Floating Points: Cascade (Ninja Tune)
I don't know why my fellow Mancunian music fans get their bloomers in so much of a twist of Oasis. Or get their bucket hats in a knot over the Stone Roses. Yes, they are landmark Manchester bands, but what about Floating Points? Floating flipping Points, one of Manchester's best musical exports.
Flo-Po's new album Cascade is, as we say around these parts, a delightfully spiffing listen. He's in a dancefloor mood, skipping along those 4/4 bars like a clubber possessed. It's the most immediate I've heard him for some time: drum fills and synth squirls come fast. Banger after banger.
Key103, named after a Manchester radio station, sounds like Luke Abbott on his fourth Starbucks of the day. Afflecks Palace, named after a Manchester shopping arcade, is a right tetchy acid workout. Fast Forward, named after nothing in particular, crescendos so dang hard.
Despite the Manc leanings, Floating Points says this album was inspired by a mind-opening time spent in the Californian desert. The final track Ablaze perhaps evokes this best, its ever-quietening ambience sounding like heat haze on a dusty and cactussed horizon.
My only disappointment is that the album contains no references to that place just off the Northern Quarter that does rice and three curries for cheap. Now that would be a Manchester reference worth making music about. Now I'm hungry. Serves me right for writing this before lunch.
This is part of a series, currently live-blogging on 3, 4 & 5 January 2025. Read the posts so far.
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