Where to start with Warp Records? The label helped pioneer the electronic music scene of the early 90s and early 00s, bringing us cosmic machine code music from the likes of Autechre, Aphex Twin, Plaid, and Clark. It essentially birthed the Intelligent Dance Music nametag, and considering IDM is still chomped down by most eager bedroom-dwelling fanatics, one would presume it could chunter along with its prizewinning genre. But Warp clearly wasn’t content with this confinement.
It started with Red Snapper, a simple bass, drums, and guitar trio that urged fascinating electronic textures from its acoustics. Later, someone at Warp thought it would be a good idea to completely burn the rulebook. The label foraged further into guitar-based music with Broadcast, Grizzly Bear, and Battles; delved into instrumental hip-hop with Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, and Rustie; and now it has signed Nice Nice.
So how do Nice Nice fit into this eclectic roster? The answer is: they don’t. This isn’t necessarily because Warp has decided to venture into yet another genre. It’s more that Nice Nice couldn’t really fit in anywhere. As a drums and guitar duo, they pile an orchestral amount of untraceable sound into their music. From quirky electronic blips to low-end rumbles, they build raga-style sonics into a solid rhythmic framework that truly sounds like nothing else.
Nice Nice made inroads releasing four EPs in 2005/6 in dedication to the seasons, featuring long, languid drones that quite contentedly went nowhere for 10 minutes. While the sounds were often fascinating, they proved that too much of a good thing can eventually bore. From the first note of Extra Wow, however, it’s apparent that they’ve sharpened up. The best example of this is “One Hit,” a tense song bristling with deep percussive hits that lurch you toward the edge of a musical precipice. Each beat takes you further to the edge, just holding back until it eventually pores over into an obliterating cacophony of buzzing snare stabs and other such mind-melting noises. Then somehow it recovers back to some semblance of order, repeating a few times before its emphatic conclusion.
Another arresting moment comes with “See Waves,” in which a drum kit is treated with what sound like battering rams while a soaring synth line gallops alongside. “A Little Love” offers a more relaxing pace, with rewarding harmonic diversity over tribal chanting. Unfortunately, the rest of the record doesn’t quite live up to the luminous aggression of these choice tracks, as their cautious fear of the chord change begins to let them down. Songs with less of a punchy dynamic lose their sense of direction, arriving and departing with a polite wave and far less impact than their complex soundscapes deserve.
It was in stoner flick Pineapple Express in which the lead protagonist, Dale Denton, in between laborious puffs on a “jazz cigarette,” comments “Couscous: the food so nice they named it twice”. If Nice Nice decided they needed a motto, they could certainly do worse than adopting Denton’s wisdom. Despite issues with consistency, they’ve made an album of startling originality, adding yet another badge of honor to the crowded lapel of the Warp Records roster.
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