Mount Kimbie – Carbonated EP
Posted by Lampard on Mon, 18 Jul 2011.
Mount Kimbie, the mellow post-dub kings, started in London where Kai and Dom met at university have been on the scene for 3 years and seem to have subtly been conquering all in a sly, underground fashion.
This is Mount Kimbie’s 6th release, featuring title track Carbonated lifted from their only full length album, Crooks and Lovers. Carbonated being a typically lush combination of smooth synths, plinky-plonks and female vocal samples. Flux offers a mildly darker feel but continues with an overly samey vibe until an uplifting latter section redeems your doubts. Bave’s Chords is Mount Kimbie’s last on the EP which begins so calm that it could send you to sleep. But as you calm yourself to the downwards tone, some utterly gorgeous synths and hi-hats accompany snare and vocal screech that are ridiculously alluring – by far my highlight.
Second half of the EP features a set of 3 remixes. Klaus’s version Crooks and Lovers track Adriatic is so boring it may as well not feature in the EP, it has nothing to catch your attention and remains almost unchanged for over five and a half minutes. Airhead’s remix of Carbonated picks up the feel a bit and remains more true to the original Mount Kimbie style. Finally, Peter Van Hoesen twists a sort of house style on the title track but again the track doesn’t really bring a lot to the release, and doesn’t fit into the original keeping.
All in all a decent release. Mount Kimbie have lived up to expectations as per usual, however I think they should allow themselves to be a bit more picky with who toys their material.