Sounds like…

An artist who has decided that genres are dead.

The review

‘Tang Brain’ is described by artist Gothic Tropic as “a euphoric state of artistic freedom following a slew of slapstick failures administered by a fascist music industry”. What struck me with ‘Tang Brain’ is that artistic freedom means you can create music that doesn’t need to sit nicely in a certain genre. The whole EP demonstrates you can live a musical life in the grey and enjoy yourself.

Each of the five tracks follows the Italian Gothic Tropic down various swearword filled rabbit holes. They straddle rock, pop, RnB and electronica with an experimental twist. The only other artist I can place in the same ballpark of genre meshing would be perhaps Olga Bell. Gothic Tropic loves a good beat but everything else apart from that is fair game. It can be the chunky guitar throbs of electro-rock opener ‘Give Me The Love’ or schizophrenic glitch pop of the aggressive yet chill ‘Made Up Bad’, Gothic Tropic runs with it. The mainstay throughout is some cleverly layered intricate electronica moments and some purposely brash production to be in your face.

The songs play into this perfectly. ‘OnlyFans’ is a bass rock groove that covers a lot of indie rock ground in less than three minutes. It also includes the immortal line ‘every cock ends up flaccid’ which made me chuckle. ‘My Friend’ is a stilted chonky trip-hop anthem from which my Olga Bell references largely come. Closer ‘Please Say No’ then brings in sassy bossa nova rhythms in the bongo heavy psych-jazz finale. You just get the feeling Gothic Tropic has said ‘I want to do this, it shall be done.’

Hurrah for that impetus too. ‘Tang Brain’ is all over the place in the best possible way. Fun, quirky, inventive, sassy and confident – it is an EP that waves two fingers at the establishment. It also waves a signal to all the outsiders that blur the lines of the boxes to invite them to join in on the jamboree. Spread the word, genres are dead.

Recommended track: Made Up Bad

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