Mount Kimbie
Carbonated
Release Date: Jun 27, 2011
Genre(s): Electronic, Club/Dance
Record label: Hotflush
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Album Review: Carbonated by Mount Kimbie
Fairly Good, Based on 3 Critics
Based on rating 3.5/5
Different people want very different things from ‘dubstep’, the genre that demands bigger inverted commas with every passing week. Some want howling mid-range chainsaw brutality; others want dimly re-imagined chillout beats and emotive white-soul singing. London duo [a]Mount Kimbie[/a] are stronger than the latter temptation; this six-track mini-selection bows to no imagined commercial pressure.[b]‘Carbonated’[/b] itself, from last year’s [b]‘Crooks & Lovers’[/b] album, slices up garage sweetness and fuzzy unease.
Based on rating 6.8/10
With each successive move dubstep makes toward bass-drop bombast, there's been an equal if less prominent retreat in the opposite direction-- grainy and pared back, leaning on nuance instead of force, making subtly room-flooding sounds out of negative space and white noise. Another year or so of this, and "minimal dubstep" could go from a sub-descriptive side road into a full-on genre in itself. At that point, Mount Kimbie could be posited as the new genre's equivalent of microhouse favorites like Pantha du Prince or Justus Köhncke.
Based on rating C+
2011 has witnessed an insurgence in the developing genre known loosely as post-dubstep. Many have accredited the trend to one James Blake, an enthusiastic young producer whose debut full-length cultivated cold, mechanical beats, lush vocal harmonies and uplifting soul. And though Blake deserves praise apropos to his involvement in the scene, he cannot take all the credit, nor does he.
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