Ever since Flume’s self titled debut album in 2012, I have been yearning for another feature full length. His music twists and turns, clicks and clacks; it’s like being in an ethereal kaleidoscope in some far off, astral place. His music is symphonic, orchestral even, incorporating layers of intricate, interlocking sounds, all finely tuned and pitched to intense specifics. It’s wavy, soulful, electro-funk, melancholy and yet polychromatic adrenaline, at times. Hearing Flume for the first time is like hearing colors, he’s truly done something with the electronic music genre that is all his own.

That all being said, I haven’t cared for any of the singles he has released to promote his new forthcoming album, “Skin.” They’ve all opted out of the orchestral, heavy-layered format and turned focus to the incorporated featured vocalists on the tracks. This one, “Say It” featuring Tove Lo, released on April 22, was no different in this regard. For a solid 2:45 minutes, we are immediately introduced to Tove Lo’s vocals, which persist through 75% of the song. Some staple Flume synths resonate in the background accompanied by incremental drum riffs, but these are largely in the backdrop and do little but guide the song to completion. The majority of what you hear and understand are the placid, shallow lyrics of Tove Lo’s theoretical relatable love interest, and so there is no need to try and interpret any deeper meaning to the song.

Truthfully though, we are given a glorious 15 seconds of sounds at around the 2:45 mark of the song, where the vocalist is mostly forgotten and the shrill, astral whine of Flume’s synth simulates a cathartic release. For only but a moment it’s like Jimi Hendrix wailing the national anthem at Woodstock; all the disappointment dissipates.  But it goes as quickly as it comes, and without a moment’s notice we are back with the singer and her cliché’ relationship issues and her inability to understand or control her own hormones, and thus the song concludes.

Flume has gone on the record and said “Skin”, which releases on May 27 of this year, is not meant for music festivals, and that it’s not meant for the mainstream. I hope, desperately, that the remaining tracks correlate more with his roots and his self-described “big” sound, because a woman singing a song about a man that did her wrong over a boring beat and an off-key metronome is no longer profound, and it’s certainly not the Flume I remember.