Rainbow Edition is Hype Williams at their bewildering best. The enigmatic experimental duo have crafted a collection of hypnologic nostalgia trips, 3am moods and straight-up sound art.
Loud Challenge evokes images of a ‘80s straight-to-video movie soundtracks with its fluty digital synth and cavernous snare hits. #Blackcardsmatter, seemingly a consumerist play on Black Lives Matter, is the record’s most affecting song, featuring a loop of spooky synths, broke-down beats and a vocal cut as heavy as cough syrup. Elsewhere, the tracks are shorter than your average gif. Puredamage could be the splash audio for a B-movie DVD title screen, with a hollow organ swell evolving under a semi-committed noodle by a novice jazz guitarist. The Whole Lay might’ve been ripped from a little-known Legend of Zelda soundtrack were it not for the pitch-shifted female vocals imploring, “I wanna know / Why are you keeping me?” like a hobby programmer’s AI becoming cognisant.
Rainbow Edition feels like an audio scrapbook, but the record is far from disjointed, as the cheap synths, 808 beats and fetishistic tape-saturation permeate every track, holding them together as if dubbed onto a decaying VHS.
