Haus de Snaus

While not as adventurous as their last outing — 2001's The Messy Jesse Fiesta, an album for which they won the coveted Prix Ars Electronica — Blectum From Blechdom's Haus de Snaus still delivers well-constructed, ragged beats and clippy electronics for the post-'90s laptop set. Essentially, this disc collects two of the duo's EPs — their debut, Snauses and Mallards, and 2001's De Snaunted Haus — along with a pair of extra tracks. Blectum From Blechdom builds their records around pieces of live performance and then regurgitates those newly processed bits back into their live set. In their ongoing musical mulch, a pair of strange characters constantly appears. This cast, a feral rat (Snaus) and a perverted duck (Mallard), makes themselves known through choppy bits of childlike yet morbid dialogue that is interspersed within noisy, digitally processed mayhem that has become Blectum From Blechdom's trademark. In their 26 tracks, they sample some hip-hoppy beats, but usually take the fine finish off the tracks with the sweep of a knob or fader. A great deal of Blectum From Blechdom's success rests on the absurd theatrical elements that they inject in every fiber of their being. It's a welcome change from the otherwise faceless techno anthems that have plagued the '90s. In fact, Haus de Snaus lies so far away from techno that it owes more to the indie underground than hip-hop or IDM combined. "Bad Music," one of Blectum From Blechdom's simple keyboard and scream homages to just that — bad music — defies categorization and ends up the most adventurous and poignant piece on the album.