5 out of 5

Label: Waxing Crescent

Produced by: Johnny Hawk and Kaiton Slusher

I am totally down with everything label Waxing Crescent is doing here. The label’s visual aesthetic, which has a wild, surrealistic, colorful design, it’s selected roster of electro weirdos, and including their inspired mash-ups – I’m here for it.

This is “electronic noise” in English, and while that’s a bit more chaotic implying than the content, it’s not unfitting, as it brings together Global Goon’s generally playful bomp with Ossa’s harder-edged acid workouts, for something that’s neither one of those, but also isn’t just a straight amalgam: it’s noisy, demanding stuff. Also an amazing amount of fun, with track names like Granked in Space. It’s not exactly a “greater than the sum of its parts,” more just that I can’t say this is a sound I imagined as exactly coming from either artist – it’s heavy on funk, but also kind of grimey and glitchy – while maintaining elements you could trace back if pressed.

Bookended (excepting an excellent remix) by two noise tracks – static and clicks; kind of water-testing and maybe playing with inspirations from that album title – the album cuts over to wiggly, low-end heavy jams, dancey but skewed – a few too many breaks, and veers off the path to get sweaty. Which is great for us, wanting Goon’s deft IDM nuance, and Ossa’s terseness, and that’s all mapped to this more dancey m.o.

Even within the 5 tracks (on digital; the 7″ version limits to two great juxtaposing tunes – Gronky’s got some drone repetition at its core, and the aforementioned space is a grooving club track), this EP finds plenty of variation and hooks, crafting tunes that range in aggressiveness but never dip in momentum, with deep production showing off a range of sounds and working for both those abrasive bookends and the smoother stuff inbetween.

Closing things out is a remix by Nick Forté of Gronky, maintaining the original’s beats and glitching it up with a drill-like percussion aesthetic. The sequencing works: this is given a bit of space after the final track to set it apart, and it feels of a like-mind with what we’ve heard – melody and noisiness – with flair that is unique to Nick and makes the track certainly work on its own.

Truly the whole package.