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"It’s fair to say we loved the Mahatma X ‘A Mobtown Suite’ album which came out last year. Rather than follow up that extravaganza of J Dilla-ish hip-hop and Madlib influenced samples, the brains behind those laid back beats has metamorphasised into MALK  - a seriously different piece of work but just as fascinating…and again it’s become something of an office favourite here at the towers.  

 

Death From A Love is quite possibly the first Trump era record. By that I mean its barrage of electronica - ranging from supremely melodic to totally out there - seems to reflect a confused America where nothing is really as it seems. The constant and increasingly desperate attempts to twist reality from it's lunatic leader seems to be mirrored in this twenty track sprawl. It takes several listens to find your feet with this one. The cut and spliced sounds spill out of every pore -  like the music of Oneohtrix Point Never it sometimes seems to designed to disarm with crazed percussion and off key synth work but the album’s saving grace is that out of the chaos comes several examples of real beauty. 

While impressive opener ‘Everything Must Change’ has in-vogue John Carpenter synths underpinning spoken word vocals it's ‘International Headass Network’ which is the first moment to truly set the album alight, an incredible ride through sampledelia with cut up vocals and lolling beats that recall an acid fried Prefuse 73. ‘You Thought Wrong’ is an incredible burst of tuneful electronica where street sounds and confused beats battle for supremacy, 

'The Way You Look’ is an 80s inspired slab of vaporwave which again seems to emerge like a pearl of tunefulness out of the chaos that surrounds it while the album closes with the utterly exceptional ‘Electronic Hope’ a stunning tour-de-force of sampled voices proving that when he sits down and concentrates on one thing, MALK can produce truly moving electronic masterpieces seemingly without effort. 

 

MALK’s scattershot approach resembles turn of the century artists such as Kid 606 who seemed supercharged towards making music that disorientated the listener. 'Death From A Love' is a dizzying ride full of haphazard samples, bonkers percussion and a Zomby'esque playfulness. If at times it all sounds like sonic overkill, don't worry there'll be some life-affirming electronic snapshot along in a minute to act as a reassuring balm.

 

There’s incredible beauty coming through the cracks of this chaos. Death from A Love truly reflects the disorientating times we live in." Norman Records.