Back before the likes of EDM and dub-step were dominating the clubs & airwaves, when indietronica was briefly the new keyboard thing, there was James Kenneth Chapman, a.k.a. Maps, who put his name on the map with 2006 single “Lost My Soul”. Much of indietronica has passed, fit only for Postal Service reunions, but Chapman has kept going with his latest reaching electronic piece, Counter Melodies.
Despite using that most futuristic of instruments, much of Counter feels like pulling the best of what electronica had done in the past. The evening electronics of “Thru Lights” bring to mind nineties synth-and-more artists such as Orbital and Underworld. Melodies begins and ends with the kind of glowing, hopeful synthetic sounds we heard in the aughts on “Witchy Feel” and “My Love Is Like”. This is not a DJ in a club throwing out bangers and remixes, but a whole atmosphere.
Chapman doesn’t vary a great deal on Counter Melodies, or at least the instrumental album feels, like most instrumental albums feel, as one whole experience, and not a collection of songs. But Maps is still very much here.
