Beyond Skin

Funnily enough I thought I had reviewed this album already! I think I came across it when I was looking over past Mercury Prize winners and nominees. It's not a bad album, but is a bit dated - I feel like this blend of genres and slightly pretentious, overly earnest songwriting was everywhere in the late 90s. There are some really great songs on here, but it is very hit and miss. Tides for example, is brilliant, but Pilgrim immediately before it has aged like milk. The first 3 songs are quite good. Some of the non-English songs I found to be more interesting than enjoyable. Overall it's a very listenable album, and undeserving of the amount of negativity on here I think, but not perfect. It's like an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that gets a bit tiring after a while. Immigrant is a song that I completely vibe with the sentiment of, but the delivery just made me cringe. Overall it's a bit over-polished, cheesy, and too long.

What the hell was that pseudo intellectual bullshit.

It's got some moments where it does something unique, but for a listen it's a little all-over-the-place, playing the fields of both "cool" and "not great"

Now this is some proper stuff. Eclectic, actually about something, nice amount of repetition so that you understand the vibe without getting bored. Really nice. Seems like folks on here don't care for the same kinda electronic music as me.

Never heard of this before. The nuclear theme is interesting, but not the type of music I would usually listen to. Tides I enjoyed a lot though.

Hard to rate. Some interesting tracks but nothing really holding it together.

A couple of really good tracks surrounded by several mediocre ones.

Sure

3.5
Really interesting album, I'm glad I listened as it's truly something different. But several of the songs let it down a bit, and not all of the style shifts fully work I feel

I was unaware of this artist. But reading his Wikipedia page showed an enormously talented performer, composer, writer and thinker working across multiple genres and highly successful I'm all of them.

The album arrives dripping with significance: a concept album about the Shadow of the Nuclear Bomb.

And yet, for all that, it hits the ear sounding like a watered down Massive Attack, without an ounce of their richness and complexity.

It promises big, but it's really a bit generic and dull.

Almost the platonic ideal of a good work album - spacey, driving, varied enough to keep it interesting, repetitive enough that it fades back and focuses your attention. Trip Hop ambience, downtempo breakbeats, ecclectic world music melodic leads and instrumentation, some annoying RnB stuff.

Beyond Skin was an album that i had a really good time with. In a lot of ways, this album reminds me a fair bit of Talvin Singh's OK mainly because both albums are by British guys using styles from Asian music. I think i like this more due to it being more concise than that album which i felt dragged for longer than it should have. A lot of the songs had some pretty interesting ideas, some of which i never expected like Pilgrim which had some rapping in it and i thought it really worked. The vocals in a lot of the other songs were enjoyable too. There were a few songs which i didn't feel like they worked very well with their elements and some of them did drag but overall, it's a really good album.
Best Song: Pilgrim
Worst Song: Serpents

Found this to be interesting throughout. It is such an out there record with the mix of fusion it delves into without disregarding its message.

8/10 [KEEP]

This is an interesting mix of western composition and traditional Indian ragas. It's much more than that too, and the instrumental performance suggests incredible talent. Vocals are quite beautiful as well. I also respect the themes being explored here. However, all that being said, I don't really respond to this overall. I just don't ever see myself returning to listen to this. It's not bad, just doesn't have anything within in that really inspires me to dig into it.

mostly nice coding music, but it gets absolutely unbearable the moment a human being starts singing in a human language

Eesh.

Good album. Pleasant trip hop sounds with Indian fulourishes for your late 90’s dinner party.

Need more grist in my mill.

I really disliked this album. Way to many songs I wanted to just skip.

Conocí este artista por un recopilatoria de Café del Mar o algo de eso. Y aunque no encaja con mis gustos más generales si es algo que disfruto en dosis recomendadas. Me guardo: Broken skin, Homelands, Pilgrim, Nadia y The conference.

Hadn't heard of Nitin Sawhney before, so wasn't sure what to expect from this album, turned out quite pleasant and chill, (I mean apart from the undertones of nuclear dread).