| · Uneasy easy listening.
NYC's Black Dice wear "difficult" like a badge of honour. Their previous explorations in random free-form noise (most notably their first proper album, Beaches & Canyons) toed the line between art-school wank and brilliantly accidental beauty – thankfully more the latter than the former. While their live shows are infamous for coming off as a bit of a struggle (for the spectators that is – ever seen a room full of jaded hipsters cover their ears en masse, a good quarter of them running for the doors? I have and it's hilarious), Black Dice's recorded output somehow works as relatively sedated background ambience for your most avant garde dinner parties.
Separated into two parts, the lengthy Miles of Smiles EP swerves between jet engine distortion (the first half of "Trip Dude Delay") gorgeous voice and drum palettes (the second half of that very same song) and random field recordings manipulated into something nearly approaching structure ("Miles of Smiles"). Still, this stuff isn't meant to be easy – every time Black Dice approach a groove, they toss their difficult-arty hats on and run for the hills.
What they're doing on the disco-punk DFA label is anyone's guess (perhaps they're easy to remix? Maybe label king James Murphy's having a bit of a laugh on the kids who'll buy anything with his name on it?), but take it as testament to their unique vision that this lot couldn't possibly fit in anywhere. The bottom line remains: there's no one else really doing this sort of thing so accessibly, and just as few who could make it sound this beautiful. Touché.
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