Harsh yet poppy electro/techno from the kids infamous for leaving strobe lights on full blast during their entire sets (and being impossible sound check snobs). But harsh is the word -- this stuff is sharp, piercing, jagged, and probably intended to hurt your ears. Sort of the extreme no-thanks to “deep house”. Thin, tinny/snare feel on lots of these tracks, and certainly no pretense that any of this was recorded with real instruments. If aluminum sounded like anything (god knows we know what it tastes like), it would sound like Crystal Castles. Uber-digital, creepily manipulated female vox courtesy Alice Glass (who screams a lot). All tracks are assaults. They mean for them to be. Bring on the cyberpunk dystopia, lads.

try: 4, 13, 6
no FCCs

1. kicks off with shrieking and tape hiss. ominous shrill rudder noise. regroups to warmer synth near the end, but on the whole serves as a gear-up.
2. vibes, padded drums. midtempo. sweet metallic/melodic vocals. sounds like french trip hop. the single, i guess.
3. crackling, blow-out shriek noise over a repetitive siren beat. this is what your track will sound like if you turn up the digital console’s faders too high.
*4. starts off imperial, mellows and sharpens in a hurry. clear measured synth and bloopy vibey keys. then: jagged effectsy washer riff. indistinct screamy vocals.
5. industrial synth beat. foreign-sounding, overlapping, hypnotic male and female vox. drums like whips. at close, drums cut out and the vocals/ambience goes wash / wall-of-sound.
*6. groovy whoosh/whip-drums beat. wobbly, eerie riff that sounds like the face your funny bone pulls when it’s hit. impossibly high manipulated vocals. at 1:00 in, depth happens, and the song gains some able ambient texture.
7. sweeter sound. busty synth and faux-orchestral washes. high & bellsy. j-pop melody. quick cut-outs and changes.
8. delayed/echo-back warble synth. some rumbly synth/bass makes an appearance, but this track is mostly mellow.
9. helicopter synth. vox manipulated to chipmunk heights. midtempo rudder beat, somber minor melody, mostly bells. actually sort of sad.
10. squirty laser noise. oh, don’t look at me like that. oppositional choral vocals and some heavy synth.
11. shimmery blooming keyboard noise over basic synth bass. like a very, very remixed madonna.
12. circular echo-keys riff and tempered high lullaby vocals. nice, sparse use of bass support.
*13. cool switch-off high keys melody. i really like the effect of having a single keys line coming from two, well, sources. shifts to double time and rocks out. trash-wave assault halfway in. oh, oh those are my ears.
14. crunchy garbled digital monster noise. cut to: windsweeps, bell tones. cut to: both sides now.