- God knows exactly where kidkanevil is actually from: I hear Berlin, I hear London, I hear Japan, I hear frickin’ ‘Tokyorkshire’. Whatever, I can gather that he spends as much time in Japan as possible because he's fascinated with the place, an obsession which you’ll hear all through this record of fairly twee glitch-hop beats. It’s oldschool enough that this is a refreshing blast from the past and despite the dorkily twee affectations and there’s a crazy diversity which will keep your attention from beginning to end. It includes but is not limited to the rather nice Japanese vocal tracks. When you tote it all up, it makes this record kind of impressive.

Speaking of diversity, it’s funny, thinking about it, if you were to remove the squarely thudding, old school hip hop and other, associated beats, kidkanevil would sound like nothing more than múm at the height of their creative powers. Considering how terribly múm have been judged for their twee folktronica, after the honeymoon period of their first few records, it may just be me, but I wonder what the risks are of kidkanevil’s sugary sweetness, tipping him over the edge into disaster?

The best I can manage is an only half-serious feeling of disapproval, like I should be wagging my finger at kidkanevil but just can’t bring myself to be so mean. It’s certainly not least because of the subtle but continual change that is wrought into this long record. Ambient rolls into glitch-hop, which in turn morphs into a hypnotic mid-tempo dance groove that wouldn’t sound at all out of place on a Gold Panda record; a track like Escape Pod is just about jaw-dropping in its fusion of a sauntering glitch-hop with a double speed and sometimes quadruply paced idm flitting about in the trebles, all while the bass gambols about almost arhythmically. I’ve only covered the first few tracks there: there are fourteen on offer and they keep on giving.

kidkanevil has had help, of course, a stable of Japanese artists - mostly borrowed from the ever-interesting Flau label roster - take up vocal duties every now and then, or, occasionally, jump behind the boards and contribute a beat or two. Flau are only doing distribution for My Little Ghost, but, interestingly, kidkanevil’s style falls right into line with other Flau artists I’ve heard in the past - like Madegg - who take a foundation of old-school hiphop and trick it out into all sorts of other styles. In fact, the record is coming out on Project Mooncircle, an imprint of German label hhv.de and one that specialises in the intersection of electronics and ‘organic’ music, which means that a lot of kidkanevil’s percussion must be live, I suppose.

Honestly, the more I find out about this, the more interesting it is. I’m just fascinated, any and all twee apprehensions forgotten, or they would be if My Little Ghost weren’t being served up on two bright pink LPs. I think I can cope, and if you can’t, I’ll paint them black for you, it’s worth it, you should hear this.

- Chris Cobcroft.