Artist: The Eyes in the Heat
Album: Program Me
Label: kill the dj records
Release Date: 11/10/12
Clever LP titles fall into two categories. In some cases, it's a sign of an artist trying to look intelligent. Then again, at other times it's simply an interesting name befitting the contents of the playlist.
Thankfully for your sake The Eyes In The Heat falls directly into the latter. Program Me, whether read as ‘programme' or not, offers two distinct ways of listening. At once informed by indie, post punk and alt-guitar fare, there's also enough on here to keep die-hard electronic fans satisfied for its duration. In short, potentially the most atypical Album of the Week we've had in quite some time.
A collaboration between none other than UK techno stalwart Oliver Ho, vocalist-cum-synthstress Zizi Kanaan, and now also percussion man Jerome Tcherneyan, it's an offering built from raw machines and live instruments at once nodding to both stages and dancefloors. Not least on workouts like Water, in which more than a few touches of grimier sounds can be heard, akin to M.I.A. in full rave mode. Skip forward a track though and The Perfect Gun's reduced tempo, lunging bassline and staccato snares brings things closer to marching band downbeat.
Throw in Blood, a warm, inviting, distorted vocal harmony set to pitched string refrains and delicate bleeps, and you've got yourself something of a complete package from a songwriting perspective. Meanwhile, abrasive (Signal) and mysterious (Next Step) interludes position things in more experimental electronic canons. Whatever you choose to hear though there's no denying The Eyes In The Heat's inaugural long-form outing, the product of two years working together, is a proud, loud, vocally focused but musically astute collectionthat should do well amongst fans of everything from LCD Soundsystem to The Long Blondes and Metronomy.
