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9.1
62140
9.1 |
Pretty Much Amazing
This is an astonishingly varied and an astonishingly cohesive record, one that maintains a crystal-clear (if very glum) vision as it hops from one sonic context to another
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9.0
62209
9.0 |
Drowned In Sound
As varied as the unrelenting bleakness might be, the true coup de grace of Ghettoville is the emotional bite it delivers
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8.5
62031
8.5 |
The Line Of Best Fit
A seventy minute sustained gaze into the dark, uncomfortable at first until the eyes adjust, until the patterns take shape and those shadows start to dance
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8.5
62295
8.5 |
The Quietus
This is a record which exerts a demand upon everyone who listens to it, not simply in its abrasive textures but in the fundamental questions it raises about the worthwhileness of persevering
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8.5
62407
8.5 |
Crack
It’s an obtuse take on hard-edged, steely, abstract techno, a crushed, warped, broken-kneed crawl through the hinterlands of the outer reaches of IDM; a defiantly ugly album
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8.0
62487
8.0 |
All Music
If this is the end of Actress, it ties up a near-perfect discography of experimental electronic music
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8.0
62112
8.0 |
Uncut
Inscrutable, unsettling and utterly unique. Print edition only
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8.0
62130
8.0 |
musicOMH
It’s a record that leaves you frozen. Whether or not Ghettoville is to be Darren Cunningham’s final work as Actress, it is as a significant achievement
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8.0
62133
8.0 |
Slant Magazine
Ghettoville is a 70-minute high-wire act, equal parts musique concrète and concrete jungle, its enveloping darkness in tension with a few precious rays of light
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8.0
62032
8.0 |
Fact
Ghettoville might chronicle a dark patch for Actress, but once it hits its stride it’s as good, and as full of life, as anything he has produced
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8.0
62028
8.0 |
The Guardian
Cunningham adds soulful vocal samples to his palette of ambient, industrial, techno, avant-electronica, glitch, minimalism and pretty much any other genre he feels like taking apart
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8.0
62029
8.0 |
Spin
"R.I.P music," wrote Cunningham in the introduction to the album. As corpses go, this one is exquisite
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8.0
62030
8.0 |
Clash
Rarely has an artist’s death been so vivid. R.I.P. Actress; your dystopian electronic visions have widened our nocturnal vision. We now await your reincarnation
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8.0
62071
8.0 |
NME
An exciting new landscape to get lost in and explore
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8.0
62074
8.0 |
Q
Challenging yet compelling. Print edition only
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8.0
62852
8.0 |
Under The Radar
Where R.I.P was the uncoiling of a hissing techno serpent, Ghettoville is the slow creak of industrialisation, wheezing to piston beats and asthmatic electronics
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7.0
63451
7.0 |
PopMatters
Taking off my headphones after this journey feels like I’m peeling off a space suit, and the world gets sucked back into existence with a loud thump, in all its surround-sound glory and always perfect audiophile quality
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7.0
62772
7.0 |
The Music
Cunningham is still way out doing his own thing. You won’t hear much else like it in 2014 for sure, but fans may find it a comedown after R.I.P
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6.7
62131
6.7 |
Pitchfork
Ghettoville refuses to commune with anything but itself, including the broken and disadvantaged world it purports to represent
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6.0
62033
6.0 |
The Irish Times
An album of heavyweight, sinister noises and grooves that clang and thump and go bump in the night
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6.0
62034
6.0 |
The Observer
Those allergic to narcotic murk or analogue-aping digital nocturnes may not see what all the fuss is about, but listen in and Actress's dystopian rhythms all have sinuous melodies running through them
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6.0
62286
6.0 |
No Ripcord
While Ghettoville comes off as an interesting sketchbook of ideas, it rarely transcends that to become something greater
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6.0
62027
6.0 |
The Skinny
Ghettoville is simply a space, a hinterland where textures materialise, mutate and fade, their tessellations or arguments observed and mediated by no one
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5.8
62139
5.8 |
Consequence Of Sound
Actress may eventually find rebirth, or better yet, reincarnation, as the sentimentally shattering Hazy and Ghetto feel like suspensions in a temporary world
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4.0
62088
4.0 |
Mojo
A stubborn statement of retirement in the form of a half-finished work. Print edition only
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