After a few 2013 releases (SHATTER AND LOSE and CRUSHED INTERIOR, and a split with BASIC HOUSE), James Donadio comes back at us with a new full length record via SPECTRUM SPOOLS. You will know by the label, if for no other reason, that the sounds found here will have veered off the beaten path some time ago. I’m pretty sure there’s no other artists out there with releases on SPECTRUM SPOOLS, OPAL TAPES, and DIGITALIS in the last year or so! Jesus dude, that’s some real shit.

Donadio is based out of Cleveland, OH and the sounds that he makes as PROSTITUTES have been known to be pummeling. You’ll get some of that on this new record PETIT COCHON, but there’s also quite a bit of mellow flavor to sip on if that is what you are looking for. Bombast and defanged fangbeatghost both, hanging at the fringes of the spectrum. That’s where the music I end up taking a shine to usually is, and that is exactly where PROSTITUTES works.

The tracks on PETIT COCHON (“young pig”!) offer up, for the most part, different shades of minimalist electronic groove. Donadio’s sounds are not the scuzziest you will hear. They’re not the most twisted electronic churn available. But there’s something to his way with groove, and deconstruction of known beat science. It’s off, and it’s hard (even when the colors of the music are muted, like on the track “Tube Without Exit”). I want to call the vibes thuggishly electronic, and I think that will work for you if listen to something like “Build Your Kits.” A relentless, almost party beat built upon a bell and a wobbling fat bass drum, and on top of that stacked rhythmic distortion that stabs through the beat in a less than gentle manner. A growing pulse of synth drone underpins the whole situation, the different parts coalescing slightly, pulling away and finding each other again, only more aligned this time than last. 5 minutes of throbbing ugly stares, a syncopated concoction, that really pushes the listener. Away? Toward a dark alley? Inward? Show me who is playing this @ the club in Boston and I will go there and be a part of the dance floor eruption that is bound to occur when a track like this plays for a bunch of people looking for their kicks through pure rawness of sound. To the point. PROSTITUTES. Like a house punch in the face.  Donadio has also released TRUNCHEON CADENCE (Part One) & TRUNCHEON CADENCE (Part Two) in 2014. Check it. PETIT COCHON was mastered by James Plotkin.