This is where I wrote and edited this album review and all the gear I used. While Kieran Hebden has been using his recent 12-inch releases and remix work to flex his club tool muscles and explore ravey inclinations, New Energy proves he’s still capable of making zoned out downtempo and heady arboreal jams just as compelling as the early records that hooked us initially. Hebden pilfers old schoomate Burial’s drum folder on halftime stepper “LA Trance,” and “Scientists,” “SW9 9SL” and “Planet” are all similarly slinky. “Daughter” features some vintage Four Tet sample chopping, but otherwise, the record is mostly characterized by otherworldly harp and mallet scales, heavenly atmosphere and restrained beats. On “Two Thousand and Seventeen,” one of the album’s finest moments, Hebden laces a slow, sparse downtempo groove with some sublime minor-key heartstring tugging on what sounds like a zither or some plucked string instrument, alongside a dreamy analog synth pad and an expertly understated bassline in what a dream recording session with Burial and Boards Of Canada in Tunisia might sound like.

• black double vinyl pressing
• gatefold sleeve
• music label: Text Records 2017

reviewed by frau farbissina 11/2017