Every once in a while there comes an artist who manages to throw you askew from all your preconceived notions, who makes you rethink your reservations and mores all within the span of a few minutes. When I first received the newest Kinnego release from label owner Barry Lynn (aka Boxcutter) — Beaumont’s Blush Response — my initial response was a sigh as I put on the first track and was greeted by heavily reverbed drum machines and rumbling bass synths that could’ve been taken from a Phil Collins solo record or the soundtrack to some bad 80’s sci-fi movie. It’s true that Beaumont mines the same heavily-abused eighties electronic territory as so many other producers right now, but Scottish producer Michael Rintoul has some almost indefinable quality that pretty much instantly raises him to the top of the heap, once you force yourself to listen past the first few seconds.
Really, it doesn’t get much better than opener “Tokyo,” which neatly packages Beaumont’s strengths into a wildly effective little morsel. Held down by a careful but forceful bass line, synth sounds and artificial strings ring out into a breathtakingly bottomless void of reverb, every sound elevated to an extreme level of melodrama that would be nearly laughable if it didn’t strike awe with each looming chord. As a beat begins to coalesce and bring the elements together into a more recognizable structure, Beaumont reveals some UK bass allegiances, worshiping at the cult altar of the drum machine. But even the way he exploits this particular device is severe, and severely affecting: towards the end of “Tokyo,” Rintoul drops a four-to-the-floor beat for a single bar before pulling it away, leaving the listener breathless as shards of snares fall to the ground, defeated. When he does it again, letting the beat ricochet off the tattered remains, the effect is even more of a visceral punch to the gut, quite literally breathtaking as it knocks the wind out of you.
It’s hard to live up to that opener — and indeed, in this reviewer’s mind, “Tokyo” is about as good as it gets — but the rest of the EP does a remarkable job of finding all the previously unexplored nooks and crannies of this particular sound. “Foreign Intrigue” gives Beaumont’s flighty some weight with a chugging bass line and “Aventurescence” plucks out a wistfully winding melody, incandescent filaments illuminating neon as bits of the human begin to emerge in the form of heavily obscured vocoders. On the flipside it’s “Flesh & Blood” that steals the show, layering harpsichord and flinty synth tones over ball-bearing beats, with breathy, tenderly mumbled vocals pumping some warm blood into the icily detached synthesizers. That’s the theme of the B-side, which feels slightly more sanguine: the arctic majesty of the saturated “Lucky” and the silky Sade-isms of “Midnight,” where Rintoul’s vocals are like a gentle caress over the gently filtered guitar and softly whispering synths.
Blush Response ends with its title track, where it feels like Beaumont’s world is shrinking to uncomfortably withdrawn extremes, the expanse of reverb replaced by slight lo-fi tape damage as bass line, sighing pads and resonant guitars blend into a scuffed foil surface. Beaumont’s debut is a slow-motion crashing wave of overwhelming beauty that hints at unbridled greatness in the future, but like anything this slow it needs time, patience, and a willingness to get lost in the moment to embrace something as theatrical as this. While the EP’s almost ridiculous gravity seems to forbid any kind of gleeful excitement, get excited, because it seems like Barry Lynn has — after Space Dimension Controller two years ago — unearthed another soon-to-be-major force in electronic music. If there’s any justice, anyway.
