Another New Thing

★★★ XYZZY

DIPPED IN GOLD. CD/DL/LP

Moonlandingz’ Dean Honer in deep tech-deviance mode.

The visibility afforded to Dean Honer and keyboard sidekick Adrian Flanagan by 2018’s Fat White Family teamup on The Moonlandingz’ album Interplanetary Class

Classics was well overdue. Dating back to his late-’90s aliases The All Seeing I and I Monster, this shadowy Yorkshireman has been a trusty custodian of Sheffield’s electronic lineage, a clanky knowhow he also brought to Add N To (X). Following further Flanagan-assisted outings as International Teachers Of Pop, this latest project sees him enlisted by Paul Nagle (synths, from Preston) and Pennsylvania’s Don Himlin (vocals, guitar, bass) for production, tech savvy, spiritual corruption, and more. Do Not Fail’s expensivesounding juxtaposition of analogue riffing and digisoundscaping exudes rare class, like 21st-century Roxy Music, while Probe The Action Membrane’s more ribald sleaze recalls primetime Frankie Goes To Hollywood (in a good way!). The second half of XYZZY relinquishes pop/dancefloor kicks for abstract gurglings, and a moral abandonment that’s incrementally seductive with each listen.