Dimlite – Grimm Reality

If you'll forgive the transgression of a time-honoured proverb, the cover of Grimm Reality offers a useful shorthand to the maelstrom of ideas orbiting Dimlite's third album. Three entangled, interlocking images – a fish falling on an open umbrella, an Autumn tree growing in place of a person's head, and the string of a balloon looped around a skeletal finger – all imply the juxtaposition of the macabre and the absurd, and it's this idea that spurs Grimm Reality's abstruse realisation of hip-hop and psych-jazz.

Grimm Reality is no fairytale for the casual listener – Dimlite never settles too long on a single idea, preferring to let his intuition lead him, and us, on a merry dance – but the album does represent an aesthetically arresting alternative to the leftfield hip-hop typical of Tri Angle and Brainfeeder. Much like the sleeve that adorns it, Grimm Reality is utterly deranged, and yet you can't take your eyes (or ears) off of it.