Mount Kimbie – 'Crooks And Lovers' retrospective review
In a year where Skream can have top-ten hits, Burial can feature on Channel 4 idents and teen pop producers are heading ever more basswards, being “dubstep” carries less of the cultural cool it once had – surely one reason why Mount Kimbie have had so many daft labels pinned on them by critics eager to point out the fine piece of work that is Crooks & Lovers. However, with the benefit of time to digest, another reason might be that for all the “chill-wave”, “glo-fi” and other blogbusting nonsense that has flown about in the past twelve months, Mout Kimbie’s debut is fascinating precisely because of its slippery relationship with categorisation.
Its twists and turns are a feature, not a bug, and make for an arresting listen: there’s sped-up vocals and moody field recordings (very dubstep) alongside live instrumentation and moments of spiralling aural bliss (very not); the record is bookended by two beautifully homespun tracks, but they sit astride the artificial, the synthetic and the sheeny.
Plenty of records have gone before this with a similarly restless musical palette, but what makes Crooks & Lovers so impressive is that despite Mount Kimbie’s darting personality, a sense of decisiveness and concision runs throughout. Seldom does a track edge far beyond the four-minute mark; never does one feel overcooked, and the result is elegant, engaging and serpentine, pleasingly unclassifiable stuff.
