L.A.-based beatmaker Alfred Darlington has spent most of the past decade churning out poly-genre electronic music, sometimes seeming to favor quantity over quality. On the rare occasion when he gives an idea the time to develop, he too often suffocates it by packing too much in. Even his best work, 2003's outré-rap collaboration with Busdriver and Radioinactive, The Weather, was tainted by his weaker re-work, Rethinking the Weather.
Still, despite Darlington's discography, it isn't unreasonable to at least expect a slight uptick in quality from Righteous Fists of Harmony, his new EP for Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, which is being put out as a prelude to a full-length for Ninja Tune later this year. There's no better time than now for Darlington to redefine his reputation as an artist, especially in a scene where his peers (FlyLo, Dâm-Funk, Gaslamp Killer) are establishing more fully realized styles and developing a higher profile.
It turns out that a slight uptick in quality is exactly what Righteous Fists of Harmony delivers. It opens with a six-minute piece pitting minor-key drone against boilerplate glitch-hop, and it closes with a bit of soundtrack schmaltz; sandwiched between are takes on color-bled balladry, blunted electronica, and Brazilian-inflected lounge, with little apparent regard to sequencing. Even though it has just eight tracks and runs a little over 26 minutes, it's still a mess
The aforementioned Brazilian influence is the only idea here that really feels fleshed out. Elsewhere, the EP leans more toward halfway interesting fragments: "Tidal Waves Uprising" begins with slowly picked acoustic guitar, delicately building urgency with measured snare hits and added guitar tracks, while EP centerpiece "Order of the Golden Dawn", features wife and frequent collaborator Laura Darlington doing her best Astrud Gilberto impression to a surprisingly strong effect. These okay moments, taken together, don't add up to much. Instead of giving listeners a distillation of his strengths, Darlington has produced what is essentially a so-so Savath y Savalas EP. After nearly a decade at it, he really doesn't need any more sources in his work; instead, his music needs some space to breathe and grow.
