Stop Disco Mafia
Self-Titled EP
(Proptronix)
Stop Disco Mafia is yet another in a line of releases from the Proptronix whose main goal is to put fun back into electronic music and in large part succeeds. While it doesn't always make for highly pleasant listening, this 6 track, nearly 25-minute release slices and dices and tosses samples with ease while jumping around like a kid who's had too much candy.
The opening track of "Shithead" gives the listener a good idea of what to expect right away as a flurry of sound snippets slam together to form a stream-of-consciousness blob of words and sound effects that in turn leads into the herky-jerky rhythm and main portion of the song. Of course, the song itself isn't really structured typically and while it follows a somewhat unchanging beat, everything from theremin samples to 8-note keyboard melodies to filtered whatnots all bounce in and out of the mix. Fortunately, things calm down ever-so-slightly on "Missing Vegas," a hilariously cheesy track that mixes more bizarre melodies over occasionally stuttering breakbeats.
"A Quarrel" pushes things more into a minimal dancefloor realm and it's here that the album delivers its best song. Over a thumping 4/4 beat, the track gracefully skewers house music while providing music for booty shaking at the same time. The remainder of the album is more of the same hyper-processed semi lo-fi electronic music that marked the first half of the album and if you're a fan of Tigerbeat6 type stuff or digital pranksters in general (like Dat Politics, etc) your highly caffeine-adled mind will probably latch right onto the frantic spastics going on here.
Rating: 6.25
