Sunshine, Shadows & Luck artwork

Sunshine, Shadows & Luck

Dumb Hero Records DUMH001, Feb 2006

  1. El Cordobes
  2. War All The Time
  3. Down To The Dozens
  4. Specterville
  5. In Opposition
  6. We Have The Strength But We Don’t Have
    The Will
  7. Stay Up All Night (And Talk Shit With Me)
  8. American Teeth

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Kobra Audio Labs’ debut album, released on his own Dumb Hero imprint in limited CD release and available to buy as a download. Several tracks on the album were used in an Etnies/Dig magazine promotional DVD. The album was mastered at Audible Oddities, Oakland CA.

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Sunshine, Shadows & Luck is also available in a double pack alongside Tones, Drones & Broken Bones.

Former Planetsound demo fave KAL is the work of Mark Scanlan, making a claim to be Lanarkshire’s first hip-hop producer. It’s a superbly atmospheric set, like DJ Shadow’s most filmic work, undercut by the surrealist humour of the long-lost King of Woolworths. Boards of Canada fans will find much to enjoy in the geometric rhythms. Whether this succeeds or not, expect Scanlan to soon be an in-demand producer.

Planetsound

The first half of Sunshine, Shadows & Luck is dark and twisted, the scuzzy beats wrapped around themselves, paranoid and twitchy… K.A.L. then relents on the darkness somewhat – the dub-heavy textures of We Have The Strength But We Don’t Have the Will are almost soothing… [T]he production values on KAL’s debut LP are universally high, and although undeniably a slow burner, this is an accomplished album of emotionally involving instrumental hip-hop that will have lasting appeal for fans of downbeat tracks by Shadow, Portishead, or RJD2.

The Skinny

This is no simulacrum of other artists synonymous with the genre… [T]here are so many great little moments scattered within these songs which improve the sense that these are the ideas are deliberate and not scattered lucky accidents. It’s an impressive introduction that moves from the Mysteron whine and ball bearing beat of Specterville to the sunken woozy unsettling air of We Have The Strength But We Don’t Have The Will with its water soaked clock sound.

Brainwashed