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Williams' ostensible depthlessness, like that of his forebears, is itself only a façade, and Smoke offers plenty to discover across repeated listens--particularly the way in which he tweaks his own voice, melting and reshaping it like the models' Technicolor "tears" on the album cover.
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The world probably doesn't need a new Beck, but Smoke proves there's one floating around, just in case.
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Smoke never sounds dated or rehashed--instead, it's a fresh, consistently creative, and consistently listenable debut.
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Williams finds himself on the respected electronic label Tigerbeat6, raising expectations even higher. He more than meets them, navigating ably through sugary tracks tempered with a dark streak.
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Under The RadarSmoke is his first off-center classic. [Fall 2007, p.77]
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Smoke pulls off the neat trick of seeming weightless and disassociated but never slight, playful, yet neither inconsequential nor silly.
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On Smoke, his blog-buzzed debut, he offers a tuneful, mellow bedroom pastiche of trebly early-’80s punk funk, spirited, rhythm-rich worldbeat, and post-Beck white-guy R&B.
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As with most other first releases, though, it's a a bit inconsistent in places, but all in all, Smoke is a fun and sometimes great debut from a young artist.
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Alternative PressSmoke is a pleasant pastiche of David Bowie's "Berlin" period--with a lab-coated synth freakout at disc's end for all those Morton Subotnick fans out there. [Dec 2007, p.188]
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There’s wit and meticulous posturing in the hills: we’ll be waiting right here for tomorrow. After all, there are enough immediately delectable grooves in his eleven tracks today.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 4
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Mixed: 0 out of 4
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Negative: 1 out of 4
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JoeH.Dec 11, 2007