Keep On Moving/Neon Orange Vinyl

Description

It’s as if someone left the light on in the studio and everything unravelled itself, there had been some brilliant human intervention earlier in the day but, by some kind of machine-led Darwinian osmosis, the recorded tracks spent the small hours self-reducing and simplifying themselves. Marinating in music. “I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil,” said Truman Capote. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” said Leonardo da Vinci much earlier in proceedings. Yes, it’s the space around the object, what you leave out that makes what you leave in so important. ESG know this. Sure, they can play the game, but it’s the audacity of the groove and the minimal garnish - like an anti-cup cake - that makes this unique NYC sisterhood so appealing on ‘Keep On Moving’. Sampled in TV ads, critically acclaimed and swooned over on the dancefloor, ESG’s post-punk pared back the grunge and polished up the basics. Open them up and ‘less is more’ is written all over it. ‘Keep On Moving’ came out over a decade ago and garnered much praise (Q said it was ‘even better’ than 2002’s much-loved ‘Step Off’). ESG had been a sparring partner for PiL and the beginnings of hip hop and four years after the ‘Off’ they were onto something new - rhythm as the core, thoughtful plotlines of relationship management, sensuality and madness coalesce around the bass, but they’re much hazier than unrelenting beats. Inadvertently they unmask techno and glitch and leave out any sort of superfluousness. It’s hard and it hurts the temples. Turn it up. And keep on moving.