(Spasticated Recordings)

Over the last few years, Sydney-based electronic producer / musician Dsico’s (aka that No-Talent Hack) profile has increased considerably, not least through his series of infamous bastard-pop mashups that threw together the previously unthinkable likes of Destiny’s Child and Pavement and travelled (with the aid of the web) throughout the world, his performance at 2002’s TINA Festival even making the pages of esteemed UK music mag The Wire. While many will immediately associate the name Dsico with his bastard-pop recombinations, in reality this persona is merely one of a number of production personas for Luke Collison, whose involvement in the Sydney electronic scene stretches back to his membership as one half of drum and bassy outfit Cindii (he’s also released minimal dubby tracks as Flat on Dumphuck’s ‘Beat & Squelch 3’ and more recently electro-pop as Luke Collision on last year’s ‘Doppler Shift’ Clan Analogue compilation). This latest EP / mini-album released on Collison’s own Spasticated Records label (home to the recent, infamous ‘Ministry Of Shit’ compilation) shows him taking another unpredictable left turn with his music as Dsico, completely eschewing the mash-up approach in favour of nine tracks that sit somewhere between eighties new-wave pop and the more contemporary likes of The Presets and Output Recordings.

Opening track ‘Walking’ immediately gives you an idea of the sort of sonic terrain covered here, with squelching analogue synths giving way to swaggering punk-funk guitar and thumping drums, buzzing electronic distortion building up under the beats before the track drops into a liquid-sounding spidery funk that calls to mind early Talking Heads, Collison’s own vocals taking the forefront in a delivery that sits somewhere between Ian Curtis and …. Echo and The Bunnymen. ‘Hungover Again’ gets darker and glammier, with an almost Roxy Music feel to the phased Bowie meets Ferry vocal delivery and some fantastically sinister gothy synths powering away beneath alongside metronomic drum beats, before ‘Fever’ takes things down into Depeche Modey-synths, zapping volleys of retro syn-drums shooting over a backdrop of house-y drum beats, scattered vocals tumbling through processed effects.

‘When You Gonna Love Me’ pushes the bpms up with a fat electro bassline and punching beats rolling along beneath Collison’s dubbed-out urgent pop vocals, calling to mind a considerably more buzzing and synthetic version of The Rapture’s splashy-cymbal funk, screeching bursts of synth feedback and acid squeals accelerating towards overload, while ‘Modulations’ opens with tumbling arpeggiated analogue synths, before locking down into a dirty guitar riff-driven buzz of crackling static, icy synths and swaggering Peter Hook-ish live bass laying down some stark angular funk around Collison’s detached-sounding vocals and sequenced beats. ‘I’ve Danced Enough’ veers back towards discoid punk-funk but keeps things dark and gothy with a bassline strangely reminiscent of The Cure wandering over the housey snares and buzzing electronics, dubbed-out vocals lending the “all right / all wrong” chorus hook a spookily disembodied feel, before ‘It Started Fine’ brings things to a close with pulsing electroclash-tinged synths and stomping drums meshing with angular guitar riffs and handclaps to create a fusion that sits somewhere between baggy indie and LCD Soundystem’s drum-machine-assisted wiry funk. It’s a false ending though – there’s also a hidden track tucked right away at the end of the disc that combines punching drum machine beats with tumbling synths and vast ambient washes that strangely call to mind The Cars, the delayed-out vocals sliding in a soft-focus way over the icy electronics.

‘You Fight Like A Girl’ is an excellent new mini-album / EP release from Dsico that offers a complete stylistic left-turn compared to his previous recorded music output (although in some ways last year’s Luke Collision compilation track did offer a clue to his love of eighties new-wave and synth-pop; a flavour which is expanded upon in a far more band-oriented sense on this release). Most importantly, it’s the hooks that count. Collison has focused upon crafting an album’s worth of strong pop songs here; and any of the tracks included here would sit easily alongside the likes of Cut Copy and The Presets as some of the best local examples of this type of New Wave / synth-pop fusion I’ve heard recently. Older listeners will love the Aussie musical touchstones that filter through the sounds here (don’t know about you, but I’m sure I spotted the ghost of Icehouse and Pseudo Echo); while those who’ve recently enjoyed the likes of LCD Soundsystem and Trevor Jackson’s Output Recordings should definitely investigate this one. Recommended.

Check out http://www.spasticated.net.