by Dan Goldin (@paintingwithdan)
Cincinnati’s Fruit LoOops are a sensory overload. The band’s deranged art punk is equal parts no wave, experimental pop, and electronic carnage all at once. For all the sonic mayhem though, the band still understand song structure, hooks, and movement, even at its most mutated. The trio are set to follow up 2023’s You’re Somebody’s World with their upcoming EP, Everything Is Clear To Me, due out June 6th via Orange Milk Records (galen tipton & Shmu, Mukqs, Giant Claw). Over the course of thirteen maximalist minutes, Fruit LoOops work maniacal magic, the songs ripping with an excited energy and radiant weirdness. Their music is certifiably bonkers in the best of ways, equal parts catchy and swarming, overwhelming yet immersive.
“Appendicitis” is the EP’s closing track and lead single, perhaps the opposite of the “calm before the storm,” this one is more along the lines of, “we warned you, now let’s come unglued”. The insistent song pounds with an electronic pulse, a dancefloor rhythm that slams with a cavernous density. The steady crack of the beat provides the backbone, allowing the keyboards and synths to topple in every and all imaginable directions, melodic in a kaleidoscopic sense, fractured and buzzing deep into the red. There’s an alien sing-song quality to Jackie Switzer’s spitfire vocals, bouncing around the track in a way that splits the difference between the approaches of Melt-Banana and Snooper, landing somewhere entirely unique. All together it’s a balance of grating and blissful with the ability to engrain itself in your mind as any great song might.