Nu-Jazz | Broken Beat Tape 4 Items

Sound Signature celebrates 20 years with an LP from Dego & Kaidi.

Fronted by Ho - a hydrahead techno-punk-industrialist variously regarded as Broken English Club, Slow White
Fall, part of Zov Zov, and many others - and here joined on distorted bass guitar from Jamie Croydon; NO
DETAIL is a serious proposition for those who like their post-punk with less jangle and more concentrated
industrial bite. Their ‘Closed Exit’ tessellates very angularly with Downwards’ prevailing, formative, tastes for
this sound on all seven cuts, which could arguably have been made at any time between the fallout of UK punk
and post NYC no wave, and an everything-at-once present.
Manning drum programming, noise boxes and a mic with time-tested aptitude, Ho’s deadpan vox and
needling prompts alloy Croydon’s detuned bass gnarl with an in-the-pocket discipline. The balance of
melody veiled in venomous noise on ‘Input’ gets them into gear for the revving swagger of ‘You Could have
Been Better’, optimising the barest elements in a formula that carries them to the stop-start jugular lunge
of ‘Private’ and the cold saucy slug of a ‘Utility’ where we half expect John Lydon to enter stage left, and the
bruxist yoke of ‘Dead Lakes’ that bursts at the seams with white hot distortion. Their hot-stepper ‘Grey Poles’
is an ideal showstopper, itching tendons with pointillist drums and guitars upping the ante with a buzzsaw
grind to trigger limbs with too much snakebite, lactic acid and wizz in the blood.

LA’s Taylor E. Burch ov DVA Damas and Tropic of Cancer drops a cache of nuggets for Downwards, posing a killer mix of droll post-punk vocals and stripped dub/R&B/art-pop somewhere between Lolina, Gwen Stefani and The Slits. Mad original, bass-heavy ohrwurm fire!

Over a decade since her debut 10” with DVA Damas, and following a superb stint on Pessimist’s Stigma project in ’21, ‘The Best of Taylor E. Burch’ (though none of this matereial has even been released before) reveals her prowling swag from unexpected angles across nine distinctively succinct bullets bolstered by Elon Katz’s vocal production. Laid-back but tightly coiled, they slant from the clear echoes of Inga Copeland/Lolina on its intro, to cattier art-pop minimalism on ‘I’ve Never Felt Better In My Life’, her vocals layered and sparingly pronged with compelling effects around her wiry guitars and flashes of the gnash and bump that made her work with main vehicle DVA Damas (beside Joe Cocherell) so vital.

The lilting, purring punky dubs of ‘I Wanna Be Your Girl’ and ‘Time Differences’ illuminate a softer side delivered with a wry swagger, from the eyrie, clipped dembow Tears For Fears cover ‘Head over Heels’ to potent highlight ‘F*ck You Up’, while ‘We’re All The X’ and ‘’Time Is On My Side’ make us think of a slanted Juliana Hatfield, and we can’t help but recall that ace Fay record (‘Din’, Time No Place, 2012) in the brittle but heavy af ‘Na Na Na Na Na (Reprise).’

One of the most enjoyable, rinsable tapes of the year, full marks, plus.