The Tin Foil Hat Brigade: "CHK DIS OUT"

Another week, another hunk of free chiptune from the refuseniks at CalmDownKidder. The net-label’s yah-boo-sucks demeanour and madcap love for slot machines has made them a bunker for all those wondering pad-mashers, providing online counsel to any punks with a closet Atari habit. The latest oik to sign up for some neophyte anarchy is Mr. Tin Foil Hat Brigade, seen here splitting his debut EP with fellow scally Soundmatrix, and the pair of them forage the LANs of Liverpool in a fight against the British wing of Omni Consumer Products: retail overlord Tesco. A well-required boot in the balls of Lady Porter’s tentacled empire, the Brigade visit upon us a mix that’s equally repellent and majestic; mad as a ship’s cat and sticking a spearhead through their chances of a Sunday job. Christ knows what the chain did to promote this kind of sting in the first place, but I bet the Tin Foil Hat in question is still buzzing from the Building Stable Communities scandal (still just about google-able).

Of the six efforts on the EP, the track with perhaps the most staying power is “CHK DIS OUT”: a nod to the inner Tyler Durden sick of the nightly shuffle to the self-service (today’s purchase: equal parts gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate). Opening with a hail of low atomic bombers captured in old-school greyscale, “CHK DIS OUT” convulses into life with crackles of Frankenstein lightning, peacock-bright with its strobing chips and deadly as Boris Karloff. Merry keyring beats stagger into a witchlike hiss before pow! Mice besiege the kitchen, squealing their last as they’re stuffed one by one into a fax. I’m not sure exactly who or what a track like this is designed to mobilize, but it sure as shit isn’t the outside crowd of school kids busy guzzling back their energy drinks. If you like you can download the whole EP and choose a favourite all of your own, but the way I see it, anything this fizzy should be enjoyed as it’s presented here: in nuggets.

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