Montreals Michael Silver maintains an exhausting workload as CFCF. In 2015 alone, he dropped two albums, a Blowing Up the Workshop mix of original material, and an EP. Equally impressive is how Silver strikes—and maintains—a careful balance between charming electronic music and sounds we otherwise look down on: lite-jazz, adult contemporary, Windham Hill-esque new age. In an appreciation of CFCF last year, the New York Times sussed Silvers aesthetic as where uncool become[s] cool and defiantly corny. That balancing act continues into the present with Cascades, Silvers collaboration with newcomer and fellow Canadian, pianist Jean-Michel Blais. Together, they move into some new genre terrain to mixed results. Blais only just released his debut album last year, but he's been making minimalist piano music on his own for two decades while teaching music by day. An album featuring piano and electronics is generally an austere exercise, as the resonance between piano keys provides the space in which best to insert electronic washes—see Fennesz and Sakamoto or, more recently, Bing & Ruth. This five-track EP finds Silver and Blais warily feeling one another other out and then synchronizing to exalted effect by the record's end.
