Pitchfork

A Portland, Ore.-based trio featuring former Fontanelle multi-instrumentalists Brian Foote and Paul Dickow and Jackie-O Motherfucker's Honey Owens, Nudge belong to that ever-populous contingent of groups who blend electronics and adventurous real-time instrumentation in an eager attempt to stylistically dislodge themselves from any one specific genre.

After previous releases on Tigerbeat 6 and Foote's own Outward Music imprint, the group makes a wholly organic transition to the Kranky roster with Cached, an album that swerves lithely between percolating new-wave funk, gracious blasts of abstract electronic drone and scrape, and mesmeric dub-inflected sway-- often in a manner which unduly sacrifices distinctive group identity in favor of pursuing their next elusive phantom mutation.

During their time as members of chilly post-rockers Fontanelle, Foote and Dickow had occasion to put their fingerprints on recordings that were scrupulously edited and fussed-over to the point of sterility. Lesson apparently learned, on Cached the musicians maintain a much more rigorous and intuitive cycle of activity, naturally circulating an abundant pulse of fresh blood and vitality throughout the album's extremities. This (seemingly) more improvisational approach keeps the album from ever sinking into extended periods of frigid, monotonic stasis, although it also makes it more difficult for the listener to become truly ensnared in any of these sticky grooves for long.

Album opener "Classic Mode" sends Cached immediately soaring as it combines Owens' languid, wintry vocals with a deftly narcotic dance beat and elastic strands of melodic guitar and keyboards, providing instant gratification to any waylaid Out Hud aficionados in its path. This effortlessly captivating track sets an elevated standard that Nudge spends the remainder of the album trying to match, and they come quite close to doing so on the skeletal, rubber-limbed funk of "Contact" or the lurching, percussive "Remove Ya", which features several overheated exchanges between vintage keyboards, honking melodicas and Owens' whispered, wordless exhalations.

On "Blon", Nudge make their longest and most successful extended plunge into genre, maneuvering their way skillfully through a humid roots-dub landscape filled with the echoes of distant horns and murky waves of somnambulant keyboard throb. Less fruitful, unfortunately, are such electronic-based interjections as the motionless drone of "Standing on Hot Sidewalk" or the abrasive bounce of "My New Youth", ill-formed, insubstantial pieces that sound as though they could've originated from any number of lesser IDM acts. These tracks have an unflattering transitional quality, seeming almost as segues between the ample expanses of Cached where Nudge prove themselves able to boil on all burners, enticing the listener with their hopeful glimpses of the tantalizing peaks in the distance.