LBNHRX – “Their Rules”

Ugliness is by no means a new aesthetic in the sprawling world of dance music. Everyone from Throbbing Gristle (or Chris + Cosey, moreover) and Cabaret Voltaire to Factory Floor and Pete Swanson(‘s recent obliterating, rhythmic scourges) championed atonal and asynchronous throbs as much as – if not more than – the robotic, repetitive ruminations. Newcomer LBNHRX, otherwise known as Brussel-bred Binamer Lebienheureux, brings his own sense of disfigured dance to the scene with a dementedly hyper-focused sense of detail, one that is literally the result of producer’s obsessive compulsive disorder.

The muddied melodies and oblong oddities fall in place like a well organized trash heap of sonic ephemera. It’s all in some sort of order, but only out of compulsive necessity. The resulting sounds writhe around in hypnotic patterns, each phase mounting shadowed flare. It’s a mess, but a beautiful and addicting one. As Lebienheureux explains quite bluntly, “I see my music as emotional defecation and treat it as such, I keep it raw as possible. It’s brain’s shit, nothing else.” “Their Rules,” taken from LBNHRX’s upcoming Naïve Misanthropy EP, is wholly evocative of Lebienheureaux’s dysfunctional din. As though two parallel lanes of busted house tracks court each other with false start after false start, the tune’s awkward beauty is as charming and hypnotic as two lovers figuring the whole thing out. Naïve Misanthropy is scheduled to drop 4/1/14 via Blank Stairs.