Leo James - What Happened To You EP

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  • Neubau, a label linked to the online record shop Discus Throwers, works under the motto "Brutalism In Music." Unsurprisingly, for fans of a past-it architectural movement, they put out music that sounds old. EPs from Aufgang B and Karamika featured austere rhythm tracks drawing on post-punk and minimal wave. (Their fourth release will be a reissue of an actual '80s record.) The label's third transmission uses similar materials but gives them a sharper, stranger edge that is audibly modern. The producer is Melbourne's Leo James, whose slow-mo groove tools have a disco sway that betrays his past life in the DFA duo Canyons. Releases on his own Body Language label have been intriguing, but the What Happened To You EP is quite a bit better. "Conductor"'s spine is a sharp, syncopated percussion pattern—a post-punk clave—around which a dense grid of interlocking percussion builds, subsides and builds again. The overarching structure is basically electro, but it's brittle and full of complex sub-mechanisms. "What Happened To You" is darker, and the sparse arrangement is interrupted by dramatic blasts of reverb. Both tracks are patient and steady, picking up momentum as they go. Duo 3rd Wave—featuring one half of Karamika—take this approach to heart in their remix of the title track. It's a hypnotic synth piece that gently loops over nine minutes, building a surprising intensity. Not much of the original is kept intact, but the vocal sample is: a woman's bemused question, "What happened to me?," answered by a man, "I dunno… but it was pretty sensational."
  • Tracklist
      A1 What Happened To You A2 Conductor B1 What Happened To You (3rd Wave Remix)
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