Prostitutes – aka Cleveland, Ohio marauder James Donadio – flexes a whole new set of muscles on Nouveauree, his first work for Night School. Sticking to an all-analogue machine-based strategy, Donadio has warped and stripped his palette to create a juddering force majeure across 5 tracks and 28 minutes of power play.
With previous work on labels such as Mira and Spectrum Spools, Prostitutes has deconstructed Techno forms and re-invigorated 4/4 structures to delirious, often psychedelic effect. Nouveauree can be viewed as a purge, a palette cleanser, a slab of re-formed white-noise, bass-heavy kick drums and searing, improbable sampling. Mastered by James Plotkin and cut by Matt Colton, each sound and bar is perfectly placed for maximum stereo-field contamination.
Opening stomper Late To Take It Light merges echoing, obfuscated sound with a doom-laden kick before collapsing into an analogue, almost-improvised climax. Hate’s In The City ups the tempo with masterful, bass-heavy rhythm and faded static bursts before Punk In The Street jumps in, quite possibly the most audacious track of Prostitutes’ career. A definite highlight, the track is infected with a deeply offensive horn sample that does battle with a rumbling, deafening drum machine, a battle that is decided with one of the most extreme 15 seconds waxed this year. Side 2 allows Donadio some breathing space, with Dragged It Home To Bed reveling in a more rolling rhythm punctuated with lush frequencies and expert filtering. So Goddamn Gaunt rounds off Nouveauree, a harking back to the classic Prostitutes sound, claustrophobic samples interspersing the tight, natural funk that Donadio has made his own.
