Eskmo – Eskmo

 Trip-Hop Shamanism

The newest addition to LA-based, beat mongering Ninja Tune, Eskmo releases his first self titled, full length album after ten years in the business. Better known as Brendan Angelides, Eskmo has been pumping out genre-spanning tunes on a variety of labels over the years. After a decade of experience, here is where Eskmo showcases everything he has learned about genre-defying beats. 

A glitchy clap effect and spacey ambience grow into the tranquil vocals on the opening track, “Cloudlight,” in a style that is very reminiscent of Flying Lotus with Eskmo’s own twist on it. What distinctly separates Eskmo from his former label mate is the use of less jazzy, glitch-oriented melodies and a more trip-hop driven sound, demonstrated in “The Melody.”  It is this stimulating-yet-downtempo motif that is the backbone in most of Eskmo’s songs, including “Color Dropping,” which employs the same clap-step mechanics. The song “Starship” uses all of the aforementioned musical tactics in addition to spacey vocoding and fading effects that make for a very cool auditory experience.

Eskmo’s self titled album a collection of well-placed, meandering beats. Songs often seem like nothing more than orchestrated chaos before reverting back to a step-to-it trip-hop formula. While the album doesn’t anchor itself into one genre for too long, it is the placement of the experimental songs that raise it from above imitating noise enthusiasts. Here, Eskmo does his best to bring a few new ideas to the frontier modern electronic music.