Live Review: HTRK 'Body Lotions'

Melbourne exports HTRK have given us the gift of new music, releasing new EP 'Body Lotions' in collaboration with Belgium's Sleeperhold Publications and London artist David Ferrando Gurau.

The EP focuses on material worked on during the sessions for 2011's Work (work, work).  Title track 'Body Lotions' is a searing sneer of murky synths and  bass driven grooves that characterised the sound of HTRK before the saddening death of the group's bassist, Sean Stewart.  

Whilst 2014 has been marked with the successful accession of the band via  pop-centric album Psychic 9-5 Club, 'Body Lotions' finds the group looking back into their more brooding, coldwave sound. It's a suggestive provocateur of sensuality and hypnosis, wrapped around Jonnine Standish's strangely alluring monotone vocals. 

Adding to the track’s dark and dense atmosphere is the group’s drum machine that plods a very slow, angular beat that draws the listener into a lethargic state of duress. This is helped along by an funk laden bass and a swamp of synths that creates an overwhelming catechism of sounds that is both unnerving and exciting. 

One of the greatest triumphs of HTRK is their ability to induce an immensely thrilling atmosphere within their music. It's a haunting hypnotic soundscape that's entirely their own. This can be found on track 'Body Lotions' which is both of celebration of the groups past, and a reminder of the group's dramatic evolution. 

HTRK's Body Lotions EP is out now through Sleeperhold Publications.

Words by Isabella Trimboli

LISTEN TO MORE MUSIC HERE