These days it seems the American Midwest is the new frontier for far-out electronic music. Sure, there are cool cats all round the country pushin the boundaries and bustling to make noise and cash, but America’s bread basket stands tall with a full cast of solid musicians dedicated to their craft and the mission to get weird and groovy. Minnesota three-piece FOOD PYRAMID are the epitome of this inspirational vanguard. In 2010 they released a trilogy of excellent tapes off MOON GLYPH, brimming with melodic krautrock jams that quietly perked the interest of psych tape heads nation-wide. With a combination of technical precision and a refreshing playfulness, these dudes infuse their sonic explorations with a passion and energy so long absent from a somewhat stolid genre whose heyday is now nearly 40 years past. Their success lies in the apt incorporation of that certain sound currently dominating the midwest experimental scene – heavenly synth arpeggios subtley manipulated into exquisitely textured drones – within a unapologeticly motorik song structure.

While their initial recordings presented a fun, exciting new take on that old kraut jam, their debut LP, Mango Sunrise, also released off Moon Glyph last March, see Food Pyramid refining their signature sound while simultaneously branching out into new, further horizons. The opening track, with a relentlessly ebbulliant hook straight outta a neu! album and covered in the sparkling synths, indoubtably confirms their mastery of the krautrock genre and so prepares the listener for an exploration of new terrain. The rest of the album travels far and wide, from stripped, brooding riffage of ‘Orange Alert’ through the lycergic deep house of ‘Have Mercy’ bubbling with bongo funk, into the massive dub wobbles of ‘Burger Night,’ and back out the rabbit hole with drone-jazz barn burner ‘Extender.’ Silky smooth sounds abound, but the secret weapon of these tittilating titans is that damn saxophone, always lurking in the background, always building the tension, waiting for the perfect moment to strike it loud and loose. This is top quality music right here, no joke. Tune in, get lost, have fun.