Album review: Hi This is Flume by Flume

Photo courtesy of Future Classic

Flume

Hi This Is Flume

Future Classic

Score: A

If someone told me five years ago that I would be positively reviewing a Flume album, I’d say: “Buddy, what are you? Some kind of fortune teller?”

And they would be, because, you know what, there’s a special reverence reserved for those electronic artists that weathered the post-dubstep internet hype-fest of the early 2010s, even those ostentatious enough to still drop a “hi, this is —” tagline on a mixtape. Clichés aside, though, Australian artist Flume’s latest, Hi This Is Flume, really does slap.

Featuring heavy-hitters JPEGMAFIA and SOPHIE, Hi This Is Flume is 17 quick quips that are all killer — each tagged with Bon Iver, 22, A Million-esque track titles and oddball vocal warps that equally flex and fluctuate between club-ready bangers and erudite IDM odes.

It’s the logical next step in a genre that’s becoming a haven for those who want to move beyond “the drop,” and one that’s more than worth the listen.

– Alec Warkentin