Dublin’s MR. Spring reared out of the pile with his ‘Not For Rent’ EP for the simple reason that it eschewed the annoying laptop precision and soul-less regurgitation of much of today’s electronic dance music. He does it all live in one take with his faithful hardware, not even editing after the deed is done. In many ways the closest thing you’ll hear to the original acid house spirtit all year. The result is as thrillingly bonkers as can be hoped for but also sublimely beautiful in its own way. ‘Machine’ revolves around an early 90s string line of the sort of which might have appeared on early Sabres-Holmes productions. All manner of srum machine chaos ebbs, flows and erupts around it, along with gonad-crunching analogue gerbils. ‘The real Deal’ rides a pumping synth-pulse with minimum [not minimal] percussion strokes before the 303 starts to sprout gloriously accompanied by masturbating elephant call making for a veritable acid masterpiece. ‘Messiah’ whips up a clanking acid funk storm with escalating electronic madness before further alien melodies creep in and it builds into some unearthly kneesup, again harking back to the very earliest pre-rules techno experiments. Finally, ‘Tina’s Waist Band’ starts with 50s dance band strutting transplanted to Mars in a cement-mixer while this guy I might already have called a genius decides to drop in The Who’s distinctive synthesised intro to ‘Baba O’Reilly’ to take it home as his machines all get up and expose themselves as he extends the cheek to include Roger Daltrey’s ‘teenage wasteland’ line [hence the title]. Yes, genius.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
