Propelled to the forefront of the whole electroclash/knitted sweater/no-its-not-indie-sleaze-dont-call-it-that London/New York “scene” with their two 2025 albums Basspunk 2 and Forever, Bassvictim’s Ike Clatman and Maria Monrow have had an open messiness to their image that lands somewhere between Pete Doherty with Kate Moss and the Instagram stories of that highschool couple you’re sort of worried about. Although no longer living together, the duo are still working together, and their latest release ? nestles itself into a place that makes sense in their discography. It’s an album where their more heavy beats for your bruxing EDM is stripped back in favour for the more jangly and sensitive sounds which the duo had flirted with in songs like “27a Pitfield St” and “Grow Up”.
808s and stabbing synths have been (mostly) swapped out for acoustic percussion, flutes, accordions, and the overdriven woody textures of guitars. The imagery being invoked is the late night/early morning after the parties, the shows in artsy venues, and the green room pitchfork interviews. Where their more traditional basspunk sound bleeds through it does so like the droning of the fridge or the space-heater or it does so like the pounding migraine as your body punishes you for headbanging as hard as you did the night before – I mean, there are three tracks on here with ‘Home’ in the title, the last track is called Home!!! (wake up) – it seems like the staggering slog back to something that resembles a futon has been seared right into each pulse of the album.
It’s very pretty, it reminds me of how it felt listening to Burial’s Untrue for the first time. Unlike Untrue, though, ? is trying to reach out into a lot of different spaces and the flow can be a little bit rickety even on third or fourth listen-through, which leads to some songs not flowing into each other like they could have. Also would’ve loved to see Year of The Dragon on here.
