I experienced a severe bout of the Shanaia Twains listening to lead single from DiWFTW, 'Yamamba...*The*Crash*Is*The*Cannibal*' a short while back. Yeah, it didn't impress me much. So I was hardly doing forward rolls (I can't do cartwheels, never could, and having reached the age I am, have no wish to) when the album landed with me. Music reviewing's supposed to be fun, and yet I find myself being tortured with endless bilge... still, I'm a firm believer than exposure to lots of crap music makes you appreciate the good stuff even more.
The press preamble doesn't exactly sell the release, either, describing it as 'An unimportant mini-album of mildly demented and glibly determined plunderphonic Glitch-Hop sampledelia, incorporating the heady nonsense of 8-bit Blitcrush, Power Pop, Chiptune Mongtronics, Dub-Bass Skronkfilth, Wrongstep, and Electro-Thugmash. You know, for kids,' adding as if it were necessary, that 'this is not "Intelligent Dance Music."'
No kidding. It's not all as terrible as 'Yamamba,' although in the main it is a pretty painful, jarring collision of things that don't work cobbled over a beat. There are occasions, however, when the weirdness actually works, and when it does, it's quite wonderful in a most warped sort of a way. The bizarrely-titled 'Fat Girls and Their Feeders,' for instance, is a disturbing exercise in vocal pitch-shifting in the style of early Butthole Surfers about feeding and beating horses ('yum, yum'). 'Nothing Scatters Tied Animals' and the closing section of 'Storeys' are orchestrated and atmospheric pieces that are quite affecting (particularly when there are no vocals).
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It's all quite a departure from the industrial racket of many of their sex and sleaze-obsessed earlier releases. This is rather a pity, because while EPs like 'The Big Black Cock of Death' may be rather puerile and rely almost exclusively on shock value, and tracks like 'The Breeders' with its wall of noise and screamed lyrical refrain of 'I fuck like a beast' might be even more unlistenable than what they're doing now, it's certainly a lot more exciting.
Personally, I'd recommend downloading the free 'Fist of Desire' compilation to hear the kind of nasty noise that Dressed in Wires do best.
http://www.dressedinwires.co.uk/
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