“Actress, aka Darren Cunningham, is back with AZD, which press materials describe as "a chrome reflected journey into a parallel world." Musically, it takes listeners through a dystopian dance-floor dream universe, with the shiny but comforting hand from its cover as our guide. "Nimbus" opens the album with twinkly dewdrops of randomized synth notes. It's a fitting juxtaposition of organic and te”
“Actress’ sixth LP reaches deep into both Darren Cunningham’s clubbiest and most avant-garde impulses, exploring language and Afrofuturism while maintaining a musicality that holds the listener close.”
“For all the variously depressing and chilling reasons why one might already feel that 2017 is turning out to be a year our future selves will wish they could forget, at least progressive electronic music seems to have fared well over the past four months. In Blanck Mass’ ‘World Eater’ and Clark’s ‘Death Peak’, we have been treated to career-best statements from producers whose elastic approach to ”
“Darren Jordan Cunningham has been making boundary-pushing electronic music under the Actress name for well over a decade. His last album, 2014’s ‘Ghettoville’, was a dark, glitchy and soulful triumph. ‘AZD’, his fifth, is no less imaginative, a record themed entirely around chrome. Concept albums are few and far between in 2017, but even rarer are the ones dealing with the shiny surfaces found in ”
