Unstable Shapes - Machined Delicately EP

It's only been a couple of months since I reviewed Unstable Shapes debut full-length Delicate Machinery, a release that initially impressed and continues to do so to this day. To recap, the band which only formed relatively recently; consists of Andrew Cahak – Vocals, Mitch Gustafson – Guitar, Kevin Hurley – Bass, Ryan Jaroscak – Guitar and James Taylor on Drums.

As you may have guessed from the title, this is a selection of remixes of choice cuts from the aforementioned album. Back in the 90's when I was a teenager and purchasing CD singles, remixes were always omnipresent along with some demo or live performance. More often than not they were fairly unremarkable affairs which added next to nothing to the track (with maybe the exception of Moby's reworking of Metallica's 'Until It Sleeps'). I'm hopeful that this collective of Minneapolis based artists will prove that to paraphrase that dreadful Limp Bizkit album of the same name wrong, that results don't always vary.

Up first is Toilet Rats interpretation of 'Glass Ladder' on the Rats Redux mix. Toilet Rats is Thomas Rehbein aka Tommy Ratz of the bands Naive Sense, Farewell Continental, Robosapien, and Small Towns Burn A Little Slower to name a few. Ratz clearly has a love of 80's New Wave and Synth-Pop and listening to this makes you think of New Order circa 1983. Hell even camp Prog-Rockers Queen were starting to dabble in the world of electronic music by this time, so if its good enough for Freddie and co then its certainly good enough for Unstable Shapes. A banging opener. 'Feral Joy' Shopping Malls mix comes courtesy of Laura Larson who is the Guitar/Vocalist in the band Scrunchies and whose excellent record Colossal I had the honour of covering for Clean Sheets last year. Here the track is completely deconstructed to the point where it is rendered unrecognisable. There are Industrial touches with discordant Post-Punk present which contains traces of Gang of Four, Andy Gill's trademark stop-start riffage particularly noticeable. If ya gonna do a remix then you might as well go all out, which this does. Next is 'The Local Sphinx' from Lazerbeak who is a producer that has worked with big names such as Lizzo, Twin Tribes and Doja Cat. His work here is nothing short of spectacular giving the whole thing a Post-Disco twist in the manner of groups such as Konk and Liquid Liquid, throw in a little Tom Tom Club in there for good measure. An absolute stand-out.

I have a massive soft spot for Synthwave which is just as well seeing as that's exactly what we get with Night Audit's take on 'Flesh + Blood + Stars'. As a huge fan of the films of Nicholas Winding Refn I was reminded of the kind of sounds which dominate his work, particularly on Neon Demon. The Neo-Futurist vibes of Blade Runner are also evident, making this an even more enticing piece. The final track on the EP comes courtesy of DPFKS or Deep Fakes which was formed by alumni of groups such as The Blind Shake and The Umbrella Sequence (to name two). The mix on here isn't especially radical, but it does add some pleasant Synths as well as Dub style Bass and seeing as this was one of my favourite tracks on the aforementioned debut it affords for a pretty decent conclusion all told.

Sometimes less is more and the 'Shapes made exactly the right decision in offering us this tasty morsel which proves both a wholly fun and colourful listen.