Our Review: Even before the label had broke ground with their first release, San Francisco's own Left Hand Path earned a feature in The Wire. The article highlighted their activities in hosting the infamous Surface Tension underground parties of jet-black techno and blistered EBM, and it also touched on the work of Cube, the pseudonym for Oakland's Adam Keith who received the honor for that first release on Left Hand Path. All of this is certainly a testament to Left Hand Path's Nihar Bhatt and Chris Zaldua in their steadfast dedication to Surface Tension, which has jumped from venue to venue in San Francisco as so many venues have been closed down. Just as Surface Tension celebrates a caustic marriage of techno, noise, minimal-wave and industrial rhythms, Cube's pressurized synth-punk is a thrilling recombinant of style. Strange lo-fi tape ruminations flicker in the throbbing sequences and chiseled rhythms, giving the aura of something that may have been uncovered from the vaults of early Severed Heads or Chris Watson-era Cabaret Voltaire crossed with some the tactile grit of Le Syndicat. The album is brimming with discordantly angular tracks, displayed on the throttled march of "Emblem" and the lurchingly elephantine "Safe World." The hypnotic, infectuous "Auto / Composite Face" is a downright killer track of reductive, noise-encrusted techno that wouldn't be out of place on Hospital alongside Exotico Continent and Vatican Shadow. Cube's aggregated electronics fit very nicely alongside the contemporary cadre of West Coast noisenik / techno chimeras (e.g. Oil Thief, LFA, Bonus Beast, Pure Ground, Inhalt, etc.). A great debut release from what has already proven to be a noble ambassador of San Francisco's current electronic music scene.
