Almost Weightless - Cloudnone

The long awaited Cloudnone debut album is pretty much exactly what it should be.

A beloved producer and Monstercat mainstay, known particularly for his downtempo garage and entrancing synthwork, Cloudnone meets electronic label Seeking Blue to release his debut record. "Almost Weightless" sees all the goodies of the accomplished Cloudnone bag of tricks spill out to form a 12 song tracklist with a briliantly consistent mood throughout. A mood that ebbs and lulls like the lapping of a country lake in the dead of night, embodying a quietly ruminative quality that persists through the project in its entirety. It's a brilliant atmosphere, one that Cloudnone is so well respected for, and one that he executes in a wonderfully clean fashion. Cloudnone's low energy sound design brings a generous helping of muted emotion and easily digestable production style, mixing it classily with plenty of different ideas—both in the mood and in the production itself. Yes, I did say the mood is 'brilliantly consistent', but it's not the same repetitive thing for 12 tracks; whilst the 'quietly ruminative quality' is maintained, it encompasses both colder basswork-oriented tracks like "snowflakes", but also warmer, emotive tracks like "Faster Now". And the production is equally diverse yet consistent—Cloudnone branches out from his typical garage style to incorporate genres such as drum n bass, house, and even melodic dubstep, placing his own softer twist on all of them and preventing the project from becoming linear and overly repetitive, a measure that is always appreciated. The vocals lay a final blanket over an already cozy record, whether that be Cloudnone's own trademark autotuned vocals, or the vocals brought by the various featured singers on their respective tracks. And still, despite all these measures taken against a linear project, "Almost Weightless" still does feel a little repetitive.

Cloudnone tried, he really did. And "Almost Weightless" is a polished LP, no doubt. But unfortunately, even with the dynamic mood shifts and the spattering of genres, his debut record still carries hints of repetitiveness that make it a little unengaging. Whilst "Almost Weightless" doesn't struggle to flow from track to track, it is lacking some finesse in narrative segueing, and oftentimes it can be quite stylistically same-samey.