Hayter and Milium draw on a spread of styles to produce their unique sound, toying with the seriousness of genre tags while seriously surprising the listener along the way.
Expanding the preconceptions of electro
EBM and wave were forged in the late embers of punk in the 1980s. That same radical rawness that first characterized the sound has continued as new artists have taken up the mantle. One such group nose deep in the rebelliousness of the past are Dog Balls, a duet unleashed from the Leipzig scene.
Formed by Hayter and Milium, this incising pair debut on Clear Memory with six tracks. Stripped down percussion and a skeletal synth-line form the backbone of the tongue-in-cheek “We Play Ball.” The stabbing chords and crisp beats of “Gelée Royale” see the duet change their lyrics to French, throbbing bass and key shifts giving the piece a wave sheen. A grey sky looms in the industrial brutality of “Tell It To My Dog,” BPM’s dropping before brightened melodies dawn for some Taylor Dean love. The entire EP is incredibly playful, puppy-like if you will, with Hayter and Milium delivering heavy sledgers with a fair helping of self-deprecation. Fairground frolics slip into bare bold chords in “The Dog Of Men,” a staccato drum driving the piece forward to a military march. Coldness descends in the electro chills of “Bonnetje,” rasping rhythms and angular melodies are muscled by distortion dipped vocals in this brawny banger. Impossible to predict, the record finishes with the elegiac organ intimacy “A Ship Will Come.”
To date, Clear Memory’s focus has been on expanding the preconceptions of electro. Tell It To My Dog certainly does that. Hayter and Milium draw on a spread of styles to produce their unique sound, toying with the seriousness of genre tags while seriously surprising the listener along the way.
Tell It To My Dog is available on Clear Memory. [Bandcamp]
