n.m.o.: nordic mediterranean organization/numerous miscommunications occur

Exceptional debut album of military space music and/or fluxus techno rave drills from the inimitable, acronymic duo. N.M.O. execute their crazed debut album for Diagonal, distilling the playful calisthenics of their laptop and drum kit live show in a totally unique manner that somehow deconstructs and alliterates tracky acid techno with avant no-wave rock, computer music and the kind of snare-driven tattoos coming out of Portugal's Príncipe label. Nordic Mediterranean Organization / Numerous Miscommunications Occur finds the romantic Viking duo ratcheting the psychotomimetic intensity of their previous tape and trio of 12"s for Anòmia, The Death of Rave and Where To Now? According to their central mantra of "As Strict As Possible", resulting in five alarming, powerful dancefloor raids intersected by infuriating locked grooves, or "Neoliberal Madness Offering 1-4", plus a series of barking trained "Unit" drills. The razor sharp and raucous results don't sit comfortably in any pre-ordained category, preferring to scythe their own route through the time-flattened field of contemporary music by employing the fundamentals of physical pressure and precise psycho-acoustic frequencies in a disciplined pursuit of new, syncretic sensations that toy with rave convention and serve to demystify notions of aerobic mysticism. Nose to tail, they spell out their ideas with playfully pedantic attention to detail, whether physically making you get up to nudge the needle from its pervasive locked groove, putting you through your paces in their "German Trained Unit" challenges, or simply driving you to delirium in the album's full blown dance tracks. Cut almost a side-a-piece for optimal intensity, those five dance cuts veer from the clashing sharp and wet, tight-but-distended dichotomies of "RIYL Roma" to the ploughing pneu-beta bass drum and giddy top end tickle of "New Bulgaria", to take in the scuffling, compartmented swerve and teeth-chattering acid of "Armchair Evader" and the squashed, mil-tantric cadence of "Double Arm". In essence, N.M.O.'s first LP serves as both a puckish middle finger and a sore thumb in modern dance music's bloated face, stripping it all down to muscle, nerves and bones in a way that's somehow intuitive and counter-intuitive at the same time, hyper-fresh but primordial and properly ravenous on the floor. RIYL: Belgian techno, SuperCollider, Powell, Lorenzo Senni. Deluxe art by Guy Featherstone. Mastered by Matt Colton.