the eyes in heat: programME

The Eyes In The Heat is a project of Oliver Ho and Zizi Kanaan. The combination of Oliver's ultra-crisp, angular techno and Zizi's vocals, their swampy approach to post-punk heritage, their lo-fi but intricate use of electronics, blues and acid house, these are grooves that lock you in but leave room for melodies -- an ultra-tight production that manages to avoid feeling sanitized. Here's some club music that is not afraid to show its farm-dog teeth. Oliver brings a lot of his electronic techno influences into the band, but there is a wider vision here that explores the borders between the avant-garde pop music of Laurie Anderson and the electronic experiments of Brian Eno. There is a desire to fuse the contrasting ideas of dark machine music, the lyrical presence of Zizi as a singer and a writer and the live drums of Jerome Tcherneyan (long-time drummer in Piano Magic). The result is a unique mix of both sonic ideas and human song writing. ProgramME is an ambitious record, multi-directional but with its two feet standing firm in its own backyard. This is intimate electronics projected on a very big screen, a mix that works because it dares.