It's not the sound that makes the music, though, but the structure of it. R… Read Full Bio ↴It's not the sound that makes the music, though, but the structure of it. R.I.P. is a deliberately uncoordinated album. Rhythms, basslines, and melodies slip in and out of line with each other. Comparatively straightforward, house-oriented tracks like "Shadow From Tartarus" are situated next to murk and ambience like "Tree of Knowledge". The emphasis here, though, is on "comparative": Even R.I.P.'s steady 4/4 tracks sound grimy and deconstructed. But there's something almost flirtatious in the way he lets the sounds worm around in the dark, looking to hook up with something firm. When they do, it's both mechanical and mystical, like watching a sculpture cut from raw stone.

The thick crud over Cunningham's earlier albums mimicked a sense of loss and erosion, as though he'd found the music abandoned in an alleyway and brought it back to something resembling life. The disparate sounds on R.I.P don't need resuscitation, just room to breathe. Given that room, they arrange themselves. If the album could be called intimate, it's paradoxically because there's so much distance and disconnect to it. Listening to it can be like seeing the city you live in from a plane: You can't reach out and touch it but you're comforted by how manageable and well-planned it all looks.