Cutting the Edge

Multidisciplinary feminist art collective-cum-agitprop electro-pop group Chicks on Speed straddle the thinnest of lines between bona fide art world credibility and hedonistic dance club beats. While their creative arc has encompassed sundry projects from fashion collections to multimedia art installations, the group's most visible stock-in-trade is half-rapped, half-sung jabs at consumerism, fashion, and gender politics, pitted against experimental yet club-ready beats. On their fifth album, CUTTING THE EDGE, CoS--now a duo consisting of Australian-born Alex Murray-Leslie and New Yorker Melissa Logan--are as fearless and outspoken as ever. From jibes at the pompous world of high art ("Extended Paintbrush") to B-52's-style New Wave ("Surfer Girl") to percussion-heavy Freestyle workouts ("Art Rules"), no subject is taboo, no music is safe from the Chicks' acid-tongued observations and irreverent genre mashing.