Tractile: Silent Movie
Minus

Does anyone do minimal better than Minus? Canadian duo Tractile (Adam Young and Joel Boychuk) argues the point convincingly on its debut single. As the pair's acid-techno-electro-funk pretty much stays the Sarnia-Detroit course, Silent Movie doesn't redefine the Minus template but it's a solid enough addition to the label discography. The snappy acid of “Silent Movie,” so relentless it verges on psychotropic, sets the stage for the baton-twirling hi-hats, disco strut, and machine noise of “Dynam.” Tractile overlays a swaggering stomp with croaking voice fragments and a seething snarl (“Get out of my fucking head”) in “Stay Out” before slathering sonar pings and bleeps over acid-funk in “To Go To.” Decent enough though the beats could hit harder.

January 2007