Singing Statues hit me out of nowhere. Sort of. Truth be told I looked this up out of curiousity while absentmindedly browsing Teebs‘ profile and listening (again) to Ardour. After an afternoon bicycle ride with this brief EP providing the soundtrack, I’m completely sold.

Imagine The Durutti Column (my favorite guitarist, Vini Reilly) hooking up with Flying Lotus, James Blake, Mount Kimbie, or even Bibio or Joy Orbison, and working that liquid guitar magic into some organically throbbing, techno-skirting production and forming something more akin to ‘songs’ than the beat genre usually cooks up. Then realize that this is all done by the man formerly known as Jackhigh: London based Ben Thomas, who with Teebs himself created the exquisite Tropics EP earlier this year.

You also might know him as BNJMN, his current moniker and the name under which he’s produced his most successful work.

Twisting crushing motorik beats with the tidal dynamic of emotional song structure, each track seems to toy with its own headspace, providing a high definition playground for the listener with discerning headphones turned loud. Opening modestly abstract with a tangible guitar melody, every minute forward turns the energy up a notch and bleeds directly into another style.

Each track feels like a natural progression and evolution from the track before; despite being called Outtakes, this 18 minute set has an album’s worth of gravity and vision. Fourth track All At Sea may just be a highlight with its shamanistic tribal/missile percussion section and ear-scraping synth line, but the EP is best heard as a whole.  And it leaves me excited for more.

This EP is free and can be obtained for download on sendspace or streamed on last.fm.