2/26/2024 0 Comments Flume album cover![]() Sure, you’ve seen one of these before, but never one quite as graceful as this.Fresh off topping Australia’s publicly voted triple j Hottest 100 with his 2022 track “Say Nothing” featuring MAY-A, versatile producer Flume dropped this surprise album. It’s enigmatic, it’s beautiful and it’s satisfying, while also being undramatic and a tad tongue-in-cheek. ![]() Perhaps the best indicator of what to expect from “Palaces” is its cover art. It subverts expectations but remains fun and easy to digest. When closing title track “Palaces” ends, the bird that’s featured on the album’s cover starts making more sense. On a scale of 1 to 10, Palaces is an 8.5. Skin explored the extremes of addictive upbeat electronic pop, and Hi This Is Flume did the same for abrasive left-field dance music. This record is a culmination of Flume’s previous experiments in various genres. The too-slow “Sirens” featuring Caroline Polachek displays some very subtle and unusual granular synth sounds that make it worth the listener’s while. The otherwise boring “Say Nothing” is held up by a dynamic vocal performance from feature MAY-A and some creative production garnishes. It has fast tracks, slow tracks, quiet tracks, loud tracks, and everything in between, but they remain cohesive and unified through the common denominators of catchy pop and forward thinking electronic textures.Įven the album’s lower moments have merit. Too many tracks of nonstop energy don’t allow an album to ebb and flow and tell a story. Electronic music songs often fit more naturally as singles than in album formats due to their cliched and superlative verse-buildup-drop structure. The living qualities of the music also extends to the songwriting and the dynamic structure of the record as a whole. ![]() It’s fitting, considering the album’s nature-themed promotional materials. It maintains the lifelike quality of his past albums, but tames them slightly if Flume’s previous records sounded like a walk through a city street, “Palaces “ sounds like a stroll through the woods. Flume takes a more understated approach to his blown-out signature sound. One of the strongest parts of this record is the sound design. Other tracks, such as “ESCAPE,” and “Only Fans,” carry the same energy and excitement. Opening track “Highest Building” hearkens back to the sounds of sugary 2010s future bass while still pushing the envelope with unorthodox, organic sound design. Still, the album is by no means short of festival-ready bangers. The album’s fifth track, “I Can’t Tell”, offers an absolutely euphoric verse section, superimposing sensitive vocals from LA-based British singer-songwriter LAUREL over a perfectly simple bass line, followed by a brooding, hard-hitting drop with jittery granular textures and metallic drums. The twelfth track on the record, titled “Go”, is an upbeat yet reflective song, a laid-back drum and bass tune with heavily processed vocals and colorful synths. Some of the album’s most exciting and moving moments are its quietest. It’s an immersive experience that won’t give the listener what they expect, but will likely give them something they enjoy even more. ![]() “Palaces” is unusual in its pacing, its songwriting, and its production. The same holds true for the album itself. It’s an odd choice, but the listener just needs to have faith that it’s the right one. Now he’s back with his third studio album Palaces, with cover art featuring a digital but realistic rendering of a rainbow-colored bird. ![]() Following two successful albums in 20, Flume and Skin, he redefined his image with a bizarre but brilliant 2019 mixtape titled Hi This Is Flume. Harley Streten, who makes music under the name Flume, doesn’t make obvious artistic decisions. Visual artist Jonathan Zawada created the cover as well as the album’s other related visuals. ![]()
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