- I'm not one to pay much heed to press releases, but the one for Seth Troxler's new EP certainly made me sit up straighter than normal. Recording under his Sex Trothler moniker and described as "the sound of doing unspeakable and anonymous things to girls in dark rooms," I approached the three-tracker with an agreeable warmth engulfing my loins and the anticipation of some fairly intense auditory stimulation.
Troxler boasts that he was placed on earth as a weeping foetus, forged by crystal embers bursting forth from Satan's rear end and proclaims much of his talent as a direct result of this irreverent birth. The validity of this debauched claim is yet to be proved—or disproved for that matter—but what is (on the evidence of this EP) undisputed, is that the music he produces is not so much laced in depravity, red lace and black leather as it is utterly saturated with it. Take the first track "Jus Your": From the fairly innocent beginnings of a slightly off-key organ, a twisted, strained vocal maniacally spits a warning, "Just watch your back!", and we're off into the depths. A synth hook reminiscent of something Michael Jackson might have spewed back in his better days forms the prickly backbone about which the flesh and bones of the track resolutely assemble themselves. The vocal continues to demand and threaten, while halfway through the track a single creepy pad delivers the track firmly into darkness…and that's before the twisted organ keys return for a final pounding from a demented clown.
The brief "Internude" follows—a faux disc jockey telling us what's in store for us if we wish to continue this dissolute journey into Troxler's demonic mind—before we get to the second track proper, suggestively titled "Face (A Tribute to Head)." Although I'm certain that Troxler would reel in horror at the use of such a word, this is much more conventional techno. Like a raptor laying waste to a collection of scuttling insects, a pounding and exceptionally rounded kick drum interrupts a creeping, clicking intro, with the rest of the percussive elements falling neatly into the fissures it creates. Lush, golden pads, tripping hi-hats, a variety of urgent, incomprehensible vocals; this is intense stuff, with the hook of the track—an acid synth line—bubbling just under the surface for the majority of the time, breaking through intermittently with a ferocity appropriate to the menacing nature of the whole affair.
To follow the analogy of the EP's title, think of "Jus Your" as the moment foreplay turns into something a little more serious and "Face" as the eruption of one of the most powerful orgasms of your life. (If you're into that kind of thing, of course.)
Tracklist A1 Jus Your feat. Baby Prince
A2 Internude
B1 Face (Tribute To Head)