Bleep

Karen Gwyer’s back on Don’t Be Afraid with her first EP of new material since 2017 LP Rembo. The music of Man On Mountain can be divided into two camps - futurist Midwest techno reinventions and eerie keyboard drones. In the former camp we have ‘Faces On Ankles’ and ‘Cherries On Shoulders’, both of which take classic Detroit sounds to intriguing new places. ‘Faces On Ankles’ is a particularly diverting track, a polyrhythmic mash of synths and kicks that recalls Gwyer’s Don’t Be Afraid labelmate rRoxymore. When Gwyer strips out the beats we get the haunting John Carpenter-isms of ‘Ian On Fire’ and ‘Ribbon On Neck’.