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Album Review
Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones
8.5/10
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There’s something to say for persistence. It’s easy to forget, for example, that Animal Collective’s breakthrough
Merriweather Post Pavillion last year was preceded by eight previous albums and a decade of experimentation. And let’s not forget about
Luke Abbott, however, is not a man who would know anything about this. Few artists come out of the gate with a sound so assured and fully formed as he has with his debut full-length,
Holkham Drones.
That isn’t to say he hasn’t been around for long, though. Abbott’s musical trajectory has been steady but slow through the last four years, in which he has put out a handful of singles and EPs that have showcased a man with potential and a lot of talent, but who had yet to find his style and start making music that could live up to that potential.
Holkham Drones is the sound of that potential, fully realized into a holistic electronic record that blends experimental electronic music like drone with soft, warm techno to create a sound unique to Abbott. A sound which is just as much at home in headphones as it is in a club, at once complex but danceable, warm but icy. In many ways, this is the perfect remedy to the slow creeping of winter, an album which perfectly encapsulates the changing of seasons in its feeling of constant movement, but at the same time just begs to be sat down with over a warm cup of tea and a cosy pair of slippers. In many ways then, it shares characteristics with another 2010 release from fellow Englishman Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet), whose intriguing
There Is Love In You entranced listeners with its organic, dance-inspired textures earlier this year. But where that album felt like the sound of earth and nature,
Holkham Drones feels simultaneously like water and fire, it’s constant steady flow interspersed by spurts and crackles of watery synths and soft, warm beats. For every track that feels like it ought to be playing in some trippy, mutant dancefloor, there’s another which emphasizes careful thought and production, with white noise crackling quietly underneath a bed of arpegiatted chords.
Opener “2nd 5th heavy” is the perfect example of this. The track crackles into life as a simple synth line repeats itself hypnotically, and that underlying bed of white noise contracts and expands like the tide, moving slowly in and then back out again. The percussion builds steadily, and then more and more synths enter the mix. It’d be easy, at this point, to expect some sort of experimental, droney space odyssey for the remainder of the album’s roughly 70-minute duration, rather like Emerald’s
Does It Look Like I’m Here? earlier in the year, an album that no astronaut should be without. So it’s a pleasant surprise when the rising synthy drone of “2nd 5th” segways into the stuttering beat of “Swansong”. As with all of Abbott’s music, however, it quickly becomes apparent that there is more going on underneath the surface as the track slowly unfurls and reveals its intricate textures before fading out with a simple, haunting synth melody.
These synth melodies are the heart and soul of
Holkham Drones, but every track brings new textures and ideas to the table, displaying Abbott’s talent for keeping his music varied and interesting while maintaining his assured aesthetic. The evolution that each track seems to undergo as it slowly builds lends the whole album a feeling of evolution, as if it is growing and feeling its way into the world alongside the listener. It follows a very particular path, too, almost as if Abbott knew that his music would be the perfect soundtrack to gazing out of a backseat car window and planned it’s journey accordingly. The bubbling synths and crackling, fuzzy white noise of the start of the album seem a mile away from the electric bass, almost house-y synths and reverb that emerge from the centre of the album.
This midsection, comprised of the title track and “Trans-Forest Alignment” sit confidently right in the middle of the album. The synths that comprise the central hook of “Alignment” are enough to get any dancefloor jumping, but the rising vat of gurgling noise bubbling from underneath is enough to remind you what you’re listening to, and this contrast between the danceable and the experimental sits at the centre of everything that makes
Holkham Drones appealing.
In keeping with this idea of careful sequencing, Abbott follows up a fascinating start to the album and a more danceable, pop-centric midsection with an absolute homerun of a final stretch. Starting with the dark, squelching stomp of “BaaInk”, Abbott takes the listener deep underground before throwing a curveball at them in the form of “Brazil”, a track which takes its cues from synth pop and more conventional dance music. The track begins with an up- tempo beat unlike anything the album has produced so far, before throwing in two bright, technicolour hooks. They seem to ring off each other as the track builds and builds, rising up through a thick veil of cloud into a new place entirely, shiny and glamorous. The follow up, “Soft Attacks” remains in this place, lathering itself in synth hooks and crisp techno beats. The track builds and swells to a euphoric six minute climax, all the while conjuring images of triumph, of victory, of clubs, speakers, and synthesisers.
“Soft Attacks” is something of a victory lap for Abbott, who by this point surely knows that this is his moment. The moment he finally steps out from the obscurity of his previous work and joins the likes of Caribou and Four Tet as one of the most fascinating artists making electronic music today. And rightfully so.
Holkham Drones is a fascinatingly complex yet visceral experience that finds Abbott completely owning his sound, and in the process creating one the finest records 2010 has offered us so far.