Walter Cornelius is a French-born, London-based producer who made his debut on Cascade Records a little over a year ago when he released the EP Waco. Now he’s come back to show how much he’s grown with a new EP titled Bulk.

When Cornelius released his last EP, the real problem with it was that there wasn’t enough space for him to get through all of his influences, and that he hadn’t yet found a way to make all of his different influences speak to each other and become his own unique style. While Bulk isn’t a perfect EP, we do get to see Walter Cornelius make a big step in the right direction, giving us an EP with more songs that are longer, better developed, and put all of his different influences together in interesting ways. Part of the way in which Cornelius is able to do this is to lean on a pop style and structure as a meeting point between the different styles of music he likes, such as hip hop, trip hop, American experimental electronic music, European dance music, post rock, and R&B. It’s an EP that loves guitar as much as synthesizer, vocals as much as drums, and makes good use of space in it’s compositions. Cornelius has definitely learned how to utilize a few key elements to bring things to a boil, as opposed to just making his tracks really busy and trying to force any sort of energetic or epic sound to emerge. The result is an EP that is best listened to all the way through, so that you can appreciate the thoughtful work that Cornelius has put in to navigate his way through these different styles and tie them together in interesting ways.

I was certainly curious when I heard Waco last year, and I knew that Walter Cornelius had talent and potential. With Bulk, he makes a big step forward into realizing that potential and making some truly unique music. The best part, though, is that for as good as this EP is, I know that he’s only going to get better from here.