Being a steady purveyor of the style of dubstep known as purple sound, iTAL tEK has crafted some pretty swell albums in his career, though many believe he's been on a slight decline over the past few years. Hollowed does its best to refute that claim, as mesmerizing, subtle IDM interweaves with glitchy purple sound to create a strange atmosphere that can be totally paranoid one moment and tranquilly calm the next. The hushed synth melodies here evoke the aforementioned emotions very well, and the glitch-heavy beat work also helps further the tenser moments. One a couple tracks, the music unfortunately feels too cold, in a lifeless, alienating way that really interrupts the flow of the rest of the album, which has a definitive personality to it. That said, Hollowed is overall a very nice project, and while it is certainly a sparse listen at first, it's subtleties are plentiful enough to keep the listening coming back.
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