- Recent EPs for Diagonal and Mira have seen James Donadio's Prostitutes project move towards a sound far more robust and militant than anything you'll find on his first few LPs. However, Petit Cochon, his fourth album in three years, draws back a little from the straighter techno of Truncheon Cadence to further develop some of Donadio's earlier ideas. The result retains the loose and rough aesthetic of his first few records, while remaining as profoundly rhythm-driven as the later ones.
Many of Petit Cochon's ten tracks consist of little more than rhythmic patterns playing out against each other. Elements that might typically serve a melodic purpose—blasts of noisy synths, sampled vocal snippets, arpeggios—are sucked into the churn, performing a different role entirely. Drum pitches modulate regularly, instilling another subtle layer of movement within their repetitions—for instance, the slight up-and-down of the kick drum on "Build Your Kits," or the downward fall of the central loop in "Suck Out The Reason." Such subtleties might eventually become lost in the mix, but they underpin each track's weirdness.
The album's shorter tracks see Donadio taking a more minimal approach, not needing to layer as heavily to develop complexity. These sketches are some of the most refreshing moments here, allowing for smaller sounds to slip into view and take a turn in the spotlight, albeit briefly. While many of the longer tracks can get frantic as they build, these are calm, almost meditative explorations of single elements. They have a structural effect too, with the sparkling arpeggios of "A Number Between Their Eyes" throwing the resonant pounding of "Cylindrical Habitat," which follows immediately after, into stark relief.
Unlike a lot of the noise techno that Prostitutes is often lumped in with, shock value never seems to be a central concern here. Neither is darkness, for that matter; this is a strangely upbeat album, even playful at times. Like the first couple of Powell records, there is an ecstatic quality to its best moments, when all the pieces click together and move as one strange mass. The devotion to a purely rhythmic structure might be new ground for Donadio, but he seems more sharply focused than ever. His attention to detail is impressive, but the refinement is never too much, and the tracks retain their raw energy. That's a rare trick of which Donadio has quickly become a master.
Tracklist01. Powerful Magnets
02. The Bluffer's Corporation
03. Tube Without Exit
04. Build Your Kits
05. Suck Out The Reason
06. A Number Between Their Eyes
07. Cylindrical Habitat
08. Stains Left Unnamed
09. Suffocate, Purhasing
10. Four Basic Forces