Following on from last year's 'Dust' EP, 'Gravity' is the first full-length release from Huw 'Crewdson' Jones. It's a great mixture of choppy beats, occasional slices of funk, and some unexpected jazz stylings. It's an organic mix of home-made sounds (no samples of anyone else's work here) that come together in a hot soup of cool music.
'Starting Out On The Wrong Foot' does exactly the opposite, with crunchy percussive beats and melodic chord stabs, the track is reminiscent of Four Tet. Then 'Trapdoor' picks up the glitchy pace, with treated vocals akin to James Blake (although perhaps not quite as dramatic). Next 'Electric Wing' provides the first full-on jazz moment, which is all the more surprising when it arrives halfway through this post-dubstep track. Hugh puts his keyboard down, picks up the sax and lets rip.
'Satellite Bounce' and 'Mime' continue the glitched beats, with the latter again benefiting from processed vocals and also having more than a hint of Caribou about it. 'Full Force Shuffle' is darker in tone, as if we've moved on to a different venue for some 'specialist' entertainment, if you catch my drift. If you bought the 'Dust EP' then the uptempo pace and Flying Lotus-esque rhythms of 'Dust Crawlers' will be familiar to you, and after that 'To A New Day' adds to the jazz quotient with some more great sax work.
On the home straight 'Goodbye Old Friend' might be the world's first post-samba record (I might have invented a new genre there), upbeat and friendly, while 'Last Joy Sticks' is mean, moody and spiky. Last up is the epic 'Cascade', the longest and most intricate track, which has an air of Orbital to it and which calms and uplifts you as it finishes the album.
If Caribou bumped into Mount Kimbie, they spent the evening together and ended up in a jazz club, the result would probably sound like this.
'Gravity' is out now on Slowfoot Records. You can listen to the whole album here, and then buy it below.
Crewdson - Gravity (Album) by crewdson
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