- We know Milo Smee likes to play rough. We also know he loves getting his hands dirty. When not drumming in Clean & Jerk (you might have heard their Berlin Community Radio show), electronic jams are his thing. We've already heard a whole album's worth of them from his rambunctious Power Vacuum label. Now, his Bintus EP for Shipwrec treats us to a 13-minute snapshot of the kind of havoc Smee gets up to when he's alone in the dark.
"Acid Shores" is a treacly, doomy acid number that's so low-slung it almost buckles around the six-minute mark. Then it's just basement-dwelling growls and hissing sci-fi bits until it's over. "S.E.G." is a cheeky medley of hip-hop and electro—pretty funky at first, before Smee releases an unbridled universe of weirdness. It's probably what he meant when he told us about the "ungraspable" style of music he aspires to. You can sort of get it—it's built on parts that maybe once made sense but have since been turned screwy in an after-afterhours sort of way.
It's all systems go on the live-recorded B-side. There's dark and skewed techno, Drexciya and Dexter electro, hardcore stabs, hard Rotterdam FX and even a breathy gasp or two. It's the sound of a madman running wild with his machines. It's totally mental, to use one of Smee's favourite terms.
TracklistA1 Acid Shores
A2 S.E.G.
B1 Bintus Live Pt. 1