Maxi Curnow – ‘Transition’ [Review]
Last year, Maxi Curnow dropped STEM – TMMP’s #2 EP of the year – and it earned that lofty ranking for good reason. This guy is a one-of-a-kind talent – a genius, as overused as that term is today – and when it comes to instrumental skill, compositional nous, and punch-to-the-gut songcraft, Maxi Curnow possesses a perspective all his own. STEM was a unique display of musical Jedi skills, a twenty-minute epic crammed with twists, turns, and tangents – and it fucking blew my mind.
Transition is a different proposition. With this album, Maxi Curnow has everything he needs to go as far as he damn well pleases.
On Transition, the influence of virtuosi as diverse as Tesseract and Guthrie Govan merge with nods in the direction of electronic experimentalist extraordinaire Björk and a lack of trepidation in embracing pure, substance-infused pop songcraft. Trip-hoppy moments also abound as ambient and jazzy textures glide over bottomless grooves. In short, Transition is so sick that if it were human, it would be on life support.
Highlights are hard to pick – but the sublime, horn-laden Shape Of You is definitely up there, alongside unorthodox and spellbinding love song The Author and classic Curnow tune If Only, the latter equal parts pop and djent. Really, though, Transition is an album that can be played through as an album, from start to finish, without a single duff moment. In the era of the cherry-picked playlist, albums like this – an album that works as a stand-alone playlist in its own right, as albums fucking should – are incredibly rare, and all the more valuable for it.
At the end of my review of STEM, I thanked Maxi Curnow for existing. Although that was cheesy as fuck, and it makes me want to implode with embarrassment when I think back to it, I’m still going to do it again here, because this guy needs and deserves all the support in the world. Maxi – cheers, man. Again: Don’t stop, and keep going.
TMMP RATING: 100% (Not a typo, this is seriously serious)
Links
Maxi Curnow on Facebook and Twitter.
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