KID MANIA “Distraction” (self-released)


Life is weird, ain’t it? Walk out of your house on any given day and look around you, and you’re bound to see something you’ve never seen before, something so unusual and out of the ordinary that it’ll sear itself into your memory, never to be forgotten, ready at a moment’s notice to use as an example in conversation of why life is so bafflingly, maddeningly, thrillingly weird.

Could be good weird, could be bad weird, who knows? I’m an equal opportunist when it comes to weird, and my connoisseurship of weird extends to tapes. Kid Mania is an equal opportunist when it comes to weird too, except that, where I’m a simple observer, Kid Mania’s a regurgitator, taking samples and juxtaposing them, layering them, altering their speed and pitch, and winding them all together, propping them up against beat tape madness.

There’s lots of political speak too, lots of talking heads. They freak me out a little bit.

So this weirdness serves to set modern American life in relief and mock it, which has become easier and easier to do as the days pass. It’s unsettling to hear Trump recount the “Official Version” of 9/11 at a memorial ceremony. It’s equally unsettling to hear everybody else Kid Mania samples say other governmental-y things. But it all goes down pretty smooth with the Maniac’s signature plunderphonics, all vaporwavey goodness and light. Leavens the bad news.

The tommy gun in the middle is a little unnerving though. Reminds me of Al Capone, who was not a nice guy. Did you know he didn’t pay his U.S. taxes?


--Ryan