Members of Charolastra and Harvey Waters debut as Clone Suspect with experimental breakbeat EP
When its sounds aren’t resonating with psychic tension, Clone Suspect—the new experimental electro spinoff that is Peter Roglin (Charolastra) and Howie Huntington (Harvey Waters)—is bringing you closer to the dance floor, dragging you out with chopped-up R&B samples and haunted waveforms. Mastered by Matt Weiner of DKA Records and TWINS, the pair’s debut self-titled EP calls to mind the finer points of horror and sci-fi with Lovecraftian sounds coiling and wrapping around their listener, throbbing with an urgency to run, dance, escape, live.
The opening track “Seasonal Depressive Disorder” opens it up with a proselytizing synth, luring in its listener in the track’s first measures. It seems to beckon as much as it warns of what’s to come. Clone Suspect, as a whole, twitches with a unique paranoia, even in its most booty-bumping moments, such as in the bassy track “Bad Actors.”
“abandon.exe” is among the EP’s most aquatic with dark breakbeats heralded by bright, mermaid loops hidden in the track’s corridors. The drum skips in such a way that it feels like a reprieve from attack, like a moment’s reprieve from a kraken’s chase. This leads directly into “Hostile Takeover,” the EP’s trappiest cut and first official single of the release. The track feels doomed in some ways, with sounds of metal hitting metal serving as percussion as high-pitched, auguring synths loom just overhead. By the end, the song submerges deep into clamorous drum and bass imbued with newfound hostility.
Despite the EP’s mystic, clairvoyant turns, Roglin and Huntington never shy from the danceable. Clone Suspect loops and bubbles at the surface while resonating deeply, providing six commendable bops for the apocalypse. It’s your choice whether to take shelter or give in—and it isn’t all without hope. ”Winslow Redux” provides a column of light in a calm storm of moving parts, which then leads into closer “Swim Team Champions,” abating listeners with synths that seem to call for aid from the heavens. Maybe it was a hurricane, maybe it was a dream—as the harmonic, xylophonic sounds of the final track fade, we’re left to wonder how to reassemble after the day’s break.
Clone Suspect is out on Fri., Jan. 24, via VLSC Records.
