Eliot Lipp first surfaced as an instrumental hip-hop producer during the mid-2000s, but his sound quickly expanded to include electro-funk, disco, new wave/synth pop, and other styles. By the start of the next decade, he had gained a significant audience among the EDM festival crowd, regularly appearing on lineups along with acts such as
Pretty Lights and
the Glitch Mob.
Skywave is
Lipp's second album for Detroit-based Young Heavy Souls (third, counting a reissue of 2012's Shark Wolf Rabbit Snake), and it's as good an example of his genre-mashing style as anything else he's done. His tracks are generally concise, running the lengths of typical pop songs, but they never quite follow predictable structures. Generally friendly and a bit trippy, they tend to flow through beats, samples, and other elements at an easygoing pace -- always busy and active, but never too complex or hard to follow. "I Told Ya" begins the album with blunted midtempo beats and sparkling percussive samples, along with choppy vocals and sunny guitar licks. The track gets a bit more excited later on, with faster synth arpeggios, but it doesn't upset the song's relaxed vibe. "Sun Comes Out" has a faster boogie beat and more of a bass swerve, along with hand claps and sampled dog barks, balancing carefree party notions with slightly aggressive tones. Fellow festival favorite
Emancipator adds ethereal violin to a remix of
Lipp's track "Not Quite Awake," and "Joyride" contains scratching as well as live drums from champion turntablist Chris Karns. The biggest surprise on
Skywave turns out to be its final track, "Rise Fall Rise." While it starts out downbeat and mellow, it quickly transforms into a drum'n'bass track with heavy, bashy breakbeats as well as polyrhythmic percussion. Like the title suggests, it has more peaks and valleys than anything else on the album, building up to an aggressive, footwork-tinged climax a few times during the course of the track.
Skywave is a well-rounded display of
Lipp's powers, documenting another brief period of his life as he continually darts across the United States. ~ Paul Simpson