Paranormal

Recording information: Detroit, MI; Mothership Studios, San Fransisco, CA.
Voodeux is the duo of Tanner Ross and Kilo Watts, DJ/musician/producers who love horror films and dance music. Ross graduated from Berklee and is based in Boston. He teamed up with Watts, a Philadelphia producer who had already released five albums on his own that incorporate jazz, breakbeats, and cinematic downtempo music, after meeting him in a dance music chat room. Despite the geographical distance, the duo started making club tracks with a sinister cinematic sweep. Some of the tunes on Paranormal have already been released as singles and EPs, and critics have dubbed the music everything from slasher movie techno to ambient Thorazine. The music falls into an uneasy niche somewhere between techno and house, but the ambient, cinematic, and garage band touches the two add to their compositions make this stuff accessible to rockers, ravers, and lovers of space music. A lot of the effects they use sound like they've been nabbed from creepy sci-fi soundtracks. The mechanical heartbeat of "Just a Spoonful" has a hint of '60s garage band organ in the keyboard line, broken up every now and then with electronic horror movie sound effects that mimic giant breathing, claws scratching a metallic surface, and the growling of phantom werewolves. The dark thrumming funk of "Enter the Voo" features more serial killer movie soundtrack noises, while "Bones," which has already done well at clubs, is sci-fi house music with processed vocals that sound like a disco-full of panting females on X slowly reaching orgasm. "The Paranormal" rides a funky house beat complemented by an Adams Family keyboard figure as ghostly male voices float in and out of the mix, and "Heebie Jeebies" sounds like Kraftwerk on a Halloween bender with its skewed bassline and percussion that bubbles like a simmering witch's cauldron. "Skeleton Key," the other successful club track, plays a thumping house beat and effervescent percussion off against clattering industrial sound effects that swoop in and out of the mix. While the music has its spooky elements, the driving dance beats keep things from getting too supernatural, striking a fine balance between cheery and creepy. ~ j. poet