The 00s gave rise to a plethora of spiral-eyed US groove bands. Headiest of all were Gang Gang Dance, a New York outfit whose commitment to aural psychedelics and world music-inclined raves remained anchored to meaty beats.
Missing for seven years, three original members have returned to an altered cultural landscape. You can hear the adjustment: a herd of wild buffalo arriving at the Standing Rock oil pipeline protest in 2016 provides the sample at the end of J-Tree, a lovely reintroduction to the beauty Gang Gang Dance can conjure.
Interestingly, Kazuashita, which roughly translates as “future peace” as well as being the name of the baby of one of their friends, doesn’t actually pack as much of a percussive punch as the band’s previous album, Eye Contact (2011), whose MindKilla track took GGD into properly scary territory.
Splendid as it is to have vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos back, and Brian Degraw and Josh Diamond crafting weird Turkish-influenced R&B on songs such as Young Boy (Marika in Amerika), it is hard not to hear Bougatsos refracted through the lens of Grimes, an artist who radically expanded on GGD’s commercial potential. In comparison, Bougatsos now comes up a little ephemeral.
