Hardcourage

"From the opening tiptoeing robot tones of "Stay I'm Changed", a playfulness runs through Hardcourage: it wiggles in the winking funk of "Straight & Arrow", belly-laughs at the parrot-like squawk that swoops through the low-end jungle of "Korben Dallas", and leaps on the tap-dancing keys-- all lit up like that scene in Big-- of choral-infused, dub ballad "Re Assimilate". "She Sleeps" ia a joy-filled shuffling house number that's as close to pop as Lustman's ever got, thanks to Friendly Fires frontman Ed Macfarlane's vocal turn".

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"Hardcourage takes a step back from Lustman's apparently infinite array of sounds, surveys its surroundings and finds a nice cozy spot to lounge. In a more literal sense, it replaces the ecstatic skip of his Planet Mu work with a breezy shuffle. Both the opener "Stay I'm Changed" and "Straight & Arrow" plot squiggly melodies on top of straightforward rhythms. His music has never sounded very quantized, but here we get modal melodies instead of sprawling abstraction".

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