Toronto native Jake Fairley left partner Ian Worang and the electro-punk duo Uncut in 2003, moving to Germany to pursue microhouse and dance music full time. Worang transformed Uncut into a trad four-piece and cut back on their electronic flourishes; Fairley stuck with his flair for amphetamined beats, cramming the dancefloor with singles on labels such as Dumb-Unit and Kompakt Extra, for which he's contributed a pair of tracks to the Speicher series-- most notably last year's tanker-sized "Octane".
Fairley's singles embody the swaggering warmth of 1970s glam and 80s synth-pop, and his first full-length, Touch Not the Cat, continues in that vein, combining the stadium-sized spunk of T. Rex and Depeche Mode with rough microhouse beats. But it's when he shades closest to the track-y stomp of fellow pop-heads Matthew Dear and Superpitcher that Jake Fairley makes his mark. Fairley has always more pop-savvy than clinical, so it's not surprising that Fairley's vocal tracks are the album's best. Except for his slapdash Lou Reed drawl on "Mosquito", Fairley's detached drone is the perfect accoutrement for these night-dimmed tech-jams. Opener "Nightstick" is swanky aggro-grind with harsh static slamming against a throaty beat. The effect sounds like Depeche Mode cross-transmitted on 14 broken radios-- a few tuned in but most spitting out static or white noise. Fairley's blood-drained vocals add an ironic enthuasim to the song's harsh T. Raumschmiere-like throbs.
"At Night" opens with a classic schaffel beat as caustic electronic tones try to keep pace with its steady forward thrust. His voice bristles with recriminations for a girl always missing after dark. When he moans "I'm losing control/ I'm losing my mind," his concern traces the polar necessities of acceptance and denial. The aching vocals give the rhythms a tension to work against, preventing it from submerging into sometimes unengaging rhythms.
"All On Me" quiets Fairley's voice to a whisper against a dirty beat and a hypnotic electronic loop that's hard to miss and harder to not fall for. The song makes fool's gold of genre-labeling; even a three-piece jug-band could make a melody like this sound stunning. The track is brimming with day-break optimism amidst the guilt of knowing you fuck up on a regular basis. Slowing into the rough electronics and a stubborn beat, the album closes as it opened-- with a highlight.
In between those two is a dearth of compelling tracks. "Prussia" plods on for almost six minutes without coalescing into a hook, while "Dinklesburg" regurgitates the same cranky chime-loop naked of the necessary subtle flourishes. There's no subtlety or nuance, just a cacophonous grind thriving on generic inertia. The only exception is the snowed-in mania of "Radiator".
Perhaps Fairley just needs a guitar player and full-time pop enthusiast like Worang as much as his former partner's band could use a deft electronic touch. Though each shows enough promise and creativity to keep a lazy eye on, the former partners' releases feel embryonic without the other's complements. Their division leaves the two competing in crowded fields-- the neon-pulse of German schaffel and the null-light of post-punk. Perhaps it's time to join hands again, boys.
