Actress, the longstanding project of Wolverhampton-born electronic producer Darren J. Cunningham, is back with a new album called 88. It’s his first solo effort since 2017’s AZD and first overall since the following year’s LAGEOS, a collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra. As of last night the new project is available as a free download, with all its songs piled onto one 48-minute track, from a newly set up Bandcamp page.
Downloads of 88 include a PDF featuring the tracklist for another Actress album called Karma & Desire scheduled for release in October. That one apparently spans 17 tracks and includes numerous features, though all the guests’ names have been replaced by rows of triangles. By comparison, 88 seems to be a fully instrumental affair, as alternately brisk and bleary as you’d expect from hip-hop-adjacent British experimental electronic music. Cunningham remains one of the more fascinating composers in his scene, creating club music that thumps and skitters like busy London streets but darts unpredictably just when you think you’ve got a handle on it.
Download 88 for free at Bandcamp.
