Label: Leaf
Here the delightfully idiosyncratic Oh No Ono offer the first three tracks from their second LP Eggs in so sweet a repackaging you’d forgive them for dipping them in chocolate and adding a superfluous ‘Easter’ prefix. Currently skipping around Europe on tour, the Danish quintet have called on an impressive roster of Transatlantic remixers for this release and the results are often stunning.
It’s a confusing content: an Internet Warrior. It’s easy to conjure images of your archetypal web warlord: a bespectacled lardbucket with hair as greasy as his diet or some virgin valkyrie enshrined in a lurid cardigan and nursing a perpetual cold. But to do so would set you out as one of those nasty web bigots of the early noughties passing remarks of casual discrimination at the patrons of internet cafes. It’s now not necessarily the norm for Warcraft characters to be inverse representations of their “irl” creators and, as with so much these days, Internet Warrior is irrefutable proof of the joy that can be realised when a talented band group together around a humble computer. But then you’ll know that already if you picked up Eggs earlier this year as you should have. So, back to those remixes.
The ever-popular Caribou brings sparse house grooves, throbbing tribe vibes and hyper-intelligent disco to Eleanor Speaks in a sparkling retro mix that actually eclipses much of his own Swim LP. Meanwhile, Oh No Ono’s very own Swim is driven to the woods and left to fend for itself as it tackles wild and atmospheric soundscapes courtesy of West Coast indie hip hop outfit Shlohmo before creeping surreptitiously in the back door as the Phenomenal Hand Clap Band tend a warm yet controlled fire. Neither could be described as particularly essential to anyone without a passing interest in either act, but they sit well in the complete package. The same cannot be said for the Zambri Remix of Eleanor Says which stomps angrily around, knocking pictures off the wall and upsetting Grandma. Quite frankly we’re all glad when it finally clods off looking for some more buttons to press.
Joining the Caribou remix and the title track (of which it is a mix) in making this EP a worthwhile purchase is the Depreciation Guild’s many-layered psychedelic thrashabout which seems to pit the Pet Shop Boys against The Prodigy in a mix that sits mockingly between champagne pop and filthy thrash dance.
