RETRO REVIEW: Kouek - Apogee

A new age future funk classic.

Mar 30, 2025

In the age of the internet, so many intriguing genres of music have come and gone without enough time to properly develop. Future funk is one of those many styles of music that came in with a bang only to fizzle away instantly. Its French house origins interweaved with Japanese city pop created fleeting sample-filled songs full of lust, longing and, most importantly, the need to dance your ass off. The heyday of the genre ended a decade ago, but hearing an album like Apogee makes me think that sound has so much more to give us. It's a modern classic in its genre that wouldn't have just made my Best Of 2024 album list, it would've been close to topping it.

The downfall of future funk is my mind is that artists just liked the cool textures and good vibes the genre was born in, and expected those to provide substance to otherwise lazy tracks. That thought process made those songs repetitive and boring, fun for a moment but nothing more. What makes Kouek's future funk great is it commits to the entirety of each track, and he makes sure every moment is paid attention to. Take opener "Golden Age" for example, as it combines swaggering synth beats, punchy percussion and a supremely catchy melody into a fully fulfilling song. It may oscillate from high to low throughout the track, but it's never not adding new wrinkles to keep things fresh. That's a hallmark of Apogee that helps the rest of the album fly high.

With this commitment to detail, Kouek finds plenty of ways for each track to have its own life. "Only You" and closer "Club Dial" follow in the steps of the opener, with the high energy melody accented with perky synth samples that keep the beat bumping. The vocal samples on "Moonlight" and "Heart" make for something more sensual but no less groovy. Highlight "Money" might be the album’s simplest song, but it finds a wildly catchy melody in its repetitions, and the goofy rapped verses about making cash and keeping cash are easy to vibe with. Most of all, these songs put the fun in future funk. The grin Kouek features in each song's creation is apparent at all times.

A party like this wouldn't succeed without such a strong base, but Kouek takes things further with some of the most razor-tight album flow I've heard in some times. Tracks don't flow into one another per se, but the gap between songs doesn't leave much room to breath. The high-flying "Money" is quickly followed by the swinging "So Young". The direct grooves of "Kadabra" lead right into "Fullspeed", which slowly but surely speeds up to its fullest potential. It's one nonstop banger after another, but with the touch of an expert to ensure it's never too much.

Don't expect future funk to make some grand comeback into the popular sphere ever again. In fact, I don't think an album as good as Apogee could exist without the genre fading into memory like it has. The long gap from its peak to now allowed an artist like Kouek to hone in on what makes the music fun and elevate it to the nth degree. Its little corner of the internet is small, sure, but future funk will always have a place at the table if it inspires creativity to this level.

Verdict: 8.6/10