Description
With three albums of electronic folk experiments firmly under his belt, Stephen Wilkinson aka Bibio struck gold with 2009’s Ambivalence Avenue. He successfully shirked off the expectations of genre with his critically-lauded fourth LP, making further strides into vintage pop and folk territories without sacrificing any of the warm, fuzzy recording processes he championed along the way.
Key to Bibio’s transcendence is the multitude of styles and artistic choices made on this multifaceted LP. Tracks like ‘all the flowers’ and ‘abrasion' recalls classic pop songwriting fed through an acid folk filter, soaked with a wistful kind of lovelorn yet upbeat melancholia, while swaggering funk in the vein of Sly and the Family Stone makes itself known in the wah-wah steps and falsetto vocalising of ‘jealous of roses’. Even with all these developments, the biggest surprise of Ambivalence Avenue is its heavy instrumental hip-hop influence, marched out in the sun-dappled beats and celebratory sample usage of ‘fire ant’ and ‘sugarette’.
Released via Warp Records, Ambivalence Avenue truly showcases Bibio as a stellar songwriter and producer, neatly melding folk, electronic and hip-hop into a singular, unique sound.
