Bullion
Love Me Oh Please Love Me EP
(Deek)

Releasing singles and EPs as Bullion since 2008, laptop-whiz Nathan Jenkins has managed to avoid the generic, cut-and-paste aesthetic that's corralled so many of his colleagues into mediocrityville. He's always edited his samples with an old-school rock musician's touch, allowing the drums, synths, and guitars to breathe, instead of exposing them to heavy-handed whiplash.

With the release of Love Me Oh Please Love Me, the British beatmaker has taken a hard left-turn with his craft. He writes lyrics, sings, and plays guitar. There's even a Robert Wyatt cover. This is the sound of a musician striving to escape a creative rut, reaching far beyond the confines of a genre riddled with self-imposed limitations.

Much like Bibio's Ambivalence Avenue (2009), the EP finds Bullion weaving a newfound folk influence through the IDM and hip-hop themes we've come to expect of him, resulting in a jerry-rigged fusion that sounds somewhat off, but intriguingly so.

While it's not his most consistent or successful work (that would be 2009's Young Heartache), this EP shows more promise than any previous Bullion release, opening up his creative future in a big way.