Kindness: Otherness

Adam Bainbridge trotted into view two years ago with a debut album of languid, sultry, wistful dance-funk. Otherness also inhabits that space where sad songs and happy grooves go well together. Aided and abetted by a clatter of like-minded thinkers, including Dev Hynes, Robyn, Kelela and Kanye West engineer Jimmy Douglass, Bainbridge creates an album and sound that is assuredly inventive. He's at his best when the melancholy is to the fore, as on the blue-tinted Geneva and 8th Wonder. But he also polishes and spins the funk into the brass and the bass on a World Restart with help from Kelela. What's also interesting is that, unlike the last time, when there were strong tones of camp and irony throughout, Otherness appears quite happy to play things straight.kindness.es