Album review: Bibio - 'Ambivalence Avenue'

He’s named after his father’s best fishing fly, but the pastoral folk moments on Stephen Wilkinson’s fifth album of chummy electronica pale next to the glut of nostalgic yearning. Several tracks sound like Moog-y TV themes from the ’70s if they’d been composed by Afro-pop man Bassekou Kouyate and uploaded from old vinyl, thanks to Wilkinson’s penchant for recording on to “half-broken samplers”. If that’s the sound of his childhood suburbia, the Black Country native brings us up to date with fine, dislocated disco (‘Fire Ant’), echoes of dubstep and mangled vocals that sound like Charley Says, none of which threaten the barbecue mood. By the final third, however, the houses on this avenue begin to look very similar.

Chris Parkin

Click here to get your copy of Bibio's 'Ambivalence Avenue' from the Rough Trade shop

6 out of 10