{"id":5849,"date":"2017-05-16T23:31:03","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T03:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=5849"},"modified":"2017-05-25T13:30:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T17:30:26","slug":"actress-azd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/actress-azd\/","title":{"rendered":"Actress <br>AZD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/actress-azd.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-5850\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/actress-azd.jpg\" alt=\"Actress, AZD\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/actress-azd.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/actress-azd-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>For too long in America, electronic music has been boiled down to either fist-in-the-air Day-Glo EDM, or more broadly, what\u2019s commonly labeled as \u201ctechno.\u201d But even a slight scratch to the surface shows that there\u2019s much more than that. In the underground, you have artists that are pushing at the margins. Darren Jordan Cunningham, better known by his alias, Actress, is one of those people. For more than a decade, Actress has been the purveyor of a deeply idiosyncratic brand of experimental techno. He\u2019s deeply committed to following his muse, which has created a back catalog that\u2019s difficult to label and on which it\u2019s hard to put a narrative. So it\u2019s with equal parts anticipation and low-burning trepidation that the world welcomes Actress\u2019 fifth full-length, <i>AZD<\/i> (Ninja Tune).<\/p>\n<p>Cunningham has long followed in electronic music\u2019s grand tradition of deep conceptual talk when it comes to his work. But whether he\u2019s serious or taking the piss, an Actress record will undoubtedly give you a little more to chew on. For example, according to the press release, <i>AZD<\/i> is centered around the theme of chrome, \u201cboth as a reflective surface to see the self in, and as something that carves luminous voids out of any color and fine focuses white and black representing the perfect metaphor for the bleakness of life.\u201d Add in references to the Death Star, <i>Blade Runner<\/i>, and a sample of legendary graffiti artist, hip-hop musician, and Afrofuturist Rammellzee, and there\u2019s a lot of substance being brought to the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>The beauty of Actress\u2019 past work, and which is also true of <i>AZD<\/i>, is that the songs can stand alone without any external context. One thing longtime fans may notice is that Cunningham has shed most of the aggressive production elements of his last album, 2014\u2019s <i>Ghettoville<\/i>. But <i>AZD<\/i> is not entirely a total re-embracing of his club instincts. Instead, it\u2019s more of a tentative, and at times, uneasy shotgun wedding of his dancefloor side and his more experimental inclinations. It\u2019s telling that the first drums on the record don\u2019t appear until three minutes into the second song. There are songs that would go down like a storm, such as the Trojan horse of a single, \u201cX22RME,\u201d but Cunningham makes you work for it. Even when it seems like he\u2019s going straight ahead, he\u2019ll throw in a seemingly unrelated diversion before either pulling it together or simply moving on to another idea. It\u2019s not a case of musical ADD, though. Cunningham has a meticulous sense of arrangement. It may not be clear on the \u201cwhy,\u201d but the \u201chow\u201d is impressive.<\/p>\n<p>What makes <i>AZD<\/i> a curious listen is that it simultaneously makes perfect sense as a whole, while at the same time making you question how the individual songs go together. It\u2019s a genius move of sequencing, with the record seeming to build to a point, fall away, but then build to another point and fall away again. For example, \u201cFantasynth\u201d and \u201cBlue Window\u201d make perfect bedfellows, but you\u2019re going to need a breather before you get to the closing set of abstract songs starting with \u201cDancing in the Smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During the lead up to his last record, Cunningham stated that <i>Ghettoville<\/i> would be his last record as Actress. He\u2019s clearly walked that statement back. But if <i>AZD<\/i> were to be his closing statement, it\u2019s a glorious coda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For too long in America, electronic music has been boiled down to either fist-in-the-air Day-Glo EDM, or more broadly what\u2019s commonly labeled as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[1992,34,540],"class_list":["post-5849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-actress","tag-album-review","tag-ninja-tune"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Actress AZD - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/actress-azd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Actress AZD - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For too long in America, electronic music has been boiled down to either fist-in-the-air Day-Glo EDM, or more broadly what\u2019s commonly labeled as\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/actress-azd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-17T03:31:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-05-25T17:30:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/actress-azd.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dorian S. 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