♫♪  Test House - “Hold Your Form”

“Andante” describes tempos between 73 and 77 beats per minute, or “at a walking pace.” Whoever set up that naming system was one slow-ass walker. I clock “Hold Your Form” at a taught 120 BPM, and to my feet, that’s just what I need to get off my lazy ass, put away all that beautiful ambient/drone for a minute, and pound the pavement along to a crisp four-on-the-floor like the one Test House laid out for this extremely satisfying little number. Too bad they never made a portable 7-inch player… I had my little weights and sweatband all ready to go. But hey, dance clubs have turntables right?

This banger comes from Georgia imprint Geographic North, the ninth of their “You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever” singles series (which also includes previous entries from A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Landing, and Windy & Carl). Although the frame of the song is built with solid bricks of melody and rhythm, the strobing and streaking synths break things up, almost chemically. The result is an enveloping, evaporating swirl of a pop tune that is to be inhaled, that will infect, that will alter. And I guess that’s what the video Elizabeth Skadden directed is all about too: pitting the group as vessels of the smokey stuff that is the very song they created.

By the way, Test House is one James Elliott (ex-Bear In Heaven, ex-School of Seven Bells) and one other Peter Schuette (ex-Silk Flowers, ex-Psychobuildings). Also by the way, dammit if that isn’t the catchiest chorus of 2013 yet.

• Test House: http://testhouse.bandcamp.com
• Geographic North: http://geographic-north.com

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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