It’s fitting this ambient, harmony-deficient duo should be named after a legendary risk-taker. Six Soviet Misfits is the new double record from Icarus, and it strives to be the opposite of any melody you’ve ever hummed. Each and every cut is incessantly beat-heavy, full of cluttered spurts of noise that made me check to see if the CD was skipping. The record plays off the universal appeal of the beat, with the duo maximizing the capabilities of their computers. Icarus manages to lull listeners with spacey, underwater swirls and shock them awake with a distorted squeal from beyond the stratosphere. It’s a mathematical approach to making music, and it is actually quite soothing. In the end, Icarus is intriguing, and a bit dense. It’s about as far from “Louie Louie” as you can get.
Appeared in the September 2003 issue of Rockpile magazine.