The release of the bleak
Ghettoville was accompanied with text reasonably read as an announcement of
Actress' terminus, yet Darren Cunningham neither ceased using the alias nor took much of a break from it. Within three years, an EP, a DJ-Kicks mix (featuring a new
Actress exclusive), some remixes, and
AZD were all credited to Cunningham's primary handle. (Meanwhile, supplemental Cunningham work surfaced under five other names.) Word of
Actress album number five spread with its own press release outlining the ways in which its content should be received as something other than just another hour's worth of avant-techno tunes. Some of the stated inspirations, such as early Detroit techno artists and fellow concept engineer Rammellzee -- the latter sampled in the dazzling, disorienting "CYN" ("NYC" backward) -- are perceptible. As for chrome, discussed as the album's theme, that's not so obvious beyond the cover's hand sculpture. Even "Faure in Chrome," a piercing track developed out of Cunningham's 2016 performance with
the London Contemporary Orchestra, evokes twisting metallic scraps rather than a smooth reflective surface. Instead, the features of
AZD are much like those of past
Actress releases, grainy, bent, alternately muffled and prickly more than anything designed to soothe. Compared to
Ghettoville, this is typified more by propulsion. Much of it is rhythmic in a legitimately danceable or foot-tapping fashion, exemplified by the vapor-cast crunch of "X22RME," the whip-cracking bleep of "Runner," and the entrancing trudge of "Dancing in the Smoke" (until the point where it's lasered into oblivion, at least).
Splazsh and
R.I.P. remain Cunningham's most novel and creative full-lengths, but this thrill-filled one, whatever it's about, is his most direct. [
AZD was also released on LP.] ~ Andy Kellman