Born in Chicago and now based in Los Angeles, Benjamin Wynn first emerged back in 2003 with his debut album as Deru for Neo Ouija ‘Pushing Air’, and since then he’s continued to release a steady stream of material under the moniker on a number of impressive labels including Ghostly International, Merck and Ant-Zen. Following last year’s collaborative collection with Talbot ‘Genus’, this latest album ‘Say Goodbye To Useless’ represents his third solo collection as well as his debut for Mush, and sees Wynn continuing to craft a fusion of leftfield hiphop and IDM that occupies similar territory to the likes of edIT and Dabrye. What’s also particularly apparent upon first listening to this album is how comparatively uncluttered and stripped back the eleven tracks gathered here sound – though it soon proves to be something of an illusory first impression, with ‘Say Goodbye…’ managing to reveal new detail upon each subsequent repeated listen.
‘I Would Like’ opens proceedings what sounds like a vintage baritone male opera vocal rolling out through crackling, aged vinyl and a spectral wash of delay, the distant flurry of brooding orchestration signalling the seamless transition into ‘I Want’, which sees hard, angular hiphop rhythms locking down around the operatic vocals in a manner similar to Prefuse 73 as flashes of funk guitar dart amidst swelling accordians and contorted, phase-shifted ride cymbals. There’s certainly a discernibly strong leftfield hiphop backbone to much of this collection, as head-snapping highlights such as ‘Peanut Butter & Patience’, with its clattering drum breaks and pinging, sonar bleep meets electro soul-funk keys, and ‘Basically, Fuck You’ , with its crunching head-nod beats, rhythmic stutters and buzzing, distorted synth grooves clearly illustrate. That said however, less beats-focused moments such as ‘Fadeway’s haunting glide through majestic live clarinet arrangements and contorted, downbeat rhythms and ‘What Happens When You Ask’s woozy fusion of stray field-recorded sampling, glitchy, popping minimalistic electronics and eerily phased string textures clearly illustrate that Deru’s clearly more interested in pushing back boundaries than pandering to the indie-hiphop cognoscenti. Fans of leftfield beats along the lines of Prefuse 73, edIT and Daedelus will find much to enjoy on this excellent third album.
Chris Downton
