The EP’s most straightforward track, “Heater,” is restrained compared to the Glastonbury-ready productions on Skin. “V” rattles and clatters for under three minutes, blending organic percussion, disembodied vocals, and elastic synths the sound is surreal and meditative, like playing pick-up-sticks in a zen garden might be. The remainder of the album features more airy successes, similar to the shorter cuts on Skin.
FLUME SKIN SKIN
(The Preatures, like Flume, are New South Wales natives.) The result is a glitchy and glossy R&B-inflected tune, somewhere between CHVRCHES and Natasha Kmeto, with all the punch of Skin standout single, “Never Be Like You.” Of the EP’s four tracks, only one, “Trust,” features a guest vocalist-the Preatures’ Isabella Manfredi-and she’s here because she makes sense for the song, not to generate buzz. But while that album emerged from a sous-vide of industry hype, its companion isn’t nearly as overdone.
Skin Companion 1, is billed as the first EP, presumably in a series, that will feature music recorded from the same sessions that produced Skin. (Beck recast as a future-pop Beach Boy was an unexpected win.) More often, however, the features roster seemed a cagey distraction to Flume’s more left-field impulses. Some songs, like “Tiny Cities,” were successes. The sixteen-track album was stacked with legacy giants and alt-pop darlings, among them: Beck, Raekwon, Vince Staples, Little Dragon, AlunaGeorge, MNDR, and Vic Mensa. Streten’s way of dealing with astronomical expectations, as it turned out, were equally large ambitions: if Flume was a beat maker flirting with pop, Skin was a pop record with an experimental sense of rhythm. “I struggled with the pressure of having the successful record after the first record,” he said.
So, when it came time for him to drop Skin, the burden was heavy to prove he was more than just the flavor of the moment. Over the next 36 months he would remix Lorde, Disclosure, Sam Smith, and Arcade Fire. This was only one year after his first live show, and Flume-then 21-had a legitimate hit album and the attention of music’s biggest names.
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