Bleep

Oscar Powell’s insurmountable rise to the top of the hit-parade continues unabated with this second double-A drop on XL Recordings. The last bullet to have landed on Richard Russell’s XL was the heat-seeking ‘Sylvester Stallone’ , and here Powell laces up another all-American-male into his body music bricolage – Steve Albini. ‘Insomniac’ is the song that inspired an e-mail thread that inspired a viral-storm that inspired a billboard… in April 2015 Powell asked Albini over e-mail to use a chopped n’ screwed vocal from a Big Black LP into the song… Albini agreed but told Powell (and the world) that he detested club culture, dance music… music blog-sites foamed at the mouth. Twitter went into overdrive. Regardless of the PR shenanigans, it represents one of the most concise slabs of PowellMusic yet – all twisting synth, hefty breaks and snappy, gnarled bass. On the flip ‘Should Have Been A Drummer’ he messes with the synapses yet further in a squall of acid gurgle and propulsive ‘ardkore rhythm – like the bastard child of Front 242 and Altern-8.