FaltyDL
Hardcourage
Release Date: Jan 21, 2013
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Indie Electronic
Record label: Ninja Tune
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Album Review: Hardcourage by FaltyDL
Great, Based on 12 Critics
Based on rating 4
New Yorker Drew Lustman, who records under the name FaltyDL, has established himself as one of America’s pre-eminent electronic producers over the course of a career that has seen him experimenting with disparate sounds and styles from across dance music’s spectrum. Both of his previous albums, released on Planet Mu, were wildly eclectic works that featured dazzling production skills but did not quite hit the mark as cohesive works. Hardcourage, his first full length released on Ninja Tune, is perhaps his definitive work.
Based on rating 4/5
After scoring years of adoration from UK electronica’s most informed and fashionable corners for his roughly shaped reflections on dance music past, New York’s FaltyDL joins the Ninja Tune ranks with this, his third album. Renowned for skilfully interweaving dance music influences from both sides of the Atlantic, ‘Hardcourage’ steps on from the broken UK garage rhythms that typify much of FaltyDL’s earlier work and into the sort of soulful, pleasurable house grooves occupied by the likes of Four Tet and Jamie xx. ‘She Sleeps’, with vocals from Friendly Fires’ Ed Macfarlane, and the Floating Points-alike ‘Straight & Arrow’ best exemplify the New Yorker’s fresh sonic direction on this beautiful-sounding record.Jon Cook .
Based on rating 8.0/10
These days, there seems to be two distinct types of electronic music artists that make it big. There are those who dedicate themselves to a unified sound, or one of electronic's myriad subgenres, and stick to it with dogged persistence: The Field with his stuttering minimalist samples, or Burial's ghost-led drum fits (although, to be fair, Burial has slowly been mutating his sound over the past five years). Then, there are the polyglots, recent producers such as Flume who come bursting out of the gate with a track for every occasion, a toe in every sound.
Based on rating 8/10
Bouncing along in the style of Gold Panda, Michna, and sometimes even Plone, N. Y. C.
Based on rating 7.8/10
FaltyDL, aka New York producer Drew Lustman, is good at calling it. His last full-length, 2011's You Stand Uncertain was exactly that. While there were flickers of sure blue sky, most notably on "Waited Patiently", for the most part it remained thick with ambivalent cloud, caught somewhere in between. Not that in-between is a bad place to be per se, as Lustman knows its fertile possibilities better than most.
Based on rating 74%%
FaltyDLHeadcourage[Ninja Tune; 2013]By Will Ryan; January 23, 2013Purchase at: Insound (Vinyl) | Amazon (MP3 & CD) | iTunes | MOGTweetNew York producer, FaltyDL, is an entity in constant flux. Since landing on Ninja Tune in 2011 his productions have skewed toward classic strands of house, but before that he contributed to Planet Mu's campaign to bring unwieldy London influenced sounds to the States culminating in 2011's excellent 2-step, funky, and DnB indebted You Stand Uncertain. Still, Drew Lustman's devoted himself to a jazz-leaning sound balancing consonant edges with a precise textural delicacy that's tied all of his material together and on his newest full-length offering from Ninja Tune, Hardcourage, the approach is made only more complex and aggressive.
Based on rating 7/10
A native New Yorker who’s long lingered on the London scene, producer FaltyDL has quite the enviable CV. Two LPs through Planet Mu, accompanying singles, and EPs with Swamp 81 and All City Recordings. He’s opened for Radiohead, remixed everyone from the xx to Scuba, and as a result can boast B-side remixes from Mike Q, Gold Panda and Four Tet on his new album Hardcourage.
Based on rating 7/10
Over the past few years, Drew Lustman (aka FaltyDL) has relied on tightly enveloped stylistic structures to create blurred worlds of acid jazz, micro-house and drum & bass. This is what allows the textural haze of Hardcourage (the third full-length from the Brooklynite) to sound so emotionally boundless and free. In interviews, Lustman says he fell deeply in love during the writing and recording of Hardcourage, allowing his muse to provide his music a level of creative purpose.
Based on rating 7/10
Hardcourage, the fourth album proper by the Connecticut-based DJ known as FaltyDL, is his first to be released via Ninja Tune. The Ninja Tune name brings with it connotations of the blunted, jazz-flavored, electronic-based music of acts such as Coldcut, Cinematic Orchestra and DJ Food. Hardcourage, though, is something a bit different. It’s laid back, even chill, for sure.
Based on rating 3.5/5
FaltyDL's pursuit of his muse these past few years has been about as erratic as his music itself. You never really know what's coming next, and he has a tendency to take unexpected turns and noodling diversions. Whether he's crafting bouncy two-step or thumbing through the pages of classic house, he puts it all on top of a nervy twitch that's half bebop and half IDM.
Based on rating C+
The globe-trotting, genre-hopping producer extraordinaire FaltyDL, aka Drew Lustman, doesn’t seem capable of saying “no” to an opportunity. Since his debut on Planet Mu in 2009, Lustman has been involved in countless projects, from collaborations to solo material. So far, the “yes” man’s energy has shown no signs of flagging. Only one question remains: who is he? Lustman’s elusive identity is part of his hard-earned mystique as one of electronic music’s most subtle producers.
Opinion: Fairly Good
A calmer, more measured set than fans of the man’s music might be expecting. Rory Gibb 2013 Drew Lustman's music as FaltyDL bubbles with a very distinctive energy, a result both of his sample source material and his own idiosyncratic approach to arrangement. On debut album Love Is a Liability and 2011's You Stand Uncertain, both released via Planet Mu, diced fragments of house, electronica and old-school UK rave were whipped up into rhythms that recalled two-step garage, but swung to the point of near-disarray.