!!! – “Do The Dial Tone”
Dance-punk legends !!! are still out there kick kick kicking. They’re following up last year’s Wallop with a new EP called Certified Heavy Kats at the end of the month, and today we get to hear its excellent lead single.
“Do The Dial Tone” is a throwback that feels informed by a whole range of ’90s dance-pop, from hip-house to two-step garage, from “Vogue” to new jack swing. Nic Offer comes crashing into that environment with some narration that triangulates a sweet spot between Beck and James Murphy. “It’s true, nobody’s got a clue,” he sings, bluntly. “Everyone wants to veto, what what what to do.” He calls it “a KLF/Enigma-type call and response on the eve of destruction.”
Per Offer, today’s track is apparently just one of many flavors on the new EP. “This is us exploring the outer edges of what we do. We try a lot of different things with the hopes of coming up with something fresh by getting it wrong. How wrong did we get it this time?” Find out below via a lyric video by animator Cheng-Hsu Chung.
Certified Heavy Kats is out 7/31 on Warp. Pre-order and pre-save it here.