- Lewis Roberts' 2011 debut, 4D, with its two-steppy rhythms and melancholic chord work, marked him out as a foot soldier of the post-Joy O, post-Mount Kimbie generation. Last year's offering for Jacques Greene's Vase imprint, Lost In Tokyo, took that template and removed its dance floor vestiges entirely. The result was presumably intended for headphone introspection, but was extremely simple in construction, and unfolded with a rigid, sectional logic. And while it had a certain stately grace, it was difficult to dispel the sense that this was simply a pretty template waiting for some larger expression to give it purpose.
On the Yugen EP, Roberts takes this template to greater extremes. It's remarkable how little content there is here. Which is not to disparage the record entirely—its basic elements are quite charming. In opener "Ivana," Roberts breaks his beloved female vocal samples down into phonemes, looping them into a stuttering texture of disarming clarity. Music box-like tones twirl over shimmering chords in "Last Remnants," and spar with a dextrous synth motif in "Never." The intimacy of these moments is counterbalanced by the grandiose "Sun" and "No Sun," with their bold synth-brass and string tones. In each case, however, these basic arrangements stiffly unfold, undergoing only the barest minimum of development. Economy is to be commended these days, given how easy it is to slap three-dozen soft synths on something and call it "epic." But, like Lost In Tokyo before it, Yugen feels insubstantial.
Tracklist A1 Ivana
A2 Sun
B1 Last Remnants
B2 NoSun
B3 Never