Over the last 20 years, British DJ and producer Mark Pritchard has straddled multiple music forms, under many different guises, and with Harmonic 313 he follows the dark electronic ethic conjured up by contemporaries like Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. On this intriguing and desolatealbum, Pritchard also throws in twisted hip-hop, dubstep, and eerie industrial elements while always having one foot tapping incessantly on the dancefloor, which is in keeping with his love of Detroit techno (the 313 of the project name refers to the Detroit area code).
It's not easy to dance to - more like looming terror on the dance floor - and it's certainly not easy listening, especially the rickety typewriter clatter of
, if he was a ballet dancing robot boy; there's the galactic sonic star bursts and deep rumbling bass of
Don't Panic
; and the fractious shuffle of
Quadrant 3
brings the album to a simmering end.
While Pritchard, who plays three dates in New Zealand next week (including Auckland's Ink on July 31), doesn't quite prove the claim of the album's title, this cold, glitchy and palpitating machine-made music wins you over with its utter uniqueness.
