Festival of the Dead

Always on the fringes of music, the eccentric William Bennett invented the dreaded genre known as "power electronics" when he formed the provocative group Whitehouse, plus, he thrills kitsch-loving dancers whenever he dons his cha-cha heels and becomes DJ Benetti, the Italo-house spinning superstar. Cut Hands is, believe it or not, somewhere in between these projects as the throbbing rhythms and distorted beats here recall Whitehouse's fervor, while the Benetti bit comes from the "other lands" attitude as the U.K. experimenter messes about with African music. Tribal melodies and nyabinghi drums are sampled and cut into tight, hypnotic loops, as eerie keyboards and glitchy sounds wind in and out, although much less often than expected. Only hard, minimal techno records or terse grindcore can lock the brain in place like Cut Hands, and yet there's always a musical element to latch onto, giving this wild brand of industrial music the welcoming qualities of any given drum circle. Think of it as ethno-industrialist Aaron Dilloway cutting a dance 12", or of drum'n'bass music stripped bare and running through the Congo, and you're close to the overpowering magic found on Festival of the Dead. ~ David Jeffries