Petit Cochon

Cleveland-based musician James Donadio has drawn much attention within the dance scene under his Prostitutes guise, both for his industrious and noisy-sounding techno and his more experimental efforts. His third full-length, Petit Cochon, is a combination of the two, combining repetitive and interchanging drum machine patterns with noisy static and organic found sounds, shying away from the traditional techno found on the two-part Truncheon Cadence and moving back to his familiar-sounding output of releases such as 2013's Crushed Interior. On paper, the album looks like it is there to be offensive -- the Prostitutes name as well as Donadio being grouped with heavier artists like Shifted suggests this -- but it's quite the opposite. It's dark in places, but never unnerving or that intrusive, and has vacant, reverberating effects as well as atmospheric layers that are both well-crafted and automated. Each track has its own individuality, shifting the sonic landscapes seamlessly without veering that far away from one another. "Build Your Kits" offers a club-based 4/4 kick, while "The Bluffer's Corporation" sounds like it could be a collaboration between the Boredoms and Actress. The record's best moment might be the last track, "Four Basic Forces," with its mesmerizing train-like rhythm, synth splutters, and a kick drum that progressively builds and then fades in and out, only to unexpectedly be brought crashing back in at the end. The album is a fresh and fascinating take on the destructive side of dance music and sits alongside some of the darker techno releases from Donadio's contemporaries. ~ James Pearce