The Idiots Are Winning

Baby-faced James Holden shows a healthy disregard for conventions, an approach that’s evident on this album’s Jackson Pollock-esque cover art, the home to the label’s logo, a windmill. However, does his contrarian stance result in great art or means that he sounds as contrived as the norm? Holden tries to push out the boat on his debut album, but for every frequency shifting track like ‘Idiot’ or the defragmented nouveau trance of ‘Corduroy’, there’s the pointless dirge of ‘Flute’ and the two minutes of silence of ‘Intentionally Left Blank’. His unwillingness to fall into dance floor anonymity is laudbale, but sometimes ‘The Idiots…’ sounds like Holden is just tilting at windmills.