Peerless man-machine outfit goat(jp) return with a brittle contemporary dance soundtrack that locks into the pointillist rhythmic micro-precision of the now classic 'Joy In Fear'. Directing an IRL physical performance, the band totter between rhythmelodic, ritualistic minimalism and intricate, pneumatic beat music - if you need a link between Daniel Schmidt, Autechre, 'On The Corner'-era Miles and Midori Takada, this is it. The six parts to ‘Without References’ perfectly highlight the synchronicity between Goat’s remarkably precise acoustic practice and the physical movements coordinated by Cindy Van Acker, a choreographer renowned for her meticulous stage direction and work with Mika Vainio. In their shifts from tendon-tweak tension to lissom melodic fluidity, Goat prove the ideal foil and spurs for Van Acker’s rigorously demanding performances, laying down super crisp commands and rhythmi geometries that manifest a ludi ideal of “dancing to architecture”. The extended performance technique and recording nous of Koshiro Hino (guitar, percussion), coupled with Atsumi Tagami (bass, percussion), Takafumi Okada (drums, percussion) and rendered by the deft spatialisation of Bunsho Nishikawa’s mixdown - all faithfully suspended in Rashad Becker’s mastering - come to mirror the way computerised grids and lines on paper manifest in physical space with a rare clarity and concision that makes for an utterly enveloping listen. Following from 2023’s celebrated missive ‘Joy In Fear’, they apply the same sort of daring ingenuity to lip-bitingly tight rounds of tendon-strum no wave/post-rock in ‘Quest’ and the machine line emulation of ‘Factory’, craftily contrasting with the more genteel, resonant descriptions of bodies, or minds, floating in space within the tuned percussive cadence of ‘G-H-S’, before braiding those ideas on hypnotic linearity and harmony in the 10 minutes of chiming, pendulous piquancy to ‘Orin’, and radiant release of splashing cymbals and muted low end explored across ‘CR’. Few other bands possess the focussed, visionary insight and remarkable technicality of Goat in the modern world, and even fewer manage to make minimal music so compelling, as found on this peerless work that so deftly converges styles and patterns.
