Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Control Your Area

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Nice Nice are guitarist Jason Buehler and percussionist Mark Shirazi. Their speciality is beat-based rock music - free form, abstract and often improvised. They have a new EP called Yesss! coming out June 21st on Audraglint Records (Portland, OR based indie-tronica label, home to releases by Tarwater, Fontanelle, Kid 606 and Charles Atlas). The new EP, in the words of it's press release, bears more resemblance to production heavy modern r'n'b than to the noisy, free jazz stuff they've been doing. You can definitely hear the polish on the new record, and the results are pretty cool - "a pile up of lysergic machine funk" indeed. Every time I listen to Control Your Area I keep expecting Missy Elliott or M.I.A. to start rapping - it's got the stuttery hip hop riddims, crazy space noises and great squelchy bits. It also carries a bit of the Talking Heads afro-experimentation vibe with it's poppin' bass and scratchy guitars. There are some nice remixes on the EP by Caural, DJ/Rupture and Stars As Eyes. All in all a very entertaining listen. Visit their website for three older mp3s that are a taste of where they've been, then check out Headphone Sex for another track from this new EP.

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