be looking forward to hearing what this person (whoever they may be) is capable of doing a little further down the line. (John Francis Bittrich)