Electronic music often bears a minimalistic face, with a goal of simply pulsating through the collective body of an audience and moving it. However, when the consistency and intensity of the beat turn up to punishing levels, and gut-wrenching vocals are added on top, the purpose shifts to something much more grim, much more horrific. Enter NYC duo Deli Girls, who infuse industrial coldness and punk fury into seemingly basic rhythms, and produce a dance floor covered in blood. Their track, “Indentured Pervert,” off their album, Evidence (out today on Sweat Equity), evokes a trembling power, both sonic and emotive, of a beat-driven music form. A barebones but heavy-as-all-hell synthetic oscillation hurls you down a dark rabbit hole and paves a jagged path for the shrill and terrifying vocals likely to stop you dead in your tracks. It throbs like a constricted artery, the percussion adding elements like snare and hi-hat and toms as the track progresses. A gnarly static is introduced and it transforms the ears on your head into chalkboard and runs the sharpest nails ever so coarsely down them. The complexity and power lie in the weight of each sonic blow, and you don’t know what do with your body, your thoughts, nothing. You’re theirs for 3:38.
