R.I.P.'s infrequent flirtations with the dancefloor should not surprise those who checked Darren Cunningham's post-
Splazsh singles. Despite being issued on 12" vinyl, "Harrier ATTK" and "Rainy Dub" would have evacuated any floor within a few seconds. None of the four tracks from those releases reappears on
R.I.P., but they foreshadowed this hourlong album's completely abstract, mostly ambient composition. One exception aside, the few jacking and pulsing rhythms function more as secondary elements than focal points, swathed in fuzzy textures, mechanical drones, baleful strings, and vocal micro-samples. The majority of the album places
Actress closer to the superbly creative, evocative, and mind-altering terrain inhabited by
Oneohtrix Point Never, with detectable traces of early-'80s
Roedelius and
Moebius, as well as
Autechre; there's nearly no likeness to any of the club-oriented contemporaries on the producer's Werk label. As with
Splazsh, there is no template. The tracks bear little relation to one another and could have been arranged in any sequence. That said, the thrillingly scuffy friction of "The Lord's Graffiti" -- where
Actress could steal and redefine
Pere Ubu's "avant-garage" neologism, moving it from garage rock to U.K. garage -- seems to fade in at the perfect moment, at track 13 (of 15). ~ Andy Kellman