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Critic Reviews
100
Lone tunes are nothing if not growers – but there’s no question that this is one of our best artists on the form of his life.
1y
90
This is Lone's best work to date, and one that shows it's possible to keep evolving while holding onto a strong sense of identity.
11y
85
Lone’s path forward isn’t a leap but a humanisation. Reality Testing is a markedly more personal record than its predecessor, and indisputably more cohesive.
11y
80
His dance credentials already assured, this feels like Cutler reasserting his artistry; an exercise in expressive revivalism, where myriad influences are sketched from memory; an album whose headline proposition is new, despite the ageing origins of its component parts.
11y
80
It all serve to confirm Cutler as one of contemporary electronica's most gifted and distinctive sonic manipulators.
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1y
80
Tracks such as Coincidences and Begin to Begin may build into stompers, but the sound palette they are constructed with could have been chosen by Brain Eno or Aphex Twin.
10y
80
It shows him settling into a state of deep contentment, evoking the same warm and fuzzy feeling you get from throwing on a record that you know inside and out.
11y
80
Less fantastical than Fifth Element or any farfetched sci-fi flick, ‘Reality Testing’ absorbs fragments of the past to give a more accurate impression of the future. It’s Cutler’s wild imaginations being given their own space.
11y
80
When he introduces a bit of friction – between the real and the imagined, the grit of life and the sheen of fantasy – the results are all the more seductive.
11y
80
It's this widening of scope, combined with such a strong sense of identity, which makes Reality Testing tick over beautifully.
12y
80
Lone coats everything in the same Orbital-esque melodies that made 2012’s 'Galaxy Garden' such a winner, producing an album that is both intriguingly new and gorgeously listenable.
11y
80
Altogether, the album is suited more for background listening or a stroll through a sun-bleached cityscape.
11y
80
Reality Testing stands as one of the year's best, most luxuriant, and accomplished electronic albums, more proof that when it comes to forging a new future out of what’s already taken place, Cutler remains at the top of his game.
11y
70
Lone has enough gems up his sleeves to balance out the sleepier tracks.
11y
60
There’s a lack of precision, with a flabby middle section finding ‘Begin To Begin’, for example, looping aimlessly. Yet when it hits home, ‘Reality Testing’ more than justifies Lone’s tag as one of the most flexible, dextrous producers in the game.
11y
58
Reality Testing ... pushes into new territory so well that it erases the possibility of its existence as a one-time distraction, and its few major successes lead to expectations of a more unified version.
11y
50
As far as engaging music that functions as anything other than pleasant background noise, Reality Testing falls completely flat, and ends up being yet another addition to Lone’s catalogue of music that’s almost impossible to get excited about.
11y
30
The approach Lone took to his latest record here is shockingly basic, and a disheartening departure from the vibrant, upbeat instrumentals on his last LP.
8y
Reasonably solid, but what really let it down for me was the fact that it felt like it was dragging on. I thought this album was comfortably over an hour long when I was listening to it. I'm not sure some of the tracks need to be included here
Wii U hop. I think the reason this isn’t in the same class as Lone’s previous works is that he’s just doing what he wants on this album and I can tell. To some that may have made the best album ever but to others it sucks bun. While to me, it’s fine. Some really cool urban sounding beats shown across the first half, but man was the second half slowing everything down.
I unfortunately didn't get alot from this, It was recommended a listen by a friend, but I found so many of these songs to be either undercooked or just super stagnant, like they wanted to go somewhere but didn't
House is a genre that I usually have a bias towards. Good house music is almost unbeatable, because a good house song will take the catchiest loop known to man and abuse the FUCK out of it for like 4-8 minutes. House music works BECAUSE it is repetitive (the loops are so ... read more
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Track List
| 1 | First Born Seconds 1:54 | 83 |
| 2 | Restless City 4:37 | 89 |
| 3 | Meeker Warm Energy 3:59 | 93 |
| 4 | Aurora Northern Quarter 4:03 | 90 |
| 5 | 2 Is 8 3:43 | 98 |
| 6 | Airglow Fires 6:01 | 99 |
| 7 | Coincidences 3:34 | 91 |
| 8 | Begin to Begin 5:34 | 89 |
| 9 | Jaded 4:49 | 100 |
| 10 | Vengeance Video 5:19 | 96 |
| 11 | Stuck 2:35 | 78 |
| 12 | Cutched Under 6:08 | 88 |
Total Length: 52 minutes
