Tim Exile - Listening Tree

A growing trend in the current pop scene is a tendency to revert to early '80s synth-pop stylings in order to sound ‘futuristic’. Tim Exile takes this retro-futurist fascination, rips it apart in ProTools, and crudely reassembles it, like a prog-dance William Burroughs. Pet Shop Boys synthesisers are warped to fit awkward time signatures, and Zappa-style melodies are drizzled over Eurotastic drum beats. The first single, Family Galaxy, evokes Devo in its initial weirdness, before launching into a relentless breakbeat. There’s something charmingly subversive about music that’s ‘electro’ enough to get airplay in a nightclub, and yet would undoubtedly freak everyone out. The spirit of David Bowie imbues these Dada-dance music tracks; Bad Dust could be Ibiza’s hit of the summer, if only the tempo didn’t randomly slow down and speed up. Listening Tree is likely to be the most inventive pop album of the year, and you’ve definitely heard nothing like it before.