We’re not gonna start rummaging through my hard
drive, that much I’ll tell you right off the bat. We’d find some half-finished
ideas from years ago – MAYBE. Most likely we’d unearth some incompetent jamming
or covers of terrible songs. It would really just be incredibly awkward for all
involved, but mostly it would be an uncomfortable journey into my inept past. I
don’t think I could take getting crushed by that type of embarrassment again.
For Aaron Leitko and Mike Petillo, aka
Protect-U, also proprietors of fine items at U-Udios, scrubbing the underside
of every file folder in their hard drive was a much more rewarding experience.
“U-Udios One” collects the unreleased material gleaned from this exercise, the
product of two and a half years of work following Protect-U’s debut “Free USA.”
It’s … it’s way cooler than anything that’s ever been on my computer, I gotta
admit. Even if these tracks were cobbled together for the sole purpose of
allowing them to see the light of day, there’s a coherence of composition here
that presents a unified listening experience.
Sparse electronics verge on breaking through to
techno at times, but mostly they skitter and squirm in lo-fi burrows, emerging
from the murk periodically to see what’s going on outside. Often Protect-U
latches onto a mood and hovers there, exploring in detail the alcoves and
crevasses of their position, fiddling with pieces and fragments until they
stretch into fully formed passages. The exploration, the experience, is the
key, and each track is the tactile result of audio excavation. Hard not to get
excited about something like that.
Now, if only I had something good to put on a
tape…
--Ryan
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