- Brussels' Maoupa Mazzocchetti is a sort of descendant of L.I.E.S. terroriser Beau Wanzer. Both draw on EBM and industrial, both revel in slasher-flick ugliness and both smear their productions with distortion and noxious delay. This return to Mazzocchetti's first home—Unknown Precept, purveyors of "grotesk techno"—strengthens the similarities. His ghoulish mumbling and razorwire synths suggest a bedroom recluse with unwholesome proclivities. But, as with much of Wanzer's music, the hint of a dance floor sensibility makes these tracks more than just alienating.
Two (relatively) straighter bangers grab your attention first. "I Would Prefer Not To" and "Gelatin Liposuction Candy" are to electro what a weeping wound is to healthy pink skin. The synth work is angry, the drums puckered and hot to the touch. On the latter, Mazzocchetti finds a predatory lope not far from Gesloten Cirkel or Randomer's "Huh." The rest of the EP is weirder. "Infinity A" cranks down the tempo and smothers its queasy melody in strange flanger effects. On "Traligion," Mazzocchetti's vocal comes closest to intelligibility, when it's not plunging into acid baths of delay. Every now and then, the shrill woodblocks of a cheap drum machine rise out of the ooze, as if mockingly reminding us to dance.
TracklistA1 Infinity A
A2 I Would Prefer Not To
B1 Traligion
B2 Gelatin Liposuction Candy