Goldblum - Tears In Limbo

The return of our favoured Rotterdam rotters, Goldblum, with what I at first thought was a vinyl pressing of the Tears In Limbo tape from 2020 plus a few previously unheard extras, but is actually an entirely new record that shares the same name. Such taxonomical subterfuge feels suited to the murky, absurdist soundworld the duo have created. Michiel Klein (also of Lewsberg) and Marijn Verbiesen excel in a very undefined but sharply realised type of electronic subversion, manipulating tape loops and samples in a dubby, collagistic fog that would feel well at home on a label like Ultra Eczema or is something akin to Hype Williams haunted by the ghosts of European port towns and their attendant art (brut) musics. Raw art, indeed! Squint and re-visualise, and Tears In Limbo could pass as a Jean Debuffet piece, chopped, then reassembled but left unscoured, abstracted from convention but eerily inviting. It's generally quite tricky to determine exactly why Goldblum's music is so appealing but then they go and close a record with a song called 'Who Couldn't Love A Potato?' and it's obvious. Staring you right there in the face. Boiled potato is the worst potato and even that's pretty good. These guys are mashed, fried and baked. Who couldn't love that!