4 out of 5

Label: Weme Records

Produced by: ?

The mastery of the form here absolutely belies Chromedealer’s apparent young age – early 20s – and tops what I might sometimes call “mimicry” of classic Aphex / Squarepusher IDM due to the way CD adds a modern sense of breakbeat and glitchy mixing into the brew. ‘Sketches of Silver’ definitely includes genre touchpoints, calling to mind the names referenced – specifically some On-era ambience and then post-Drukqs refinement from Richard D. James, and the early jazz-funk of Jenkinson. Because the direct touches (specific beats and effects you’ll recognize) are employed tastefully, Silver firstly doesn’t come across as knock-off, but more than that, like artists such as EOD (whom I admittedly kinda suspected created this nom de plume…), Chromedealer takes the inspiration and crafts undeniably new works from it; that is: opener Onyourmarks or B-side’s Jack could be an Aphex track. And that’s the only indirect criticism I’ll make: that a certain percentage of the tracks here hang out in that territory, producing awesome IDM tracks that, however, could be dragged and dropped into a Rephlex playlist and not blink.

But the other percentage – the greater percentage – are tracks like Sable, where Chromedealer begins to drop in DJ-style spins, or take left turns from glitch into funk in out-of-the-box ways, and building their tracks like rock tunes, getting to some truly amazing peaks of beats and melody that any fan of this genre really must experience: they are those stomach-dropping moments we search for.

Fantastic stuff. If Chromedealer begins to iterate like another young prodigy – 96Back – we have a lot of awesome music to come.