Datachi’s new album, Mmale & Ffemale, is like trying to get from one side of a crowded room to the other so you can finally say something to the girl you’ve been sweating for, before she gets to the door. There is a well-defined space but it ebbs and flows like a crowd. There’s a constant, slightly desperate energy that draws you forward. There are moments of ecstasy and moments of sheer terror. I consider this a good thing.
In tracks like “Dollars for Bones” and “Plainphhield,” there’s so much movement in the beats you don’t know whether you’re moving really fast or really slow. It’s not the obvious half-time, double-time we’re used to with drum-n-bass. Instead it’s the randomness that only human interaction can conjure – never truly random, but bordering on chaos. The rhythms become the bumping shoulders of strangers, constantly changing your orientation in the music.
The standout feature throughout the album is the use of voices. Most of the other sounds are synthetic and fall within a certain tonal spectrum. This consistency is disrupted by the human voice, that I don’t believe can ever act as just sound. At times, the words very close, intimate and scary (the track, “Intercoursing”), and other times they’re far away, big and absurd (on the track, “Dust and Scratch”). They conjure associations and memories, adding depth to music that can at times be off-putting and/or inhuman.
From the first sonic burst of “Ed’s Head” (perhaps the moment of initiation) to the last absurd grunt of “Fulton Bobbaface,” followed by sounds of banging on springs, Mmale & Ffemale will make you stay up until 2am and laugh a little too loud.
Mmale & Ffemale is OUT NOW on Planet-Mu
