Depressed Buttons

Qwerty EP

Considering the delicious tension that runs through the music of the Faint as they try to reconcile the worlds of wiry indie rock and electronica, the appearance of a side project by three members of that band—Todd Fink, Clark Baechle and Jacob Thiele—where they flex their dance music muscles is hardly earth-shattering news. Nor should it shock fans of the Faint to learn that this trio know their way around a house beat and an anthemic tune that could stand comfortably aside the work of folks like Fatboy Slim and Derrick May.

The four tracks on their debut EP, Qwerty, are a blast of wiggly fun. They all keep to a steady regimen of skip-jump beats, wrapped in curly synth melodies that run up and down your spine like a shiver and undulating bass noise. These fellas are students of their chosen medium of dance-floor classics (just check out their website, which features a glut of streaming/downloadable tunes from other electronic artists). They want these songs to be worked into other DJs’ sets. You can almost hear the communal rhythmic clapping and screeching of young women when they beat drops out on "Mighty Putty" and "Folding Protein" leaving nothing but wowing bits of keyboard noise for you to ride to the next bass drum hit. If anything, they might hew a little too closely to the templates that have remained in place for the past 25 years now. But with grooves this good, that sort of talk is just splitting hairs.

Mad Decent http://www.maddecent.com

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