''Crush'' is the second studio album by British electronic musician Sam Shepherd, released under his alias

Floating Points Sam Shepherd, known professionally as Floating Points, is a British electronic music producer, DJ, and musician. He is the founder of Pluto Records, co-founder of Eglo Records and leader of a 16-piece group called Floating Points Ensemble. Bi ...

on 18 October 2019 by

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Background and recording

Shepherd began work on the album following a 2017 tour with

the xx The xx are an English indie rock band from Wandsworth, London, formed in 2005. The band consists of Romy Madley Croft (guitar, vocals), Oliver Sim (bass guitar, vocals), Jamie Smith, also known as Jamie xx (beats, MPC, record production), a ...

. Taking inspiration from German

krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments ...

band

Harmonia In Greek mythology, Harmonia (; grc, Ἁρμονία / harmoˈnia/, "harmony", "agreement") is the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Her Roman counterpart is Concordia. Her Greek opposite is Eris, whose Roman counterpart is Discord ...

's 2007 album ''

Live 1974 ''Live 1974'' is the only live album released by the highly influential krautrock group Harmonia. It was recorded live in concert on 23 March 1974 at Penny Station in Griessem, Germany. The live album was released in 2007 by Grönland Records. ...

'', Shepherd played 30 minute

improvisational Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

sets using only a Buchla synthesizer and a

Korg , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, they ...

drum machine. Upon his return to the studio, Shepherd used the same equipment as the basis for recording and completed the album in five weeks. Unlike the debut Floating Points album ''

Elaenia ''Elaenia'' is a genus of passerine birds in the tyrant flycatcher family which occur in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America. Except by voice, specific identification is often difficult since many species are very similar. The ...

'' (2015), ''Crush'' does not feature any live guitars or drums.

Critical reception

''Crush'' received positive reception upon release. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 81 based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Shawn Reynaldo of ''

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'' awarded the album "Best New Music", saying that the project is "an album of mischievous, melodic, stripped-down electronic music". Dylan Barnabe at ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'' noted that although "the sonic explorations undermine the album's overall cohesiveness, ''Crush'' remains a shining example of Shepherd's growth as an artist". In a mixed review, John Mulvey of ''

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'' thought that the project was "a decent album, but perhaps not the one some of us were hoping for.".

Accolades

Track listing

All tracks written and produced by Sam Shepherd. Credits adapted from

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and

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Charts

References

2019 albums Floating Points albums Ninja Tune albums {{2010s-electronic-album-stub