ALBUMS / DOWNTEMPO/BALEARIC / ELECTRONIC
Jim Coles’ work as Om Unit moves onto a third album, his most personal and ambitious yet. Often with Coles his music feels like the soundtrack to a film in a nocturnal city-scape, but with Self the more emotional qualities of the music come through. There are some big, wide productions with beats that either lumber or have a sharp breakbeat, as in the intriguing ‘Out Of The Shadows’. Most of the tracks are instrumental but if anything that brings the vocal tracks from Rider Shafique (a spoken ‘Nothing’), DRS (‘Make Believe’) and the strong, brooding Amos (‘What Can I Be’) into sharper focus. Much of the music may be slow, but it has a latent power.
Ben Hogwood
4 out of 5
OM UNIT – SELF – COSMIC BRIDGE
