Crush’s primary consequence – other than being an excellent case study on best-of-all-worlds electronic music – is ensuring that Floating Points is a name on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Shepherd’s multifaceted skill set is on full display here, from jazzy, forward-thinking progressions to club-ready material.
Whatever wavelength Shepherd is on, Crush is the almost untouchable proof that no-one else is anywhere near it.
An album to be experienced rather than listened to, Crush takes the listener through the light and dark portions of the active listening mind, further proving Floating Points as a singularly talented producer.
While certain elements—a distorted rhythm here, a shuddering synth there—can be traced back to those rough-and-tumble live shows with the xx, the LP as a whole is strikingly melodic and often beautiful, even in its most frantic moments.
Tracks such as thunderous LesAlpx aim for the dancefloor but wherever Crush is listened to — in a club, on the night bus home, or yes, an airport — there’s plenty to discover, so long as you’re willing to delve in deep enough.
Beautifully crafted, Crush unsettles with its quiet, fervent chaos bubbling beneath its surface.
Crush is an insight into Shepherd’s brilliant mind and – such is the sheer variety of this album – a way to inspire one’s own imagination.
Here Shepherd has managed to capture both the febrile chaos and decaying beauty of the world we’re living in, on an album that crushes myriad ideas into one big sonic collision.
Crush may be some of Floating Points’ most assertive work, but sinking into its rich and deeply layered textures reaps countless rewards.
At its hypnotic heights, Crush mixes Shepherd's background in beats-building with the melodic and melancholy expanses of his more recent work.
Put simply, ‘Crush’ is a triumph: the ideal meeting of brains and brawn over a journey that manages to feel both concise and exploratory.
Crush certainly comes across as fragmentary, as if a dozen tracks, at least a couple albums worth of ideas, were truncated, quickly sequenced, and packed onto one LP. That said, it's hard to imagine more forethought and deliberation resulting in a listen more riveting than this one.
Floating Points' Crush is an album of profound contrasts. For every track designed to electrify the dancefloor, there is a gentle sweeping orchestral piece.
Though the sonic explorations undermine the album's overall cohesiveness, Crush remains a shining example of Shepherd's growth as an artist, and his willingness to push boundaries well into his career.
Crush is yet another triumph for Floating Points, a chaotic, if fundamentally cohesive, collection of tracks that reconcile Shepherd’s ever-more-sophisticated arrangements with the bedrock of compelling dance music that launched him in the first place.
"Crush" is an intricate little IDM record with some outstanding, chilling production and a great use of analog synths. The mixing and track placement could've used a bit more touching up, but that's just my opinion.
Fav Tracks: Last Bloom, Anasickmodular, LesAlpx, Environments, Bias, Apoptose
Least Fav Track: Karakul
Score:
8.4
Great
This may not be the most exciting album I have ever heard but there is also nothing really wrong with it. This is an album full of cold, eerie, and beautiful atmosphere. The very subtle ways this album creates the atmosphere and feelings really drew me in. I really enjoyed the more intricate breakbeat-type tracks and the tracks with the orchestral moments the most. Those are basically the only moments that really stood out, the rest of the album blended together. This is definitely a background ... read more
A blissful journey filled with chaos and beauty.
This is the Floating Points album for people with 0 attention span. Sam Sheperd the mastermind behind this already legendary project has ventured through the maximalistic side of electronic music for over a decade. Through the genre defining mix of jazz-ambient fusion on his 2015 debut “Elaenia” to the boundary pushing 2016 ep “kuiper” the masterful production and execution is nothing short of perfection. Sam also has a ... read more
1 | Falaise 3:54 | 96 |
2 | Last Bloom 5:53 | 93 |
3 | Anasickmodular 3:12 | 90 |
4 | Requiem for CS70 and Strings 2:23 | 83 |
5 | Karakul 1:54 | 68 |
6 | LesAlpx 4:41 | 86 |
7 | Bias 5:08 | 91 |
8 | Environments 4:45 | 88 |
9 | Birth 3:00 | 83 |
10 | Sea-Watch 4:04 | 85 |
11 | Apoptose, Pt. 1 2:35 | 82 |
12 | Apoptose, Pt. 2 2:27 | 79 |
#2 | / | Magnetic |
#2 | / | Mixmag |
#9 | / | Dummy |
#9 | / | Loud and Quiet |
#10 | / | MondoSonoro |
#17 | / | The A.V. Club |
#19 | / | Passion of the Weiss |
#22 | / | Far Out Magazine |
#22 | / | The Vinyl Factory |
#25 | / | DJ Mag |