EXP

EXP (USA)
The landscape of North American experimental electronic music is finally becoming populated by artists and labels releasing interesting, innovative music, with recent twelves on Interdimensional Transmissions, Schematic, Carpet Bomb, and Drop Beat announcing a new generation of American and Canadian producers whose interest in the dancefloor is ironic at best. Add to that list Ontario-based upstart Suction, whose first release is a six-tracker of dark, dense, austere electro (they'd probably prefer robot music) similar in some respects to the gloomy lo-fidelity (note: different from badly produced, which this is not) of recent Mask, Musik Aus Strom and V/Vm "reference" compilation with a tweaked smile on their face need to track down this record. A split between label propries Gregory De Rocher (aka Lowfish) and Jason Amm (aka Solvent), this is stern, arresting stuff, all unnverving test-tones and snapping, slightly distorted breaks slipping somewhere between the cracks of mid to up-tempo electro and (on two of the Lowfish tracks) vagueish d'n'b. A couple of the tracks ocassionally suffer from the sort of trancey overrepetition that Autechre somehow gets away with, but each contributes at least an original idea or two. The pair nail a standout piece -- Lowfish's bleak "Your Last Legs" and Solvent's levelling "Coarse Hub With Garnish" -- but it's all listenable as hell.