Distal - EEL

  • Share
  • Distal has never been one to shy away from clunky scraps of sound. Tracks like "Typewriter Tune" and "Apple Bottom" show him playing with, er, a typewriter and what sounds like a rain stick or a baby rattle. He's excellent at smoothly lacing sonic oddities into svelte club bangers. EEL, his most recent release, is a similarly high-minded effort of thrashing metal and quick-witted vocal samples melded into a time-traveling dance floor pastiche. Named for the devilish antagonist from '80s fantasy flick Highlander, "Kurgan" begins with a martial intro that thrums diligently across a bone-like surface. "It's better to burn out than to fade away," goes the sample plucked from the film, echoing the track's frenetic juke-inspired rhythms and the EP's overall rock & roll sensibilities. The title track has no qualms about hitting you in the face either. Right off the bat, "Eel" strikes with off-kilter drum patterns and the type of syncopations that lend it an air of playful complexity. It stretches and builds and then collapses into an unorthodox drop just past the middle that breaks open into a faster, more fleshed-out two minutes of head-bobbing madness.
  • Tracklist
      A Eel B Kurgan
RA