- Modini is a recent project by Edinburgh producers Neil Landstrumm and Hostage, an unlikely yet compelling pair. Landstrumm is an electronic music polymath who makes tracks how Jackson Pollock might paint a landscape—you may not recognise them as techno or dubstep, but his wild patterns and intuitive strokes are absorbing in a way that renders form less important. Hostage shares this mutable quality in a less focused way, though remains rooted in the UK sounds Landstrumm has latterly explored.
After last year's Turk EP, Modini's second outing on Dixon Avenue Basement Jams is Tart, a fun splattering of styles. A helium-voiced character speaks over revving synths and Italo lasers on "Budgie." "Cisco"'s bassline garage is punctuated with Skype bleeps and more warped vocals, while the ghost of a Severed Heads track appears in the ashen drums and brittle 16-bit notes of "Europa." "Romance" threads together this jumble, channeling the chintzy electronics of "Budgie" and "Europa"'s New Beat pulse into a focal point for the duo's broad canvas.
TracklistA1 Budgie
A2 Romance
B1 Cisco
B2 Europa