Review
Nearly two decades on from the murk of his earliest cassette-caked experiments, Darren Cunningham strips away lingering haze in favor of an austere, razor-sharp digital chassis. Radical Frame abandons the insular conceptual puzzles of his recent work, doubling down instead on the volatile friction between miniature sketches and expansive architecture.
The sequencing swings between blunt confrontation and spacious solitude. On "Live By You", CASISDEAD's spliced cadence cuts across warped bass and brittle percussion before Cunningham pivots toward the solitary, chilled keyboard motifs of "Paris" and the leaping synth arpeggios of "Cosmo". Rather than smoothing these seams, the arrangements treat emptiness as a structural anchor, letting muted tech-house pulses breathe beneath frosty melodic phrases.
Everything converges on "Sheets", a sixteen-minute monument that sharpens Cunningham's rhythmic deconstructions into pure expanse. Propelled by rapid hi-hats and decayed low-end rumbles, Rainy Miller's processed falsetto drifts until the machinery dissolves completely, leaving only resonant piano chords and the low wash of coastal surf.
