Michigan trio Kiln make the kind of slow, loping, precious downtempo that's hard to pull off. There's a fine line between chilled-out and catatonic, and Dusker is actually neither, which is why it works so well. IDM-inspired beats and glitchy flourishes (clipped sounds, random production hiccups) keep the otherwise autumnal, golden-hour tracks on their toes, as Kiln find a world of sound between the binary, dub-techno of Basic Channel and the shoegazer melodies of Ulrich Schnauss' Far Away Trains Passing By.
“Fyrepond” breathes with a tick-tock beat that nods approvingly at the gentle melodies that ebb and flow from it, while “The Colorfreak” sighs behind heavily processed guitar chords in an IDM-brushed arrangement. “Rustdusk” is like a slow-motion 909 drum circle, making melodies out of rhythms and rhythms out of its melodies. Yes, it's that good. It's only when Dusker gets too precious, as on the too-Schnauss-y “Airplaneshadows” (because “Far Away Trains” was already taken?) that Kiln rely a little too heavily on a tinkling piano and let the cute-as-a-kitten stuff turn into a musical run-on. Not that it's a bad track; it's just that the rest of Dusker is so much more successful at track-making as songwriting. They excel when the beats aren't used just as a backdrop for textural layers, when the wistful melancholia is more important (and feels better) than all the pretty sunset colors. Fuck happy endings.
