Black is Beautiful
by Hype Williams
  • Record Label: Hyperdub
  • Release Date: Apr 17, 2012
Metascore
68

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. Mixmag
    Jun 12, 2012
    80
    Black Is Beautiful is nigh-on indescribable--in a very good way.
  2. Fact Magazine (UK)
    May 16, 2012
    80
    The result is a collection of intriguing, often beautiful miniatures--gems to be cherished and enjoyed, sonic curiosities that reward repeated listening.
  3. Tiny Mix Tapes
    Apr 17, 2012
    80
    The "black" of the title is not racial blackness, but the blackness of the void, the "abyss" of occultism. And that void, evoked by the dark, inchoate pop of Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland, is indeed beautiful.
  5. Resident Advisor
    Apr 17, 2012
    80
    A surprisingly coherent record full of vignettes that feel alternately archival, ethnographic and as usual, flickering and ephemeral-glimpses of musicality that flutter away just when you get comfortable.
  6. Pitchfork
    May 1, 2012
    74
    There's a natural path forged between all the shifts, a sense that the abstraction feeds off the structure and vice versa. As such, Black Is Beautiful nears something that could readily be branded as Blunt and Copeland's aesthetic.
  7. Uncut
    May 7, 2012
    70
    Black Is Beautiful is their strongest yet, so cognitively disorienting it's hard to figure out what they're up to. [Jun 2012, p.69]
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  8. BBC Music
    Apr 17, 2012
    70
    Black Is Beautiful is their most immediately accessible album, but its 15 tracks (14 of which are untitled) don't sound much like hits. Like its predecessors, this set works best taken as a whole, when its unstable collage has time to establish what turns out to be a powerful atmosphere.
  9. The Quietus
    Apr 17, 2012
    70
    Black Is Beautiful is a still more refined musical iteration of displaced and replaced citizens: slow sirens and distant voices, as if urgently broadcast in foreign languages over distorted subway intercoms, soundtracked by free jazz and hip-hop, lover's rock and electro, j-pop and dub - themselves diasporic, oppidan genres.
  10. Beats Per Minute
    May 7, 2012
    66
    The finished product sounds like a work in progress, which is cool, but here's to hoping that Blunt and Copeland will improve the production quality and fully realize their genrebending sketches next time around.
  11. Q Magazine
    Jun 20, 2012
    60
    Strange, but strangely compelling, too. [Jun 2012, p.97]
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  12. Mojo
    Apr 25, 2012
    60
    A skittering show-reel of outer-space advert indents that flit from dying hard-drive porn disco to sweetly-warped On-U dub lullabies. [May 2012, p.89]
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  13. Drowned In Sound
    Apr 17, 2012
    60
    There are some brilliant tailpieces on Black is Beautiful and some wonderful impressions of a travel sick Alan Clavier, but they're hampered by too many dead ends and retreaded ground.
  14. New Musical Express (NME)
    Apr 17, 2012
    60
    These drifts of pop cultural flotsam feel eerily dislocated, as if there was little joy in the psychic bloodletting. Strangely compelling, though.

User Reviews

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User Score
8.2

Universal acclaim- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. analogbrat
    Jul 7, 2013
    10
    The past few years have seen no shortage of inherently weird, out-of-reach music in the electronic sphere, and the group formerly known asThe past few years have seen no shortage of inherently weird, out-of-reach music in the electronic sphere, and the group formerly known as Hype Williams make their LP debut on Hyperdub with a doozy of a labyrinth. The sounds of detuned radios in adjacent rooms, woozy female vocals, rough edits, rudely interrupting radio transmissions, whispered nothings and endless Krautrock loops. It keeps you at a distance but lets you fully admire the view.… Full Review »
  2. shinycrapyboy
    Jun 11, 2012
    8
    the album is a weird collection of great lo-fi tracks. Maybe more interesting than their predecesor hyped "One nation" or other artists of thethe album is a weird collection of great lo-fi tracks. Maybe more interesting than their predecesor hyped "One nation" or other artists of the hypnagogic pop scene who have been praised like gods on very influencial music web sites. It begins with a cacophonic free jazz introduction. Then the too short untitled tracks. Sometimes it sounds funky, sometimes like very short & cheap interludes of ambient with a soft world music/new age influence. There is a lot of dub & dark vibes. It is a good LP because unique, although the dirty production can be an obstacle, it is not accidental but rather something deliberate . No one is able to create something so experimental without being boring for someone who is not familiar with this gender. A sort of futuristic music for elevators!!! Not the best of 2012 but a must for those who like to discover paralell universes… Full Review »
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