- Matt Karmil's output is varied—almost to a fault, he says. You only need to give 2016's patchwork IDLE033 LP a spin to see the diverse places his sample-led style can take him. But there are strong threads of continuity binding the Brit's productions, too. Karmil has lived in Cologne, and cites the scene around Kompakt as formative. His latest album echoes two previous LPs on PNN in excavating this influence. Its serene loop compositions, gliding seamlessly between minimal house and ambient, articulate his debt in the most satisfying way yet. Karmil has been more formally inventive elsewhere, but he's rarely sounded so in control of his material.
Most ear-catching are the house tracks, serene plateaus of found sound and solemn kicks made dramatic by the odd filter sweep. On "Sloshy" the chord stabs are the stars, stuttering, pulsing and hiss-heavy. "Morals" throws a sultry bassline into the mix, and its arrangement thickens as it goes, picking up cymbal whoosh and shreds of guitar. Best of all is "Can't Find It (The House Sound)," a gorgeous, narcotised deep house groove that feels short at nine minutes. Karmil could have put together a great album of this stuff.
But he doesn't linger with house. Will is, he says, for home listening, and the album's slick segues and evocative interludes place these tracks in a larger frame. "Sharehold," "Holiday Interlude" and "Gory Hole" are briefer, more abstract loop studies. And the album's second half is dominated by a couple of lengthy ambient tracks, where Karmil's processed field recordings float free of a pulse. On "NAND," two vaporous chords sound alternately for eight minutes, their sidechain throb hinting at a kickdrum that isn't there. At the album's close, taking up more than a third of its runtime, is the 17-minute "Maffé." The track's chord-and-click textures, beatific mood and lack of any development—not to mention the hypnosis it induces after about eight minutes—place it firmly in the shadow of Kompakt legend Gas. In fact, the whole album doesn't work too hard to escape this shadow. But it's pristinely produced and engagingly sequenced, and it pays homage with a neat Karmil twist.
Tracklist01. Sharehold
02. Sloshy
03. Morals
04. Holiday Interlude
05. NAND
06. Can't Find It (The House Sound)
07. Gory Hole
08. Maffé