HTRK is not a band I've known for very long. I found them towards the latter part of 2014 via a YouTube recommendation of all things. The recommended song was 'Body Lotion', which immediately captivated me with it's sensual groove of snappy 808 beats, riding a wave of undulating guitar and synth drones, all complemented by Jonnie Standish's breathy vocals. The music invoked images of darkness and seduction, of bodies slowly moving together in half light, of hazy, dreamlike sunshine and extended lens flares across clear blue. It was both primal and ethereal, and I was immediately annoyed at myself for not having heard of them before now, because I really, really liked what I'd heard. I then sought to pick up as much of their music as I could find, be it albums and EPs (including the EP from which the aforementioned song came), and in doing so, I found myself in a bewildering and compelling sound world.
I started with 'Marry Me Tonight' which I took to immediately. I then picked up 'Nostalgia' whose scrappy, dissonant no-wave sound took me by surprise: a good album, but quite different from what I'd heard from the band thus far. However it was this, the third HTRK album I'd heard that really made me fall in love with the band.
To me, HTRK excel in their ability to paint soundscapes from a palette of pulsing beats and drones. Owing to the minimalism of their music and distinct lack of traditional verse/chorus/verse arrangements, HTRK deftly communicate so much with so little, and 'Work Work Work' for me epitomises this principle more fully that any of their other releases. The follow up album 'Psychic 9-5 Club' distilled their sound further, focusing more fully on the electronics and is again, a cracking album, but it still doesn't come close to this.
So there you have it, another fine record that's made a lasting impression on me, and in such a short space of time no less.
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