Actress - Radical Frame

Darren Cunningham’s soundworld is both visual and visionary. Actress albums such as ‘Splazsh’ evoke the same rainswept city streets Burial and Space Afrika have wandered down, but the way Cunningham depicts these scenes through collages of techno, grime, contemporary classical and avant-garde noise makes his music truly sui generis.

The 11th Actress album is possibly the clearest expression of his aesthetic yet, with a newfound clarity in the fidelity — expunging the bit-crushed hiss of earlier LPs — and also the feeling of tracks like ‘Overchord’, with Naomi Kimpenu’s yearning voice riding the sort of house beat Theo Parrish might produce if he was born in Wolverhampton.

The closing ‘Sheets’ is an absolute tour-de-force, a mesmerising 16 minutes of Rainy Miller’s treated vocals, ambient pads and subtle rhythms that shift from drum & bass to techno, making it one of the best things Actress has ever done, and one of the most astonishing pieces of electronic music we’ve heard in years.