Albums

< Mike Relm
Spectacle
words by Stuart Stubbs

Let the face furniture of San Fran disco-er Mike Relm fool you. Forget that he’s named his second album after his eyewear. Ignore that he is a big ol’ geek. Only then will you get something like your money’s worth out of ‘Spectacle’. Proving what a studio nerd he is, Relm, rather annoyingly, likes to chop up radio, TV and film blurts at the beginning of more than one track here. And then, once you’ve sat through the ramblings that really do mean nothing at all, he proceeds to either rap comically like a far less intelligent Eminem (‘Everytime’) or produce second rate Daft Punk roborock (‘Hot To Trot’) FOR 18 SONGS!!! And it all started so well; not with ‘Money Beats’ – the introducing broadcast hash-up that we foolishly gave the benefit of the doubt – but rather ‘Tron’, sounding like a distant, ambient Crystal Castles. The truth is, whether you pretend this is the work of a Kitsune/Burial/Jigga three-way lovechild while is violates your ears (no, not in a good way!), or a Bill Gates venture into pop music, it’s still far less a spectacle and more a record you’d not even glance at its tits were out while it was battering Posh Spice to death.

1/10 in stores now