For something so simply designed and constructed, the music of Philadelphia's David Harms-- aka Mincemeat or Tenspeed-- is pretty tricky. Harms uses only effects pedals and a mixer to make rhythms so repetitive they suggest artistic OCD. But within those parameters, he also creates impressively diverse textures. As his mono-beats roll forward, he piles on layers of gritty, tactile sound, the sonic equivalent of a character in the video game Katamari Damacy gathering sticky debris with his growing ball.
In the process, Harms evokes big-beat dance, abstract IDM, harsh noise, psych-rock, even death metal, all while sticking to his simple A/B rhythms. Which is probably why Dan Deacon, another artist with a knack for mixing abstraction and structure, told Pitchfork in 2007 that Harms "is my favorite performer right now. He is the master of his domain. More human than human."
Strange Gods definitely sounds both fleshy and mechanistic, both monotonous and body-moving. It's as if Harms grafted the squall of Prurient or John Wiese onto the pound of Aphex Twin or Mouse on Mars (that is, if they made their beats without synths or drum machines). You could also shorthand Mincemeat or Tenspeeed as a more extreme version of Black Dice or Fuck Buttons, but Harms' purism sets him apart. The first beat he picks is the one he's sticking with, and he doesn't seem to care much if you stick with it, too. Sometimes it even sounds like he wants to outlast you.
That's definitely the case on Strange Gods' longest tracks, such as the relentlessly bouncy "Hulot", the cuttingly metallic "Points and Lines", and the buzzsaw warp of "Throw Hands". Throughout these marathons, the rhythms can get swallowed by the bulging sounds-- distortion, feedback, a high-pitched din akin to a brutal metal guitar solo. But inevitably the beat returns, stronger and more repetitive than ever. Such stubbornness may seem tedious, but there's something indelibly hypnotic about the way Harms slowly changes the sonic envelope around his oscillations. It's like watching time-lapse footage of a city skyline, as the changing light and motion color the buildings but never erase their immovable presence.
Whether or not that sounds like fun, it's hard to imagine being turned off by Strange Gods, since Harms always cuts his noise with a beat that's easy to hang onto. When he lets that beat take over, like during the catchy first half of "Padre Iscand (Colonization)", you can easily picture him performing inside the kind of ecstatic crowd circles that Deacon often attracts. But don't count on it-- my guess is that Harms is less interested in attracting fans than finding a personal nirvana inside his endless repetitions.
