★★★★☆
Greg Feldwick has cleaned his act up, kind of literally. Having started making dents in playlists and skulls with glitchy bass backfires and pixel-pocked electro, the Bath, England-based producer has steadily developed a sound of greater sparkle, allowing for an easier flow down the ear canal. In the throes of bass music engineering entrancement at the other end of the sound bed, his debut album is of clear visions, softer focussd projections (with room for the heartbreaking, “Sex” elevates to the spiritual from the assumed physical) and positive tingles of ambition that prompt gratification.
Time Team paints the future as imposing, but not as something to be feared. “All This Time” is enchanting, spearheading a quartz-anchored cruise passing electro calculator funk (“Travel Sweets,” “Grandma Paints Nice”), imperial encounters (“Dragon Drums”) and halo-polishing rave (“Mountains Come Out of the Sky”). “Moonbeam Rider” is a momentary backstep toward Slugabed’s glitch-hop facing an end of level b-boy baddie, presented as a different, denser area to explore rather than the typical fantasy stumbling upon the wrong side of the tracks.
Joining those stepping into the synthesized hyperreal, Slugabed conceives an illuminating quest where the thrill ride is structured so you don’t miss a thing, and the hectic flashes of activity are delivered with precision mechanisms and basslines gulping at the 8-bit multiplications.
File under: Lone, Jam City, Rustie