Actress's Tenth Album Is a Brittle, Demanding Listen
The UK producer's new record mixes depressive electro, mangled spoken word, and self-destructing rap anthems, often in short, disorienting bursts. It opens with two tracks under 30 seconds and closes with a 16-minute collaboration with Rainy Miller. The album is good but requires effort from the listener.
Darren Cunningham, recording as Actress, has spent over two decades refining a lo-fi, filtered electronic style. His tenth album for Ninja Tune opens with two fragments under 30 seconds—one a manipulated voice, another a five-second command—before moving into a track with CASISDEAD that deliberately degrades into static. The closing 16-minute piece with Rainy Miller shifts from mournful narration to bittersweet uplift.
The album's conceptual framing draws on a Fred Moten quote about black avant-garde identity, and the review connects its voice-melting techniques to musique concrète traditions. Cunningham has previously built albums around chess and Paradise Lost, continuing a pattern of oblique, self-referential projects that reward patient listening.
This album could reinforce Actress's reputation as a demanding artist whose work appeals primarily to committed electronic music audiences rather than casual listeners. Its fragmented structure and lengthy closing collaboration may influence how other producers approach album pacing and guest features. The engagement with avant-garde theory could prompt discussion about electronic music's cultural positioning, though the record's difficult nature may limit its reach beyond established niche communities and critics.