Memory Tapes - Seek Magic (2009) [Rough Trade] // Grade: B

Maybe my favorite thing about listening to a new album is the possibility of stumbling across a song snippet so totally sick, I can’t help but rewind it over and over. We all have those beats, melodies or basslines that inspire immediate devotion, even if we ignore the rest of the song. For me: SMD’s “Hustler” breakdown or the moment when UNKLE’s “Restless” changes rhythm. And now, apparently, the electro explosion a minute into Memory Tapes’ “Bicycle”, because I’ve listened to that one part no fewer than 20 times in the last 24 hours.

So keeping in line with that immediate devotion thing, I’m really intrigued by most of Memory Tapes’ schtick. Seek Magic is like the Knife meets Outhud meets Deerhunter: a little creepy, a little disco and really mired in this hazy-to-driving dynamic (a product of Dayve Hawk’s pushing together his two semi-disparate projects Weird Tapes and Memory Cassettes). Call it “outsider” dance music; Hawk’s refusal to follow any real pop, dance or electro structures makes this easily among the most accessible albums for those not so keen on the sometimes staid elements of electronic music as a whole.

Of course, that refusal could be construed as a fault, and there are definitely moments where Seek Magic feels a little too rambly for its own good. Opener “Swimming Field” meanders in a so-so way, and “Plain Material” takes a little too long to get to the vaguely mediocre point. But the brilliant moments—the pentatonic harmonies and detuned synths of “Stop Talking”, for instance, or the lazy handclaps on “Green Knight”—are good enough to outshine the boring ones…or, at the very least, foreshadow presumably great things to come. Hawk is definitely someone to keep an eye on.

- Rue Sauvage