Gentrifried

Kacy Wiggins, who records his solo excursions in quirky dubwise ambience as Quiet Personal Electronics (or qpe), is a rare breed of musician. Where most electronica artists hide behind funky bombast or cool, digital distance, Wiggins seduces with gentleness, warmth, and goodheartedness. Not quite downtempo, not quite dub, definitely not drum'n'bass, and definitely not lounge, his music is effortlessly enjoyable but difficult to parse. His label calls the music "hip hop nouveau," but while that term captures the funky matrix in which everything on this album floats, it doesn't do justice, for example, to either the textural pointillism of "Mirrored" or the loping swing of "Lapland." This music is the aural equivalent of the really smart, kind of geeky kid you knew in high school, the one who seemed to know everything but whom no one resented because he was kind and self-deprecating and funny. Makes you wonder if that's what Kacy Wiggins is like. If not, he sure knows how to fake it.