It’s always lovely to hear a cool tune with some distinctly questionable compositional choices, and Business 80’s ‘My Milkshake Brings All the Boys to The Hague’ is filled with such peculiarities. The frankly awesome title aside, its a track dense with the weird and the wonderful: fizzing chords brush up against a plethora of keyboard-demo vocal chops, some grainy delays and whistle-like risers adding extra texture. Over time this milieu gives way to some dislocated bass, telephone-tone melodies framed by the lazy wash of scattered drum fills.
Those familiar with the small-label experimental scene might recognise Business 80 from previous tracks released by the likes of Wormhole World and Argali, and they are building towards a new ambient collection, with the pleasingly anti-ambient title ‘American Death Drive’. Their 2023 E.P. ‘Greetings From Your Friends in Consumer Electronics’ is a lovely mix of hip-hop-sort-of-but-not-really grooves and rolling, dusty percussion, operating in a broadly dance-music vein but with enough glitch and humour to evade being tied to any one strand. I would argue they are a little more interesting when their being a bit weird, and ‘Understand Where I’m Coming From’ represents the sort of quasi-ironic electronica that manages to stand out precisely because it doesn’t quite play by the rules. There’s elements of Edan, or even an Add N to X peppered throughout their style, and whether direct influences or not, the relating aesthetic is well worth checking out.
Listen to their e.p. : https://business80.bandcamp.com/album/greetings-from-your-friends-in-consumer-electronics
And check out the MEANS vol 2 comp: https://meansmag.bandcamp.com/album/living-within-our-means-vol-2
Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully
MEANS 