Melbourne-based four piece Tantrums describe their dark, post-punk / industrially tinged sound as ‘midi-evil disco’, and this debut single ‘Anomie’ on New Weird Australia’s New Editions imprint offers up four different mixes of the title track that manage to take things to quite divergent places. In its original mix version, ‘Anomie’ sees vocoded tones trailing out over a backdrop of ebbing, doomy keys and drones that’s lulling and menacing at the same time, only for distorted drum machine rhythms and explosion effects to suddenly lock into precise focus as the track begins to ascend towards a fiery conclusion amidst clattering live drums, eerily delicate piano keys and distorted pulsing digital effects. In sharp contrast, the ‘Collarbones remix’ throws the focus far more towards wonky leftfield hiphop, draping ghostly vocal drones over a treacherously shifting backbone of rattling percussion and snare clicks, before the ‘Worng remix’ takes things out into deep, languid digi-dub atmospheres, sending the original’s piano keys looping endlessly against a spectral backdrop of throbbing sub-bass and skeletal drum machine rhythms. Finally, Tantrums’ own reworking takes things out with a dark ambient-tinged reprise of the original that throws the emphasis upon lullingly hypnotic bass drones and elegant keys as crunching, contorted electronics slowly creep into the foreground. An impressive debut offering from Tantrums that left me wanting to hear more from this Melbourne band. You can get ‘Anomie’ either on CD (as a limited run of 50, only available at Tantrums shows and NWA-related events), or as a free download from NWA.
Chris Downton
