Say hello to Death Minimal! This year Minus has unleashed some creepy, crawling exercises in stripping electronic dance music to its bare bones leaving shards of noise and melodies hanging like decomposing flesh on the throbbing pulses within. Black hole disco but, crucially, laced with a touch of humour and flowing movement which can still wreck a dancefloor. Berlin-based Mauricio Barembuem, aka Barem, who has also appeared on [un]Foundsound, Pariter and Phonocult, is treading similar terrain to J.P.L.S. with dark, unsettling growlers like the cavernous patter of ‘Then They’ and ‘Censored Elephant’ stomping the subterranean chambers with huge, radioactive testicles a-swinging. The voice of doom, straight off a black metal record and much favoured by Minus this year, joins in. Side B is taken up by the spaced woodblock-resonating ‘Ponymail Morning’ while there’s two further download-only excursions – ‘So Serial’ and rabbit-dedicated ‘Ears’. Strong stuff but anything less would be a disappointment [and wait until you hear the Plastikman reactivations coming up].
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
