moon pool & dead band: human fly

Detroit deviants Moon Pool & Dead Band hardwire their gutter-disco waveforms with all the slime lab atmospherics and sci-fi circuitry scuzz that one might expect (and hope for) from a duo comprised of veteran garage-punk drummer Dave Shettler and Wolf Eyes noise lifer Nate Young. Utilizing a swap meet’s worth of crusty synths, sequencers, drum machines and outmoded FX units, and adhering to a purist’s regimen of “all live and improvised, no overdubs,” Moon Pool & Dead Band’s rogue-wizard approach to basement beat music has already birthed some refreshingly unclassifiable tunnel-rat techno (see their self-titled 12-inch on Agitated for proof), but Human Fly feels like their unambiguous highlight to date. Motoring on a busted industrial-funk rhythm, the title track grinds and grooves through a maze of modular synth sparks, acid ooze and fried smoke before stopping suddenly to reveal a Cramps sample sputtering tinnily under all the noise; then, with almost a comic sense of timing, they re-bury it in the pumping pulse of duct-taped electronics. “Jagged Orbit” and “Cyber Rebels” ebb and flow with a lighter touch while looped percussion, jazzy house leads and synthesizer shrapnel echo across the stereo field like soft comets, the beats finally fading away in soothing waves of deep space hiss. An unusual synthesis of vibes and ideas, Human Fly is an ideal addition to the canon of inexplicable American EBM originators.