Benzedrine by Tackle

“Two beers slowed down the benzedrine-inspired drumming in his body.”

The artist behind Tackle returns to Another Dark Age with a three-track 12” that delivers equal parts dread and mirth to the dance floor.

Having begun work on Benzedrine during a sub-zero Berlin winter and finishing it in the remoteness of his hometown of Seymour, Victoria, Tackle spits out a 12” that bastardises all the hemispheres. He grasps the quality of the early Diagonal catalogue, the in-vogue drum 'n' bass revival and those shit-fi noise rhythms of mid-west American boredom.

The seven minute title track connects the hissing snares of Cut Hands, the ear-worm anxiety of Dynamo Dreesen and the sub-bass and breaks of Metalheadz. He bundles all of these tropes into his beat-up Toyota Corolla and flees north from Melbourne, 110 kmp/h on the Hume Highway.

‘Stung’ and ‘AGR 803’ fill out the DIY/avant-rock b-side. No vocals here, only the chaotic guitar riffs, percussion and synthesisers flung against the roller shutter garage door. With jaw clenched tight, Tackle collides noise and clinical Motorik drum patterns, solidifying the dance floor tendencies of Shit&Shine and Gnod.

Tackle’s Benzedrine is the natural next step in a three decade-long lineage that began in the early-80s with the M Squared label and saw HMC’s ‘Marauder’ and the Bloody Fist catalogue fall somewhere in-between.

Welcome to Seymour (pop. 6,360). Have a beer, mate. And listen to the warm drone, like very big bees.