Love What Survives

Personnel: Marc Pell, Kit Mason, Andrea Balency, Anthony Maker, Tony Kus (vocals).
Audio Mixers: Dilip Harris; Kai Campos.
Recording information: It's Not Rocket Science Studios; Press Play Studios; Stones Throw Studios; The Crush E14; Truth Studios.
With their old-school analog aesthetic and minimalist post-dub sound, Britain's Mount Kimbie straddle the line between atmospheric art music and pop accessibility. It's a balancing act they've been honing since debuting with 2010's Crooks & Lovers, and one they continue to perfect on 2017's Love What Survives. Once again centered on the production talents of Mount Kimbie members Dominic Maker and Kai Campos, Love What Survives is a moody album, full of pulsing grayscale soundscapes. It's a fitting tone for a band who seem to garner creative inspiration not from what they add to their sound, but from what they strip away. As evidence of that stripping, the album features a prominent mix of instrumentals as well as tracks featuring vocals; though it is fairly evenly balanced. In fact, it's that deft combination of both instrumental and vocal tracks that makes Love What Survives such a successful album, moving the listener through what almost feels like a cinematic experience. Setting the tone for that imagined film is the eerie instrumental opener "Four Years and One Day." A swirling strobe light of a song, full of oscillating synths that give way to a menacing post-punk bass riff, it emanates toward you like an alien spacecraft through dense fog. Smartly, Mount Kimbie quickly contrast that track's slowly descending chill with a guest appearance by King Krule, who applies his deadpan South London-accented rap and yawp to the buzzy post-punk of "Blue Train Lines." From there, they keep the evocative aural images tumbling with the prismatic, lo-fi chug of "You Look Certain (I'm Not So Sure)" featuring singer Andrea Balency, and the wave-like "Marilyn," in which they frame Micachu's Mica Levi with a buoyant bassline and what sounds like a dreamlike Kora figure. Having long drawn easy comparisons to James Blake, it makes perfect sense that they bring the electronic star on board here, showcasing his soulful croon on the church organ-steeped "We Go Home Together" and the fractured album-closer "How We Got By." Elsewhere, they conjure memories of Pornography-era Cure on the instrumental "Audition," and shift away from the album's tightly wound claustrophobia for the airy, acoustic, piano-based impressionism of "Poison." Ultimately, Mount Kimbie strip away any musical excess on Love What Survives, and leave raw vivid emotion. ~ Matt Collar