Actress – Statik
Twenty years into his work as Actress, Darren J Cunningham continues to experiment, this time with mixed results
Actress has over two decades repeatedly shown himself to be a masterful producer, balancing a recognisable core sound with a willingness to constantly bend it into new shapes and sounds. His later releases, particularly 2020’s Karma & Desire, have moved away from the tumbling beats he made his name with into something darker. Where once his albums crackled with the tumult of life in a city, now they are more inclined to glower out of its rain. Statik takes this further than ever before, leaning almost wholly into the beatless.
Great swathes of the record really work. My Ways is a gorgeous, cobwebbed music box of a thing, and closer Mellow Checx comes and goes in waves of beautiful, soupy keyboard ripples; and while the more danceable Ray and Cafe Del Mars stick out like sore thumbs, Dolphin Spray manages a superb balance of muggy and momentum.
The question is what all this adds up to, and often it doesn’t feel a lot more than a lot of crackly textures and woozy atmospheres. Where his last two records had an energy amidst their downcast atmospheres that made them feel like an act of resistance, Statik is muted to the point of silence. It’s hard to truly warm to a record that, while often morosely pretty, feels like it struggles to say much beyond a defeated sigh.
Listen to: My Ways, Mellow Checx, Dolphin Spray