Any act comprising of Move D and Juju & Jordash is going to score highly on the eccentric scale. The Magic Mountain High experience is one to behold, improvised live jams that use the house music structure as the most tenuous of foundations. Last year’s Inverted Audio mix – an enticingly meandering performance of jams that disappeared down a disorientating acid echo hole fifty minutes in – captured the trio’s live show at Panorama Bar and Tiny Breadcrumbs, the second release on Jordan “Jordash” Czamanski’s Off Minor imprint, aims to distill the same mayhem into an EP.
Fears of having to invoke the classic Muse defence of “you really need to see them live” are unfounded, opener ‘Suub’ instantly helps the trio live up to their billing. You can feel the thrilling oh-my-god-we-are-live tension, manifesting in what sounds like a struggling alien choir desperately trying to find their correct pitch over the top of a deep sub hum. The tinny percussion rises to a crest, pushing beyond the normality of mundane instruments into the squeal of radio frequency tuning.
The rest of the tracks aren’t quite as ridiculously greasy but still carry a fluidity that lends itself to the unexpected. ‘Riptide’s‘ infectious rolling groove has a soulful lick that runs over the top, one that feels as if it is not quite tethered to inconsequential entities such as a kick led metronome. It introduces layers of held pads, moving the mood from groove into drama, hooking you in until you are tuned out at the finale.
Dialling up the gloom, ‘Avalanche’ is the most inhospitable of the crop with its subspace signals reaching through arctic winds. Then, closing the collection, ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina‘ is a reflective moment of funeral parlour chords with the spectral presence of theremin. Rather than providing an emphatic finish, it is quite the downer. Yet this is a fitting way to close a release that is based on defying predictability, resulting in a positive step away from the audio Tetris of locked groove live acts.