First Glances – Beat Detectives
Minneapolis/New-York three-piece Beat Detectives are well named for they have a deep and wide-ranging appreciation of – wait for it – beats. Whether they’re wheeling them out under an ambient dub guise similar to that of Peaking Lights , indulging in vintage helicopter squelch as per The Propellerheads or tackling dreamy, druggy house, consistency only really comes via uniformly crude four-track production.
Their rather beguiling Casual Encounters Of The Third Kind has just been released and, if it weren’t for the fact that the entirely suitable Moon Glyph boutique did in fact do the honours, you’d be betting your bottom dollar on this being a Not Not Fun collaboration. Evidence comes courtesy of the slo-mo whirl of tracks like “Deep Web” on which mesmeric vocal trickery rubs shoulders with the sort of screwed jitters that were previously the exclusive property of the likes of Maria Minerva .
To boot, and amidst incidental segues and electronic shorts, there are screwed R&B overtones with which to contend and even a fleeting reference to budget trip-hop thanks to “Freak Like That”. Still not content, there’s time enough remaining to crowbar in some weirdo kitchen-sink grooves ransacked from the shelves of the radiophonic sci-fi library, latterly mutating the sounds into sly funky house and flat-lining drift no doubt borrowed from affiliate Moon Glyph outfit Food Pyramid .
When the international record collection audit eventually takes place, each and every one that does not contain a well-played copy of Casual Encounters will automatically be written off as boring. Don’t sleep on picking one up.
~The 150 CS-only Casual Encounters Of The Third Kind is out now on Moon Glyph.~