After 2010’s good looking pair of electro-houseworkers
Bassin’ and
Life in the Big City, showing ability for a stonking great riff to
sling you sideways, Baxen comes more blatant than ever. The real definition of
a blood vessel waiting to burst at any time,
Tweeter does more than just targeting a particular speaker
component, and micro-bloggers can just go and do one. It cajoles you into
thinking everything is fine with the most minimally tentative, almost
action-less grope of deep techno, before dropping a ridiculously oversized
filth-encrusted synth gargle shooting up from the ground like a live tentacled
beanstalk, or an 8-bit battleship absolutely frying the launchpad, a pinball
machine going into a manic high score hyper-drive.
Baxen has some balls, steel or otherwise, dropping such a
framework – it’s not right to label it experimental, it’s more have a go and
see if this shit sticks. Its key ingredient is so hard to ignore, whether you
think it’s rapturously obtuse or the sound of a pain in the neck brought to
life, it should plant unceremonious smackers on the lips of tastemakers showing
startled appreciation.
Separated from the A-side by a mere backslash, the
only thing eponymous about Sneak is
it trying to get away with being called something that might steal into the
night. Hammering on the Dutch house of squeak and squeal but letting go lower,
plug-unblocking blows instead of squeamish high ends, and pretty soft in the
head with what’s essentially constant synthesizer defacement, it’s another to
take cultish banger status restocking the warnings of fucked up techno and that
wonky section of Daft Punk’s all time classic Essential Mix.