Some albums tend to get lost in the pre-winter holidays December shuffle. Despite not hitting any major end of year lists, it would be a shame to miss out on Retox Man, the latest Metal Preyers offering.
With a steady stream of releases on acclaimed Kampala label Nyege Nyege Tapes, the enigmatic project has been delivering odd and exciting music, rewriting familiar electronic genres’ DNA since their 2020 debut. Originally comprised of London producer Jesse Hackett and visual artist Mariano Chavez, occasionally joined by Babyfather’s Lord Tusk, the fluid outfit often includes a growing constellation of collaborators, whether in recorded form with artists such as South African instigators Phelimuncasi and São Paulo-based DIY maverick Akira Umeda, or live with other artists from the Nyege Nyege roster like Otim Alpha.
Recorded before their official Brazilian incursion, Retox Man uses baile funk as the guiding thread as their deconstruction of the genre’s associated beats, tropes, and imagery melts into addictive polyphonic cacophonies. Yet the distinct mention of baile funk is more of a mental note for the listener who, while preserving some of its core components in mind, would use this artificial sense of familiarity as a tool to hopefully decode the layered chaos of the tracks.
Retox Man sounds exactly like the kind of radioactive creature that would emerge from the oozing chemical melange of a sketchy junk yard. It captures the messy, gritty, multi-faceted and ever-changing Brazil at the margins that Babe, Terror usually describes. Only instead of majestic drone decay and decomposing electronic desperation, Metal Preyers emphasize the vibrant buoyancy born out of (and in spite of) the horrors. The use of Brazilian street field recordings as the basis for their loops and beats instills a distinctive sense of place.
The twelve tracks range from hurried sketches clocking in under two minutes (mechanical lullaby opener “Creep Skreep”, wonky club earworm “Nose Bomber” with an infectious bubble sample and the clangy, metallicly sparse title track) to hypnotic extended esoteric workouts (the deliciously demonic layered drum beats “Dr Knob Jock” or the high-pitched, out of synch whistling synths in the almost techno anthem “Hell Blotter”).
This is mutated, chopped-up-and-stitched-back together-within-an-inch-of-its-life peripheral cyberpunk and I am so here for it!
