Headache Music

The Torpedo Boyz are something quite unusual: an international DJ/production duo (Kentastic splits his time between Berlin and Tokyo, while Rollin Hand hails from Paris) that plays all its own instruments. Their debut album, which combines previously released singles and club tracks with new recordings, features some vinyl sound sources but no samples, and the result is a fat, funky sound that drips with analog juice and glows with rough-hewn warmth. The album opens powerfully with "Gimme a Bassline!" and then segues neatly into the horn-heavy "Start Being Nicer" (a heads-up to you radio programmers out there: both tracks are quite potty-mouthed, as is "Are You Talking to Me???"). Then things start getting interesting, and kind of twisted: "Au Jour et à l'Heure" features some nimble French sing-rapping, then "Jamais Imaginei" switches into Portuguese. "Bokura Wa Shonen Tantei-Dan" is a giddy takeoff on kung-fu stereotypes, and "Any Trash, Professor Abacus?" is a country-ragtime instrumental with a weird vocal interlude partway through, sung in a hard-to-identify foreign language. The program ends with a handful of fine remixes. The album's least exciting tracks are funky and fun, but not as distinctive as its best material — and if the worst you can say about album is that its least interesting tracks are funky and fun, then you're well ahead of the game.