I've had a few demos courtesy of Gobshout, but man is slapped’s E.P grabbed my attention far more quickly than most when it plopped onto my doormat. First the name; it’s great.  And the CD cover, with it’s splurge of Tipp-EX across the front. I don’t know whether it’s the same on every cover, or whether I’ve got my own individually splashed one but, goddam it, it made me feel so special.

As for the music, it’s a low-fi electro type-thingy.  On first listen I thought it was a bit simplistic, but since then it has really rather grown on me.

Opening with ‘The Crash', and it’s tale of someone waking up a year after a crash, it sets out its stall with chilled beats and often inanimate sounding bleeps and blops in the background, before the build to its deliberately distorted, scratchy finale. This is pretty much the formula of each song (lucky that I like it).

‘The Air Of Budapest’ is a twisted love song and the most accessible on the E.P, with it’s chorus of ‘you’ll remember what you say/ and you’ll remember what you do.’ It sounds a little like the non-airy moments of Air.  More 10,000 Hertz Legend than Moon Safari (this is a good thing), with a great bassline that again scratched away at the end after occasional, intense pounding drums displaying, er, shadows of DJ Shadow.

‘Running To The Airport’ is the kind of high-tempo track I could imagine listening to at 7 in the morning back in my speed days, with it’s fast, gentle drumbeat bringing to mind, conveniently enough, someone running to the airport. It has definite shades of LCD Soundsystem and, like the North American Scummers,  it is perfect for post club milling about and nonsense chit-chat.

‘Unnecessary Fuss’ sees the bleep quota raised, with a lot it sounding like it was lifted from a Super Mario Game before being recorded in the bath. It’s my least favourite track, but even it has the benefit of the ‘Louisa’ lyric draped over the top, giving it a more humane edge.

I like man is slapped.  It’s probably not the sort of stuff you want to listen to before going out, and I’m not sure how it would be live (unless everything is speeded up a bit), but for music of its kind it’s pretty good. It would be quite easily dismissible as just more pared-down sub-Air chill out, but there’s actually a lot more going on.  There is never a sense that a song is allowed to plod on: my biggest problem with music of this genre is that songs can sometimes be allowed to drift away for fear of- horror!- disrupting the ambience (whatever that may be).  This is not an issue with man is slapped. Throughout the E.P there are consistently interesting lyrics, interesting sounds, and he shows he is unafraid to take risks to take the tunes away from the norm.

Check them him here: - http://www.myspace.com/manisslapped

Posted In Demo Corner, Dec 04 2008. Words - David