When Bibio first emerged on Mush Records in the late-‘00s, he seemed easy to pin down: a Boards of Canada acolyte with a love of detuned guitars and British folk. Then, just as the English producer born Stephen Wilkinson signed to the vaunted Warp label, his musical horizons exploded. Ambivalence Avenue (2009), Mind Bokeh (2011), and Silver Wilkinson (2013) all mashed genres wantonly, his folkier tracks brushing against funk, rock and instrumental hip-hop. The latter two albums were a bit undercooked, suggesting a lack of focus. Luckily, A Mineral Love – his seventh album, and easily best since Ambivalence Avenue – finds him committing solidly to the role of indie-pop auteur, in the vein of Toro Y Moi or Blood Orange.
The sonic milieu is well-established from the first few songs: pitter-pat drum machines, soulful keyboards, guitars that alternate between funk wah and spidery folk finger-picking. Bibio sings a lot more here than usual, either in a silky croon or a squeaky falsetto. While his voice is low in the mix, he doesn’t deliberately cloak it with reverb and echo like a lot of bedroom producers do. Instead, his vocals just seem to come from slightly farther away from the guitar. The effect is one of intimacy and tranquility, as if he’s singing these songs for himself on his front porch.
Bibio’s always had R&B and funk leanings, most famously expressed on Ambivalence Avenue’s “Jealous Of Roses.” But they’re to the fore here more than ever. “Feeling” could be a Shuggie Otis or Sly Stone track with its patient funk lope and playful sax. And “Light Up The Sky,” which could have been a hit from a late-‘90s family film soundtrack, features a near-dead-on vocal impression of Prince. Even the folkier tracks brim with funk attitude: listen to the flecks of wah-wah buried deep in the title track, or the bright Hammond organ that ambles through “Town & Country.”
There’s nothing here we didn’t know Bibio could do. But it’s nice to hear him commit to one aspect of his discography and spin that sound into a solid album. The only incongruous tracks are two in the middle: the straight house of “With The Thought Of Us” and the post-disco of “Why So Serious,” featuring a lusty vocal turn from Olivier St. Louis. They’re such a sharp stylistic left turn as to be jarring. But when those familiar guitars come back in on “C’est La Vie,” it’s like we’ve come back from an intermission, and it’s a relief to just hear Bibio again.
Listen to “Town & Country” from Bibio’s A Mineral Love below.
