Unearthed: Nguzunguzu—Warm Pulse EP

When Nguzunguzu played the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival last fall, I remember feeling completely indifferent as to whether or not I witnessed their set because I had already determined that they were members of a sub-genre I call "tasteful bro." Hudson Mohawke is like, the Flying Lotus of tasteful bro, a class of producers whose worst offenders include Kastle, Baauer, Brenmar, Rustie and virtually any artist on Trouble & Bass, Night Slugs or Fade To Mind—especially Kingdom.

And then I witnessed Nguzunguzu play at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City this past weekend. I won't go into detail, but I will say that I really enjoyed the set and, right in the middle of it, I ran into an editor of mine. I was all, "I liked their FACT Mix but always thought they were tasteful bro!" and my editor was like, "No way, they're like art school experimental weirdness," which is far more tolerable to me than tasteful bro. I have come to the conclusion that Nguzunguzu isn't a tasteful bro duo, and while I'm at it, I'll go on record and say that its new EP is the business.

"Delirium," the second track on Nguzu's latest five-track release Warm Pulse, packs enough rattling darkness to identify it as vaguely trap, which is a not-that-funny, tongue-in-cheek music meme perpetuated by tasteful bros. However, there are elements that distinguish "Delirium" from the misguided sensibilities of this newly-coined sub-genre: chillness, prettiness and alien-ness are also at work in the mix via loafing 808s, tinkling chimes and pitched-up vocal coos. "Drop Cage" plays with the herky-jerky industrial sound refined by Girl Unit, but the EP as a whole balances its angular influences with the fluidity of tracks like "No Longer" and the rolling "Smoke Alarm." Nguzunguzu's Warm Pulse EP, which you can stream below, was released via Hippos In Tanks (not Fade To Mind) last week.

Purchase Nguzunguzu's Warm Pulse EP now on iTunes