MOUNT KIMBIE – LOVE WHAT SURVIVES – WARP

A lot has changed for Mount Kimbie since we last heard from them in a long playing form, four years ago. It is their first album since Dom Maker moved to LA, but because fellow Kimbie-ite Kai Campos has stayed in the UK there is an intriguing blend of US/UK tensions. On some tracks the dry heat of the Californian desert is well within range, but elsewhere the duo’s open template comfortably allows for guest slots from the likes of James Blake and Micachu. The latter gives a brilliant low vocal to ‘Marilyn’, which burns into your consciousness after a few listens, while James Blake offers a more introspective vocal for ‘We Go Home Together’. King Krule is on the edge for his energetic contribution to ‘Blue Train Lines’, while the instrumentals speak with just as much power – ‘Delta’, ‘Four Years And One Day’ and ‘Poison’ all excellent examples of a newly stripped back, analogue sound. With elements of Krautrock in the driving rhythms, this is an album whose hot, dry energy gets the listener into a sweat almost immediately – and yet it proves just as effective in home company too.


Ben Hogwood
5 out of 5

Mount Kimbie - Blue Train Lines (feat. King Krule)