Actress – Machine & Voice review

Artist: Actress
Title: Machine & Voice
Label: Nonplus
Genre: Dubstep/Grime
Format: 12″, Digital
Buy From: Juno Records, Juno Download

Werk Discs chief Actress – aka Darren Cunningham – drops the breathtaking Machine & Voice EP ahead of a full album release slated for May. Despite a relative paucity of releases in recent years, 2010 is set to be a watershed for Cunningham. A remix of Joy Orbison’s recent single “The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow”, on Will Saul’s Aus Music, kicked things off. Now within a space of a fortnight he’s dropped this EP, on Instra:mental’s Nonplus imprint, and another on his own label.  And of course Splaszh, his second full length album, continues to loom tantilisingly on the horizon.

Machine & Voice sees Actress pulls off his usual trick of drawing on many disparate influences – from dubstep to techno to drum & bass –  yet managing to make his sound stand alone. In keeping with the label, these three tracks are of a more experimental/bass-driven bent, although such an ambiguous description hardly does it justice. Whatever you want to call it, the fact is Actress now occupies a space in electronic music that no one else can touch. Do not miss this EP.

Review: Aaron Coultate