Since he burst onto the scene with his sibylline project ‘Hazyville‘ almost two decades ago, Actress – real name Darren J. Cunningham – has emerged as one of the most daring sound technicians in the UK. With his new album, ‘Radical Frame‘, Cunningham seeks to challenge the monopolisation and whitewashing of avant-garde electronic music. Through a probing collection that resists form or function – pulling from every era in a career that has bent and morphed modern classical codas with machine funk, dusky techno, sprawling ambient pieces and grime’s impish percussion – Cunningham reorients “avant-garde” as a nominally Black invention.
Opening to muffled transmissions – ‘The Experiment’ and ‘Gimme Tha’ Fuckin’ Money Man’ – the listener is implanted in a time-worn, nocturnal city realm. There’s a mirage-like, ashen feel to proceedings as ‘Live By You’ offloads morsels of programmed drums which hit like stray sibilants as CASISDEAD’s inner city sermon – spliced and pitched to dizzying effect – vaporises into a chromed-lined, neo-noir coda.
There’s a controlled stasis to ‘Radical Frame’; this world lingers in subtle, subdued sound design, in the quieter, stranger moments just before dawn...