rzwd | gaps @ the organ (uk)

RZWD – Gaps (Carton Records) – On Gaps, RZWD tell us they aimed to “craft dance noise club music on their own terms, pushing the limits of what a live band can be in achieving this”, they go on to tell us that “the core idea behind Gaps was to use developed themes as a starting point for further variations and exploration within Dance noise club music. This time, the instrumentation includes bass and an ever-expanding, mutating layer of modulation” – scrub all that though, this sounds far more instictive than they make it sound, if this is dance music then the dancing is going to be wildly all over the place and well, if you like dance music by all means tune in and dance like a maniac, more importantly, if you don’t like dance music then definitely tune in! This is for everyone, this is other rock, this is pointy, this is sharp, this is delightfully fractured, warm, inviting, this is fluid in an awkwardly good way. It is mostly electonic, it feels very organic, analogue in terms of texture and yes that might be one of several contradictions just made but who cares, bottom line here is this is really really good – mutating layers of modulation indeed, played beyond rigid tempo measurements. Recorded live as a live band, that bit is crucial to what is going on here, recorded in 2023, released in the Autumn of 2024 and sent to us in the second week of 2025, it might have figured somewhere on that (rest of the) best albums of ’24 if it had landed here in time…