- If every interview conducted over the past few months with Italians Do It Better labelhead Mike Simonetti and Glass Candy/Farah producer Johnny Jewel hasn't convinced you, let Invisible Conga People's music do it: Italians Do It Better is not an Italo label. In fact, the reason the label has been so successful is that what they do is nearly impossible to categorize. Singer Ida No adds an disaffected art pop vibe to Glass Candy, Farah narrates Jewel's synth webs in Farsi, and labelmate Professor Genius is too obsessed with sounding like "nighttime city skylines" to care much about 'Spacer Woman'.
And now Invisible Conga People. Which is definitely dance music. But not completely. The duo of Eric Tsai and Justin Simon feed every noise that they make through guitar pedals—including the disconcerting vocals that, on 'Weird Pains' at least, sound like they've been smothered with vaseline and then chopped-up in the studio. The music is just as murky. 'Cable Dazed''s delayed guitars form the beautiful ascending/descending line that carries the track, but it’s the bass stab at the end of each measure or the spring-of-a-coil which transform it into something special.
Simon has talked in interviews about his fascination with the area between house and noise music, but ICP better articulates the oft-fertilized ground between house and kraut. Both 'Cable Dazed' and 'Weird Pains' have an undeniable groove that is girded by the beautiful melodies of Neu! (In many ways, it's similar to the music being made by Seefeel in the mid-'90s.) Whatever you do, just don't call it Italo.
TracklistA Cable Dazed
B Weird Pains