- Italy's mysterious Gang Of Ducks has scratched out an intriguing but barely legible modus operandi. Their records are stubbornly unpredictable, hard to follow and even harder to describe. That quality has made them one of the more exciting new labels of the past year, with music from Traag, My Panda Shall Fly and others consistently defying expectations. Now the anonymous crew are releasing their first full-length, from Milan-based unknown Haf Haf.
Like a primitive Demdike Stare record, Notch is a hodgepodge of sludgy beats and disembodied hip-hop samples. Listening to it is like walking through a haunted house, where patches of uneasy silence give way to loud outbursts. Haf Haf's percussion is almost always sampled, but not in a way you'd expect. The thunderous drums on "Hybrid" sound as if they're ten feet in front of you, and elsewhere the sounds come from behind or to the side. In the context of such terrorizing sonics, the warped vocals (including a barking Busta Rhymes) only add to the bad-trip effect.
It seems like Notch intends to be unsettling, but unlike so much of the violent techno that lines DJs' record bags these days, the effect is more psychological than visceral. Centrepiece "Qwetzal" dares you to wonder what waits around the corner, stirring up a sense of doom with every slowly stalking bar. In these moments it's like Haf Haf is trying to soundtrack nightmares you might have after the rave, the same impressionistic memory effect that Lee Gamble has been exploring.
Notch is filled with frequent disruptions and sudden climaxes, and this constant upheaval means it rarely feels coherent. Haf Haf even makes a run for nu-grime at the end with "Flow Node A," a track with a metallic riff that sounds like something Visionist might have coughed up. As quickly as it came, it's gone, a flicker of brilliance that'll have you rewinding to see what the hell happened.
Tracklist01. Ode To U19
02. Hybrid
03. Gate Keeper
04. Fractal
05. Qwetzal
06. Flow Node B
07. Notch
08. Flow Node A