Ghettoville

Over three albums and numerous remixes, Darren Cunningham (a.k.a. Actress) established himself as one of avant-garde electronic music's most exciting producers, chewing up and spitting out genres like house, techno, dubstep, and abstract noise to achieve his singularly dystopic vision. Cunningham announced his retirement with the release of his fourth and final album, Ghettoville, which might explain why it's his most challenging listen yet. With a few notable exceptions ("Gaze," "Skyline"), the album is void of beats. Instead, it's a monolithic slab of undulating textures—at times cacophonous, at times sublime. It opens with "Forgiven," a heady stew of crackling static, which persists through "Street Corp." "Corner" will get your head nodding with its playfully robotic lilt, but tracks like "Contagious" and "Time" bring you right back to the sonic junkyard. Cunningham is known for his cerebral productions, and this is an especially heady note to go out on.