Monopolar is the second marvellous missive to be lifted from Indonesian 4-piece Strange Fruit’s forthcoming mini-LP, Drips. The track consciously harks back to the early `90s and that era’s Andrew Weatherall / Primal Scream spearheaded indie rock / dance crossover. It’s no coincidence that the band are signed to a label named Gentle Tuesday, after an old Scream single. 

The music mixes a Monkey Drum shuffling, kinda “baggy” beat with ethereal vocals, growling machine bass and bubbling sound effects. Raising raw raucous guitar arcs and building to an ecstatic wall of shoegaze and acid house. Chocka with little vintage chillout room ambient techno textures. Exploring the same sonic territory, say, as Test Pressing’s ddwy.

Sean Johnston delivers not 1 but 3 remixes under his Hardway Bros moniker. The first juggles the original’s layered Robin Guthrie-esque fretwork and whispered vocals. The second loses the shredding. The third is an out and out dub. All find Sean forgoing his ALFOS, Italo / EBM-influenced stomping for something a lot more laidback than his usual gear. Teasing with the TB-303 gurgling over an uncharacteristically “organic” groove. Slowly, sexily squelching, floating through fractals like a stoned swim through trippy treacle. 

A take from Tom Furse – ex of The Horrors – completes this part of the package. Treating the voices, so that they now warble as if recorded underwater and setting these to a slow rolling, block-rocking breakbeat and synth explosions. Psychedelia with a trip hop meets techno flavour –  Aphex vs. Seefeel, Bjork vs. Black Dog – the production, woozy with wow and flutter, sorta zooms in and out of focus. Shorter and punchier than Sean’s versions it moves with the determined electro momentum of classic Weatherall-favoured cuts such as 4E’s Temple Traxx. 

Strange Fruit’s Monopolar, and Drips, can be ordered directly from Gentle Tuesday Recordings.