Never Enough Notes e-zine // reviews + interviews + music

“Clear Your Mind”, the debut album from Russian wünderkind Bop, was one of the key electronic albums of the last decade, and despite a lack of mainstream attention it should be held up alongside anything by Aphex Twin, Burial or Radiohead as a landmark record. A gorgeous, haunting collection of icily delicate soundscapes, it not only introduced a producer with astonishing technical skill, but one with a singular musical vision, and as a result expectations for the follow-up are extremely high. Happily, the hype is entirely justified. The brilliantly-titled “The Amazing Adventures of One Curious Pixel” has been worth every minute of the wait.

It would have been easy for Bop to produce another ten or eleven minimal pieces, but thankfully he has managed to do that rare thing: take his music in different directions while still maintaining his own unmistakable identity. The trademarks are still there – beats so crisp they send a shiver through the listener’s body, spacey synth washes, subtle glitchy flourishes – but many of the tracks here have an edge of laid-back, futuristic funkiness that you might not be expecting. “Clear Your Mind” made you feel alone, even lost in its spacious sonic structures. Its sequel, while still spellbindingly lovely in places, brings a smile to your face. “The End of the Beginning” combines sideways stepping beats with what sounds like slide guitar from the future, while “An Open-Eyed Dream” is an indecently cool piece of squashed glitch-hop with a constantly-mutating bassline.

Bop has proven himself equally adept across multiple styles and bpms, and builds on that here. The sublime alien warble of “Extraterrestrial Creatures Are Stealing You From Me From The Bedroom” (what a name), the title track and his remix of Subwave’s “I Need You” all showcase his knack for truly stretching the boundaries of drum and bass, warping and playing with the 170bpm form and finding all manner of new shapes for it, while “Sunrain” is a woozy minimal techno offering and “Intercontinental Meltdown” is an utterly beautiful piece of fragile, melodic dubstep with a genius Bollywood sample and drums like melting stalactites. It’s hard to pick favourites from such a strong collection – there’s not a substandard track here – but my particular highlight, alongside the fabulously wonky “An Open-Eyed Dream”, would be the breathtaking “Morning Air”, which combines beats and melody with such ingenuity, soul and precision that you truly wonder whether Bop’s production could get any better. It undoubtedly can, but this album would be one hell of a glass ceiling. Another triumph for Bop and for Med School, and an absolute treat for any curious pixels out there.