Pretty Sneaky

This Reminds Me Of A Sound

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Cassette

Boomkat Product Review:

Clandestine weirdo/s Pretty Sneaky augment a run of guess-again 12”s with an extended diggers' fantasy for Berceuse Heroique’s tape series, packed to the gills with found sounds, downbeat bangers, children's music and whimsical atmospherics, peppered with rare prog, uchronic electro-folk, Éthiopiques curios and ambient techno - a gloriously chaotic, highly cohesive 90 minute compendium of genius at work.

Over the last few years Pretty Sneaky have regularly upended expectations with their genre-fluxing series of self-released banana-peel stamped 12"s, alongside occasional releases for outside labels, including that absolute monster LP for Mana Records that sounds like burial mix sampling water drumming.

Their debut mixtape is pure vibes, no nonsense, just a winding path of obscure and amateur nuggets plucked from across the global fringe. Without any particular specificity, just following their nose, they zero in on a fully hypnagogic, outerzone flavour taking in sports sound effects, synth demos, chewy dubwise experiments and Korean soft rock. We open with grit-caked wind sounds from a 1979 Dutch library record, into a Canadian kids TV theme, before pastoral environmental sounds cradle a plastic reggae/easy listening oddity from France. They veer sideways into an acidic synth abstraction from 1980’s Netherlands, jetting over to Thai loungecore, then into blown-out motorik Kraut jams, spacey canned New Age biz, into a digital organ demo and a psychedelic trip-hop excursion to finish the first side.

On the flip, you’ll find bits from British "mime and music duo" Tik & Tok, reverb-drenched new-age wonders from Germany, a possible appearance from Kazuhiko Izu, plus what sounds like Allen Ginsberg’s sessions with Arthur Russell, Gallic minimal wave and massage parlour ambient from god knows where, just for good measure.

Yeah, it’s anything-goes without the posturing, just good taste. A special one, we tell thee!

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