Ah, first of the year from our most uncompromising electronic music label and it’s a fearsome return from East Midlands brothers Steve and Dave Connor, first heard on Touchin’ Bass with 2005’s ‘Streamling’. Metaphorically-speaking, the electro-goat is charging around the garden butting everything in sight while waving an angry bell-end at musical conventions. Nothing makes sense here from structure to grooves but it’s an amazingly compulsive sound charting untrod territories, creating a unique mood. ‘Steeljacket’ sets up the sonic jungle-scape these two love to frequent, all cheeping, whirring creepers and toxic undergrowth crawling over booming beats and lashed with acid to the odd burst of haunting string melody. For a moment, ‘Tivoli’ seems about to launch into a 1983 Madonna riff until cold, chattering machines gnash at the skeletal groove’s pendulous testicles, again to an impenetrable background of small animals having a picnic. ‘Trumbull’ bowls in on feedback-style noise before the wired, snarling beat-beast crashes in, again offset by melodic pads. Finally, ‘Muspel’ cooks up a nasty metallic shuffle for the foetid finale. Dark as hell but loaded with humour and invention.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs