Providence, RI post-noise dance band Mahi Mahi push the boundaries between the avant electro culture waning in 2004, and the proto-industrial revival pushed by bands like Add N to (X). Appearing in all white with red police siren lights, the two-piece band takes on a Fahrenheit 451-style techno-paranoia manifest in singer V. von Ricci's mutilated and clipped vocals and the weird, alien void of "He No Wa"'s production. Opener "2nd Warning" introduces Mahi Mahi with a cheesy test pattern sample, from which simmers a basic drum pattern, dark and cold, touched only with noise bursts. "You Can Feel Right" comes in next; still sinisterly slow but sprinkled with snaky keyboards and big live drums, a huge bed for V. von Ricci's tense vocals. Bass is the conspicuous plaything here, especially on tracks like "Downtown," a Fad Gadget-like meditation on a Baby Blue much less romantic than Dylan's, where the center pitch, not exactly a drum, not exactly a keyboard strike, serves as a post by which all sounds are forced to separate. This works best on "Blue and Gold," a track whose trickle-synth hook owes a debt to Nine Inch Nails, only here there is more control and more evasive lyrics bent beyond pop and back again. Mahi Mahi's evil, slo mo video game beats and bizarro sing song melodies have created some kind of party environment in Providence in 2003-2004, and this album gives a powerful, if sterile, record to that moment.
© Daphne Carr /TiVo