Actress’ tenth studio album, the celestial and expansive Statik, is released June 7th via Smalltown Supersound.

The collaboration between Darren Cunningham and the esteemed Oslo-based purveyors of elevated sonics evolved organically following Actress’ remix of a Carmen Villain cut for the 12” of her Only Love From Now On LP.

In this vein, the entire Statik project, from conception through creation and release, has been blessed with an almost unnatural ease. For Actress, who wrote the majority of his subtly majestic new record in an extensive flow state, the project serves as a cohesive testament to artistic liberation.

Resultantly, Cunningham’s new album is imbued with a sense of freedom. And of stillness. The kind of stillness within artistic motion that arises via the deepest states of flow. Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative.

Of course, those well-versed in Actress’s works are well-travelled when it comes to fantastical flights of the mind. Transportive sonics that spark inner-voyages – whether through nocturnal cityscapes, or far above and beyond, through Saturn’s rings and past Pluto’s moons – are prime Cunningham terrain. Yet while Statik is unmistakably an Actress LP, it’s also distinctly aquatic and subtly primordial, and so offers his audience novel elemental atmospheres to flow through. Listening closely, influential visions of aqueous realms, such as the mythic Atlantis, and evocations of ancient ceremonies as well as flying birds (and, perhaps, humans) may reveal themselves.

No matter if Statik inspires you to soar above or below the horizon, Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey. More

TRACKLISTING 2LP:

Side A
A1. Push Power ( a 1 )
A2. Hit That Spdiff ( b 8 )
A3. Azd Rain ( g 1 )

Side B
B1. Memory Haze ( c 1 )
B2. Game Over ( e 1 )
B3. Typewriter World ( c 8 )

Side C
C1. Its me ( g 8 )
C2. Chill ( h 2 )
C3. Green Blue Amnesia Magic Haze ( d 7 )

Side D
D1. Oway ( f 7 )
D2. M2 ( f 8 )
D3. Azifiziks ( d 8 )
D4. Pluto ( a 2 ) More

Vinyl only, 'black label' release in the run up to forthcoming album Ghettoville More

Following his critically acclaimed "R.I.P." album on Honest Jons, Actress returns with 3 new tracks on his own Werkdiscs imprint! More

Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album Splazsh (voted number one in The Wire magazine’s Top 50 Releases Of The Year) South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. R.I.P. comprises fifteen tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham in his London studio over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. “I'm just an instrument,” Cunningham avers. “I'm completely dead when I write.”
Right from the debut album Hazyville (Werk Discs), Actress’s music has carried deep tinges and pock marks of London's rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh (Honest Jon’s), R.I.P. heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments. The fifteen chapters of R.I.P. begin with Ascension and the Book of Genesis and play out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. “When I feel I'm coming towards the end of the process I'll buy some books related to the theme. So I started Milton’s Paradise Lost, started to re-read Jamie James’s The Music Of The Spheres. I wanted the movements to make sense scene-wise and chronologically."“In places the album is meant to drift,” notes Cunningham. R.I.P. moves back and forth between space and rhythm, probing the “boundaries in and of rest and peace.” Appropriately for exploring the myths of Creation, the sounds Actress creates are completely sui generis. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, and instead he uses meticulous manual sound tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. “It's like painting with button and sliders,” he describes. “Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery.” The ghosted rhythms and free tunings of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigours of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. You feel the sweat and sinew of handmade construction. “I can't explain how I made those tracks, it's just impossible,” he says. “I have a hard time comprehending it myself sometimes.” The album begins with the title track, a short tonal requiem for the dead, before drifting into another beatless meditation, the rippling minimalist structure of Ascending. Holy Water and Marble Plexus introduce rhythm, although these percussive tics could be equally sourced from sub-bass speaker stacks or marbles rolling around a bowl. Jardin and Serpent are origami-like constructions which orbit around what could be pizzicato strings or harps. Last-but-one is IWAAD, whose pulsing 4/4 rhythms and warm hits of low-end vibration hint at a return to the real. R.I.P. underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Drexciya, T++, Aphex Twin, Burial and Basic Channel. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also “slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.”

More

Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album Splazsh (voted number one in The Wire magazine’s Top 50 Releases Of The Year) South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. R.I.P. comprises fifteen tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham in his London studio over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. “I'm just an instrument,” Cunningham avers. “I'm completely dead when I write.”
Right from the debut album Hazyville (Werk Discs), Actress’s music has carried deep tinges and pock marks of London's rave music heritage. But after the angular dynamics of Splazsh (Honest Jon’s), R.I.P. heads out into deep space. The rhythms and pulses are smudged or blurred, or are hinted at by their absence. 2-step garage is collided into gamelan, and freeform interludes explore microtonal spaces and imagined string instruments. The fifteen chapters of R.I.P. begin with Ascension and the Book of Genesis and play out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. “When I feel I'm coming towards the end of the process I'll buy some books related to the theme. So I started Milton’s Paradise Lost, started to re-read Jamie James’s The Music Of The Spheres. I wanted the movements to make sense scene-wise and chronologically."“In places the album is meant to drift,” notes Cunningham. R.I.P. moves back and forth between space and rhythm, probing the “boundaries in and of rest and peace.” Appropriately for exploring the myths of Creation, the sounds Actress creates are completely sui generis. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, and instead he uses meticulous manual sound tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. “It's like painting with button and sliders,” he describes. “Melting and dripping, seeping yourself liquid into the machinery.” The ghosted rhythms and free tunings of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigours of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. You feel the sweat and sinew of handmade construction. “I can't explain how I made those tracks, it's just impossible,” he says. “I have a hard time comprehending it myself sometimes.” The album begins with the title track, a short tonal requiem for the dead, before drifting into another beatless meditation, the rippling minimalist structure of Ascending. Holy Water and Marble Plexus introduce rhythm, although these percussive tics could be equally sourced from sub-bass speaker stacks or marbles rolling around a bowl. Jardin and Serpent are origami-like constructions which orbit around what could be pizzicato strings or harps. Last-but-one is IWAAD, whose pulsing 4/4 rhythms and warm hits of low-end vibration hint at a return to the real. R.I.P. underlines Actress’s reputation as one of the most eloquent voices to emerge from the sub-bass nexus of London dance music. His intuitive and original grasp of beats, textures and rhythm puts him on a parallel path to dance music innovators such as Drexciya, T++, Aphex Twin, Burial and Basic Channel. But the way he engages with electronic sound from first principles, realising his own self-contained sonic worlds, hints at less obvious kinships outside the dance music fraternity, with pioneers of homebrewed sound experiments such as Cabaret Voltaire, Pan Sonic and Oval. It moves the body but the sounds also tap into to something more intangible inside you; you dance, but also “slip/drift into another realm, probably without even realising.”

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With a sound that no one can quite touch, nor classify, it comes as little surprise that an outside-the-box artist like Actress would come into the path of Autonomic. The mastermind behind the cult-worshipped Werk Discs (whose roster includes enigmatic producers Lone, Lukid and Zomby), Actress took the electronic spectrum into another direction entirely last year with ‘Splazsh.’ Released on Damon Albarn’s imprint Honest Jons, ‘Splazsh’ brought dynamic Hypercolour to the insular greyness that his ‘Hazyville’ album captured so well. After his acclaimed debut on Nonplus+ in 2010 – the astral ‘Machine And Voice’ EP, the intriguing artist returns to the label with ‘Gershwin / HarrierA bonafide classic to sit in the ranks alongside Cybotron, in comes a typically allencompassing, textured four-on-the-floor stomper from Actress.
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Precious, timely, moody reflections on migrating from Côte d’Ivoire to Moss, in Norway, over ruff breakbeat funk supplied by the nimble bass-playing of Maimouna’s old man (from Kambo Super Sound), and the expert conga and kit-drumming of Stliletti-Ana (from Jesse, in Helsinki). Even in their delirium, b-boys and girls will savour traces of the Incredible Bongo Band, in the chorus. Over the eight minutes, and going deeper on the flip, the mix lifts off into a cosmic steppers dub, featuring Gilb-r alongside Sotofett on keyboards, with no let up for the dancefloor in energy and vibes.
In beautifully letter-pressed, poly-lined sleeves.
“It was in 2001 / I got the letter / A letter that said / I would travel to a cold world / Not knowing what would happen / I was full of loneliness / No country / Everyone was different / Not only skin colour / The way people spoke / The way people behaved / That’s the adventure / Obey / This is the story we’re told / The key to success / So we can do everything for our parents / Who need us / Desperate for a better life / That’s the adventure.” More

Three murderous steppers dubs on a propulsive, rat-tat-tat rhythm, combining mystical spaciousness with detail and ferocity. Angry-lion bass and smears of brass, fusillades and explosions, scares and shocks, oriental pentatonics, clattering percussion and synthy transcendence… the business. The second mix is nastiest; the third is the wildest and most discombobulated (and our favourite).
Letter-pressed, poly-lined sleeves. More

A kind of intimate scrapbook of the startling collaboration between the techno maestro and this long-standing musical collective based in Bishkek, devoted to the roots music of Kyrgyzstan. Loose-leaved but balanced, lucid and intimate, it sets out from stunning a cappella and virtuosic komuz and kylak, mouth harp and traditional percussion: not field, but expert studio recordings, using marvellous vintage microphones, made over several days in Berlin. Further, a few of these are deftly treated by Moritz, using Reichian de-synced double-tracking, and discreet effects. Also two ten-minute dubs: a deadly, signature Berlin steppers, plus its version; and an echoing, mystical drum session, recorded live on stage in Bishkek. And a side-long, dream-like summation: the locomotive, oceanic, clangorous, dread Facets. Ravishing, rooted, searching music; beautifully presented. More

A kind of intimate scrapbook of the startling collaboration between the techno maestro and this long-standing musical collective based in Bishkek, devoted to the roots music of Kyrgyzstan. Loose-leaved but balanced, lucid and intimate, it sets out from stunning a cappella and virtuosic komuz and kylak, mouth harp and traditional percussion: not field, but expert studio recordings, using marvellous vintage microphones, made over several days in Berlin. Further, a few of these are deftly treated by Moritz, using Reichian de-synced double-tracking, and discreet effects. Also two ten-minute dubs: a deadly, signature Berlin steppers, plus its version; and an echoing, mystical drum session, recorded live on stage in Bishkek. And a side-long, dream-like summation: the locomotive, oceanic, clangorous, dread Facets.
Ravishing, rooted, searching music; beautifully presented. More

A re-work by Mark Ernestus of the opener of Honest Jons' new LP by the Obadikah brass band, from Lagos. Consummate Berlin dub science by the maestro. Beautifully textured, shuffling Lagos funk, on home-made percussion… militant, parping horns... and a walloping, filthy-stinking kick-drum like the bucking, hairy hind-most of the Devil himself. The Dub is Warrior Charge, 2016.

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This is lovely. Brand-new, rambunctious, rootsy, spiritual brass-band music from Lagos, with singing, drums and home-made percussion.
Obadikah is a group of old friends who play together in the Cherubim & Seraphim and Baptist churches of the Ikeja and Isale Eko districts. A couple of them were founder-members of the Eko Brass Band; they’ve played with pretty much all the key Nigerian reggae artists.
The tunes are mostly traditional Yoruban melodies, often sung at bed-time. The songs are mostly original, sung in Yoruba (though Jomido is an Egun song from the Badagry area of Lagos state).
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A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon. Deep-indigo, dead-of-night enka, folk and blues, inhaling Billie Holiday and Nina Simone down to the bone. A traditional waltz abuts Nico-style incantation; defamiliarised versions of Oscar Brown Jr and Bessie Smith collide with big-band experiments alongside Shuji Terayama; a sitar-led psychedelic wig-out runs into a killer excursion in modal, spiritual jazz. Existentialism and noir, mystery and allure, hurt and hauteur. With excellent notes by Alan Cummings and the fabulous photographs of Hitoshi Jin Tamura. Hotly recommended. More

A stunning survey of the 1970s heyday of this great Japanese singer and countercultural icon. Deep-indigo, dead-of-night enka, folk and blues, inhaling Billie Holiday and Nina Simone down to the bone. A traditional waltz abuts Nico-style incantation; defamiliarised versions of Oscar Brown Jr and Bessie Smith collide with big-band experiments alongside Shuji Terayama; a sitar-led psychedelic wig-out runs into a killer excursion in modal, spiritual jazz. Existentialism and noir, mystery and allure, hurt and hauteur. With excellent notes by Alan Cummings and the fabulous photographs of Hitoshi Jin Tamura. Hotly recommended. More