Thursday 18 June 2009

Bibio - Ambivalence Avenue


Bibio's first album after signing with Warp really surprised me. It has a real 1960's psychedelic feel to it, when the first couple of tracks play, with the jangly guitars, echoey vocals and general stripped down feel you start to wonder how on earth Stephen Wilkinson (Bibio) is known for being deeply involved with electronica but as the album develops you find some really intricate production techniques and that jangly, stripped down guitar is really electronically modified which starts to give more of an idea of what Bibio is all about. The whole album has a really happy nostalgic feel to it, with tracks such as the wonderfully melodic 'Lovers' Carvings' flowing much more into the realms of straight up folk than any genre that would even go near a synthesizer and this flows throughout the album showing diversity and an obvious love and appreciation for many different genres. Ambivalence Avenue is such a step away from any of Warp's recent releases such as the tech, dance heavy Hudson Mohawke and Tim Exile and has very quickly become an album I can't stop listening to, I love the mixture of electronica and folk, it sounds great and the album also features artwork from one of my favourite designers, mr David Foldvari,
Good stuff.

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