Polish producer 2K88, known for dark, glitching tracks that honor his country’s rap history and UK bass music, has teamed up with British musicians Lauren Duffus, Rainy Miller, and Bianca Scout. The collaboration, initiated by Poland’s Unsound festival, resulted in a residency in Gdynia and a live performance in Kraków, now developed into 10 tracks on the album Everything Always Changes, for We’re Truly Here.
Album Overview and Sound
The record is haunting and vaporous, featuring glacial sound design, fragments of FX’d voice, and stabs of low end. The opening title track sets the vibe with textural drones merging into Duffus’s gauzy, looped vocals. Miller’s elegiac spoken word adds grandeur, sustained by soaring synths on tracks like “In Stardust Garden … (Empress Ballroom)” and “Purple Mauve.”
Leftfield R&B Influences
There are shades of leftfield R&B, as Duffus coos sensuously around a rumbling Kelela-style hook in “Salto,” and in the slo-mo drum pattern underpinning “Forevers Just Trust in Another Day.” However, these moments are filtered through a moody lens, with beats sporadically deconstructed and strewn with distorted sounds.
Highs and Lows
At points, the breathy, amorphous production feels bland and interstitial rather than atmospheric. On the closing reprise, Miller’s earnest delivery verges on corny, especially when cut against an ethereal choral loop. However, these taxing moments are redeemed by beautiful ones: the woozy, collage-like composition in “A Random Introduction” and Scout’s whispered incantations on “Poetic Fallacy.” Here, the quartet’s innovation shines through the fog.
Other Notable Releases
Also out this month: Automation & Torso (Indefinite Boundary) by Twin Terminals, a bizarre mix of nursery rhyme, post-punk, and industrial noise; Inhabiting Me by Gūsū, featuring guzheng and modular effects; and Shadows by Cate Kennan, a DIY album reflecting on her hometown.
