Black Dice - Smiling Off
[DFA]

When you have a band who produce music with such intensity and ground-breaking techniques as Black Dice, token club remixes thrown together for single b-sides would never suffice. Smiling Off is the first single from Black Dice's latest "weird" opus Broken Ear Record and their first for a major label (DFA), which surprisingly hasn't tamed their twisted and avante garde output.

Smiling Off is trademark Black Dice, always looking ahead of the game and thrashing boundary restrictions along it's ever-changing path. Starting with a cyclic and rhythmic loop of distorted beats and jagged sounds, it morphs into a sub-bass monster of percussion, tribal drums and a Sunburned Hand Of The Man chanting mantra. Future sound effects are tweaked and sonic noise is manipulated, yet the whole track retains a focused, pulsing rhythm that owes it's roots to techno and house.

B-sides are remixes of the title from DFA, Luomo and ZZ Pot, with the first two offering standard filler house tracks. Big on 4/4 beats and deep bass, these are fine when played for the club dancefloor, but sadly sound tame compared to the schizophrenic sounds of Black Dice's masterpiece. Out of the three, ZZ Pot manages to introduce some sort of alternative slant, with a large nod to Matmos.

Black Dice are one of the most forward thinking and creative artists of our time, which means you really can't be without Smiling Off or indeed the Broken Ear Record in your CD rack. Highly Recommended.