Steep Steps

Track Listings

1. Scottish Rite Temple Stomp

2. Mon Recit

3. Ballad of the Oread

4. Kentigern Inquiry

5. Scottish Rite Temple Stomp (remix)

6. The Minch

7. Phrasebook Wands

8. The House at Dumbarton Oaks

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Steep Steps from Minneapolis's Ninian Hawick is a buzzed-out electronic cocktail of oddball, mickeyed-up proportions. Featuring school-girl vocals, fuzzy distorted samples, bagpipes, piano, and ringing guitar, the disc starts out with the cheeky "Scottish Rite Temple Stomp" then bursts into a sassy loping French number that's followed by "Ballad of the Oread," a Morse-code-like tappety-tap fused with wind-up goat-bleat samples. From that point, Steep Steps morphs into the shapes and sounds of a night gone deliriously mad and the broken rhythms of an addled morning after. Energized by a jittery nervousness and dulled by an off-kilter pulse, the band revisits the opening track on a remix wherein the percussive elements pull in front of vocals and squishy guitar lines. Cool just when you expect them to run hot, John Crozier and his crew pull the listener into a densely disjointed world. --Paige La Grone

Product Description
Bagpipes, Buzz, and Beat. Electronic indescribable songs.

"Steep Steps" features 3 vocal tracks (along with a remix of the Scottish Rite Temple Stomp) and 5 instrumentals ranging from musique concrete to solo piano to French disko. Heather McElhatton provides the vocals on the lead off song, accompanied by a delicious supporting cast of bagpipes, lead kick drum, piano, and buzzed out guitars. Other guest vocalists appear on the EP - Ashley Souter does 'a turn as French nightclub singer over new wave groove'* on "Mon Rcit," and Patrick Durgin goes poetic on "Phrasebook Wands" - though the other vocal tracks are curiously attributed to another "band name" Ailsa Craig. (Confused? Yes, so are we.)

Steep Steps

Steep Steps,Ninian Hawick,Ailsa Craig,Grimsey

Steep Steps

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