On one hand, Bibio was lucky to escape any and all lame “chillwave” labels that may have been lazily ascribed to his sound — a truce between Boards of Canada and folktronica-era Four Tet. Of course, the Warp-signed Stephen Wilkinson has been doing this before Washed Out was first bleached, so it’s unlikely that he’d be a first round draft pick into the world of altered zones. The downside of this is that no one will buy his cassette tapes and he has never once been called a “bro.”
“Excuses” the first leak from his forthcoming fifth album, continues to tap into what Aaron Matthews called “the sound of someone else’s childhood, filtered through dusty, warped records and faded photo albums.” Count this record among the years most anticipated, even if someone needs to put a moratorium on these screensaver videos.
