ILLKINSKI LET'S ZOOM IN ALBUM SILVERY RELEASE: OCTOBER 1, 2007 REVIEW: AUGUST 27, 2007

Maybe you haven’t heard of them, so here’s a brief overview – attention for a moment please….Illkinski are the East London duo of Adam Perry and Arash Lowni. There style has been honed over the past three years through creating, remixing, and some live work – all of which has brought this album into being. Their style is certainly electronic, yet of the generally slower, more laidback, even soundtracky variety. The content has a certain glitchy-ness in places, yet the emphasis isn’t on trying too hard to be clever. What the album does successfully is to create simple, catchy melodies which are embellished around through a clever use of dreamy atmospheric sounds (and sometimes raw acoustic guitar too!).

“For Reid” is a lovely track – in so much as it mostly stems from a lovely laid back groove, with electronic violin sounds floating across the top. Even with the slightly more uptempo of tracks such as “Let’s Zoom in” and “Tails Both Sides” there is still an element of the ghostly and the slightly ethereal; mainly down to the choice of electronic tones, but more than a mention of the ghostly melodies knitting the tracks should also be made.

There is a trio of really noteworthy tracks here. First, “Otiose”. This track is quite simply a work of genius – not just the best on this disc – but maybe the best track I’ve heard all year – an amazingly authentic Indian track turns into a danceable electronic number effortlessly, creating a track not just vivid in its imagery, but catchy on the body too! “Plaii” doesn’t provide the same kind of reaction, but is no less special, very atmospheric, with a surprising u twist in its tail. Of the rest of the tracks, all show an instinctive flair for laidback electronica, with some lovely dreamy melodies helping to keep things nice and tuneful. “Stained Gloves” also comes quite high up the list, being rather like a very atmospheric cross between the atmospherics of someone like Boards of Canada, combined with an old-school laid-back drum‘n’bass track.

All in all, a thoroughly lovely little collection of tracks, some well chosen sounds, and beautifully crafted arrangements. This is an album you can listen to from start to finish, and possibly back to the start to repeat all over again – highly recommended collection that thoroughly deserves your attention.

MIKE WHYTE