With each successive move dubstep makes toward bass-drop bombast, there's been an equal if less prominent retreat in the opposite direction-- grainy and pared back, leaning on nuance instead of force, making subtly room-flooding sounds out of negative space and white noise. Another year or so of this, and "minimal dubstep" could go from a sub-descriptive side road into a full-on genre in itself. At that point, Mount Kimbie could be posited as the new genre's equivalent of microhouse favorites like Pantha du Prince or Justus Köhncke. was the UK duo's big breakthrough, the crystallization of an approach that theorized how a bass-centered, midrange-heavy style could be pared back into ambient music. Cohort and collaborator James Blake has taken more of the shine in that department, but the melodic strides and the pervasive sense of loose-jointed tension on managed to leave just as strong an impression over time.