Elon Katz (White Car, Streetwalker) aligns perfectly with Diagonal in a prickling debut vocal release, 'The Human Pet'; his first original solo issue in four years, containing an intensely personal, puckered perspective on electronic dance music and experimental pop.
Structured around a schizoid yet coherent juncture of EBM, IDM, curdled rock music and art school techno-pop, 'The Human Pet' is riddled with idiosyncratic notions on “cryptic topics like rebirth, nullification in stream speed adaptivity, dependence and wealth inequality” to portray a unique intellect and sonic vocabulary operating at the crux of his expressive powers.
The project began circa 2012, around the time of Katz’s relocation from L.A. to art school in Chicago, and cocks a canny snook, both thru candid lyrics and obsessive edits, back towards the megatropolis where he was born and spent much of his youth. It can therefore be considered an attempt to better understand himself in relief of big city manias by channelling and parsing his own stubborn outsider personality from the madness.
To our ears it feels like a concise dissection of Chicago’s industrial history and Californian digital psychedelia; probing at their twisted, fluoro guts with the inquisitive nature of a mad scientist or psycho-analyst between the yelping, warped and hyper-piquant yacht boogie of 'The Rhino Powder of New Sensitivity' and a heavily affected dislocation of harmonised pop hooks and whirring body mechanics in 'Clean Crash'.
It all occupies a strange perch between introspective and exuberant, veering from mid-‘90s AFXian pop rephlexion in 'You Are Alone', to signature Diagonal tackle in the gas-chugging EBM-pop force of 'The Human Pet', whereas Unarmed twists into fractal phantasia, all of which maintain a thread of logic that belies the record’s vintaging period of refinement and distillation.
There can be little doubt that this is one of the most complex, rigorous and distinctive in Diagonal’s catalogue. Closer attention is required. File amidst records by Luc Van Acker, Aphex Twin, Savant, Powell…
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Quite a recent one this. I didn't technically think it was bad when I first heard it, but definitely didn't think it would have the longevity and growth it has. Whilst the press release said it had an Aphex vibe (I can see the similarities), I find it much more akin to the most nihilistic Nine Inch Nails period :The Downward Spiral. Turgid and claustrophobic saw-wave synths mingle with (what I can only guess is intentionally) obtuse vocal shards. Slowed down, pitch-shifted samples and bit-crushed drums make for a challenge.. but one worth persevering with, more difficult than anything on this list but almost definitely more rewarding. A glittering diamond at the end of a rewarding trek.
TRACK LISTING
1. The Rhino Powder Of New Sensitivity
2. Immovable
3. You Are Alone
4. The Human Pet
5. Unarmed
6. Clean Crash
