Pitchfork

A couple of months ago, I was trading e-mails with Steve Taylor of London's Hand on the Plow label, complaining about the relative difficulty of turning out minimally-inclined club bangers. "We try and do it all the time," groused Taylor, "and then we end up with those busy clatterfests that we always end up with."

In the end, that's probably for the best, because Beckett and Taylor's clatterfests are way more engaging-- not to mention way more fun-- than the majority of minimal. (And anyway, their sense of restraint has a lot more to do with minimal techno's Chicago house roots than most of the cluttered plug-in pile-ups on the market today.) To call "World of Me," the title track off the duo's new four-track EP, a "clatterfest" is actually highly misleading. Despite the intermittent zooming of hand-braked vinyl, the track is the most focused thing they've done yet: a low-slung funk groove punctuated by fidgety guitar riffs backs multi-tracked vocals reminiscent of Jamie Lidell's scorched soul delivery. "Nothing needs to rhyme with me," the singer growls, and indeed, it's hard to see what could. The song's in its own league.