Alternate / Endings

It's telling that two samples on Lee Bannon's sprawling Ninja Tune debut album are from Darren Aronofsky films. Like those bar-setting breakthroughs—psychological thrillers that put mathematicians on the same horror-struck plane as heroin addicts—Alternate/Endings crackles with a kinetic energy that's full of style and substance. On the surface, it falls right in line with the recent jungle revival that's made skittish drum breaks vital again. If you crank it through crisp speakers, however, everything suddenly blooms into a bright, multi-channel meditation on what it means to make a mission statement. In Bannon's case, that amounts to a deliberate departure from the bold hip-hop beats he's cooked up for underground heads like Joey Bada$$ and Smoke DZA. Rather than deliver a record full of MC-free instrumentals, the Sacramento native has honored his hometown's warehouse roots with heavily layered dance loops that are rooted in live bass parts (by The Mars Volta's Juan Alderete), cryptic field recordings, and a restless sampler. Alternate/Endings is a fresh, welcome chapter in a story that drum'n'bass purists closed years ago.