- The first record from ESP Institute's new DJ Harvey-run series comes with a fantastic bit of lore. "Whilst on a Balinese surf safari searching for a secret spot, The Hands would be my guide," Harvey writes in the blurb accompanying this four-track 12-inch. "Bombing through the jungle, The Hands hit play and the truck was bathed in Gothic Berlin toilet techno. 'Holy shit,' said I,'What is this?' The Hands said, 'The Hands.'" While the actual story is more pedestrian—The Hands is a world-class surfer who may descend from a cannibalistic tribe—the music is far stranger than you'd expect, a mix of primitive electronics, fuzzed-out psychedelia and rock & roll attitude.
The EP begins with "Coconuts," a bedroom post-punk track trading in the cool detachment of Captured Tracks projects like The Soft Moon. Unlike them, there's nothing studied about The Hands' stance—he sounds absolutely mad singing the song's one word, "coconuts… coconuts… coooo-coooo-nuts." I almost started laughing the first time I heard it. "A Mind" is a buzzing minimal synth production, little more than a droning pulse, a kick drum that sounds like a chopper circling the jungle and a snare reminiscent of waves slapping the sides of a canoe.
The B-side combines that primitive drum programming with guitar that recalls Acid Mothers Temple's Kawabata Makoto at his furthest out. "Deep Tubes" builds a rhythm around an ominous synth arpeggiation while The Hands' sunglasses-at-night vocals melt into a deranged growl. On "She Scream," the Austrian-Balinese "techno cannibal's" guitar screeches over a plodding beat.
TracklistA1 Coconuts
A2 A Mind
B1 Deep Tubes
B2 She Scream