Clout! - S/T EP

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Customer reviews
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5...according to our Brian on Thu 19 May, 2011.

This is a really good record! I can hear everything from These New Puritans, early Factory Floor to This Heat and Disco Inferno in the first track which marries a grumbling wiry bass to a dancehallesque thud with tons of spangled, clanking, gurgling & ricocheting industrial-tinged samples, a yearning echo-flecked vocal and occasional flits of angular guitar. It's a very fine opener which is more than bolstered by the excellent subsequent tracks. There's tons of brooding atmosphere to these songs, a sort of bleak, pulsating urban dancefloor sensibility that sounds totally on-the-money. The innovative sample usage causes my thoughts to stray towards memories of the hugely pioneering DI but the styles of skittering dynamic beats, the hypnotic grooves, moody dystopian electronic rhythms & implicit technoid touches are thoroughly contemporary and wholly convincing. I'm not sure where this record belongs and I find it all the more enjoyable because of it's uncategorisability. This Southend-on-Sea unit claim they're influenced by lots of older, disparate styles but they've got something quite modern all beautifully sculpted & deliciously mesmerising going on here over the course of this debut 7 track EP...

After previously hosting parties across London which have included The XX,
Crocodiles, Factory Floor, Micachu and Connan Mockasin, Dirty Bingo
Records have scooped up experimental 5-piece CLOUT! to release their self-
titled debut EP in May 2011. The EP serves as more of a document following the
band’s mutual decision to withdraw from gigging to develop their sound. Maxwell’s O
represents CLOUT!’s “live” sound, whilst It’s Too Late and Dodo Riddim showcase
their take on studio production.

Maxwell’s O is reworked is the by widely dynamic and multi-skilled musician Kwes,
who has gained critical acclaim for his work with the likes of Micachu and Hot Chip
as well as his releases on Young Turks. The Horrors’ Tom Cowan adopts his
Tom Furse guise to morph the song into an energetic affair while Mote makes a
double remix appearance - the first fusing tribal, jazz and 2-step styles and the latter
a sped up version added as a product of a ‘happy accident’ which occurred during
the mastering process.

CLOUT! started to record music about four years ago, forming organically in and
around Southend. Their music draws from an array of influences familiar to the 60s-
70s psychedelic as much as 80s dancehall, all held together by sampling and beat
patterns inspired by the 90s ‘Golden-era’ of hip-hop. However CLOUT! are by no
means affixed to any certain genre or movement or roles as musicians they aim to
use a variety of different instruments and roles to create diversely arranged songs.