Bleep

Alex Ridha’s fourth studio album as Boys Noize abounds in high class collaborators: the Berlin monolith has engaged Hudson Mohawke and Spank Rock, Polica, Remy Banks and Benga for Mayday, shaping his own definition of what constitutes a "techno hit”. The prolific record label founder takes his idiosyncratic elements, those garish, sneering dubstep synths, and infuses them into his updated sound that has more pop ambitions than ever before. Siren synths twirl with dizzying dissonance, brutal and powerful: as an introduction, ‘Overthrow’ serves as a reminder of Ridha’s early days. The hard-hitting noisy percussive exercises of ‘Hardkotzen’, the overdriven, spoken word vocals of the industrial ‘Midnight’ - they're a stark contrast to the glistening, gentle arpeggios of ’Starchild’ which move fluidly, with Channy Leaneagh’s kind voice taking the lead; to ‘Birthday’, the brilliant collab with Hud Mo and American rapper Spank Rock, which oozes with Hud Mo’s characteristic life-affirming choral string melodies; and to the stripped down techno of ‘Euphoria’ featuring Remy Banks.