Double LP - arriving soon
Rat Heart's latest double disc opus seemed to come and go last year before anyone could get a hand on it, perhaps a product of the ol' Boomkat hard-sell but more likely a consequence of the naturally developing intrigue that seems to surround Tom Boogizm, the Manchester-based producer who leads the project in increasingly left-turn ways. Dancing in the Streets speaks to its heritage, a sprawling, avant-minded streetsoul re-channeling of outerzone Factory/Factory Benelux inspirations and instincts that draws lines between The Durutti Column, Arthur Russell, Prince and Yves Tumor but doesn't really sound exactly like any of that. It's a bit of a journey, too, the blasted lo-fi blues catharsis and and piano-led croon of its opening side mutating into increasingly unrecognisable shapes of distorted guitars, ambient noise, fractured sadboi R&B and polyglot spoken-word poetics. It's hard to truly pin down, which for someone like Boogizm, who rarely likes to play with a straight bat, is likely at least half the point. Mostly, it sounds like an artist operating purely on their own terms. Or, to borrow a phrase of Boogizm's own, operation always be a brave little cunt. If nothing else, he does seem to be a man of his word.
FFO: feeo, Arthur Russell, Prince, Yves Tumor, Space Afrika
