- Solo and as part of Social Junk, Philadelphia's Noah Anthony has covered plenty of ground during his time in the US tape scene. But he's never come as close to techno as he does on this EP for Unknown Precept. Perhaps this is one of the Extremities to which the title refers—the extreme fringe of Anthony's range. He certainly tackles the form with the brutal directness you might associate with a newcomer. Anthony's Form A Log bandmate Container has shown how noise-informed takes on techno can be subtle and psychedelic as well as blindingly aggressive. By comparison these tracks are a bit rudimental, though that's not always to their detriment.
Even at their danciest, past Profligate releases have drawn on the brooding glam of EBM and new wave. Here that's stripped away. On "Good Humour," it's replaced by a punishing kick drum and a wall of rushing synths straight out of some gurning hard-house nightmare. The track starts at full intensity and heads upwards, before the percussive debris is dramatically swept away at the midpoint. "It Was Me" feels like Anthony's crack at the Container formula; the acrid bassline and three-over-four time kicks might've been borrowed from his colleague, though in Anthony's hands these ingredients don't go quite so far. Things improve as the tracks become more reduced. On "Let's Eat (Working Title)," just a few bluebottle drones and some flickers of bass soften the 140 BPM groove. "Every Little Rainbow," meanwhile, is the most frantic of the lot, its drums thwacking every beat with equal force over seething layers of distortion.
TracklistA1 Good Humor
A2 It Was Me
B1 Let's Eat (Working Title)
B2 Every Little Rainbow