Grimm Reality

Album Review

Sticking with the Stones Throw imprint Now-Again Records, Swiss producer Dimlite makes underground hip-hop and experimental electronic music much like the instrumentals crafted by members of the Stones Throw roster, but weirder. As demonstrated on his third record, Grimm Reality, he toes a tightrope between stony beats and sonic abrasion, more akin to electronic noise experimentalists like Black Dice. The record offers something to nearly every audience that could approach it, with a groove for electronic fans, an obtuse take on music-making for the avant-garde, and fractured atonal melodies for left-of-center pop fans. Rhythm drives everything, with crunchy beats and thick motorik basslines keeping the creepy effects-damaged vocals, gurgling synths, and digital skronk in check. "New, Better Pain" rides from one side of the spectrum to the other, starting with a tense loop and gradually seguing out of a near-maddening experience with sugary atmospherics. "One of Uh Infinity's Countless Uh Tiny Cycles" sounds like a glitched reinterpretation of a '70s action movie score, and "Than Them" sounds like cosmic funk transmitted from the outer limits, as played by robotic barnyard animals. Though Grimm Reality is wholly experimental, Dimlite's gift for carving a mood out of a propulsive groove allows this record to be enjoyed by an audience wider than merely experimental listeners.