Klein - cc (2018)

Glitch / Sound Collage / Ambient

RIYL: Elysia Crampton, Laurel Halo, Lolina

★★★½

Klein’s series of short-format releases started off with one foot firmly in the realm of contemporary R&B but has since evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into whatever you could possibly call the impossible object that is cc. At times abrasive and always unsettling, the eight tracks that make up the experimental collagist’s 2018 EP are comprised of thick, gritty, shifting layers of static and electronic noises blasted out over nearly-fossilized field recordings looped ad nauseum. If you listen really closely you can occasionally discern faint traces of what may have once been typical top-40 neo-soul hooks but have since been trampled into the dirt and left to die with only a muffled groan escaping with their last breath. Lucky for me I prefer my R&B when it’s smashed to pieces.