Ramzi is an odd bird. And I mean that it’s like she’s an actual bird from an alien world. Web-toed, a protruding proboscis, an un-fanned mane of neon pink and green feathers fluffing from her neck in a proud, vibrant display. It’s beautiful and intriguing to be certain, but don’t get too close! This bird’s aggressive, too. Nervous, jerky swings of the neck, threats to strike at any given moment. All this translates musically into a bulbous beat that feels like it’s constantly in reverse throughout this Bébites tape, brought to a rubbery boil in the humid, sweat-drenched tar pits of the planet from where our dear Phoebé Guillemot brings us her field report. Dance rhythms dirty enough to get all that unsavory alien anatomy positively sweating, oozing and secreting is intoxicating musk, its alluring stench, its mating call, hypnotizing everyone within earshot to sway and bob and wiggle the body about in weird ways. Everything is all squishy, like your ears can feel the synths and push back into them, change their shapes. You poke at this music almost as much as it pokes you back. You listen to it all through a microscope, observing the atoms of a synthesizer having their own little dance party. Oh, and some scrambled radio/TV-signal vocal samples thrown in there to really make you wonder… are these aliens spying on us, or what? Stealing our way of funk, warping the word and sound, molesting it with their toxic, perverted fingers?
All right then, so what, should I make an assessment about this? Some of Ramzi’s best stuff here, and I think there’s better yet to come. Scary good.
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