Rafter Sex Death Cassette WB rating out of 100

Asthmatic Kitty are keen to promote Sex Death Cassette as a move from noisy punk origins to a broader pop sensibility. After listening to the spirited opening ‘ZZZ Penchant’, this promise seems realised. The song orbits around a saxophone riff that exudes a kind of Roxy Music irreverence. At the same time, a few jagged beats and irregularities in the rhythm unsettle this confidence. The musical contradictions are clear: mashing these two worlds together is going to make for a chaotic experience.

At its best, Rafter’s Sex Death Cassette is an album which delights for all its pop-simplicity, its flashes of non-conformity allowing it to linger longer than simple pop generally can. In a way that echoes David Sylvian's transition from fronting Japan to solo life in Brilliant Trees, Rafter tweaks analogue, and even acoustic instruments, to reinterpret the more often digital soundscape of contemporary pop. Rock riffs, dance grooves, hip hop beats, all are grinded through this organic treatment.

And yet while his work Sex Death Cassette is sonically impressive, Rafter's slacker approach to songwriting is a major shortcoming. Avoiding a verse-chorus-break form, a large bulk of the songs consist of a single section that is only broken by shifts in Rafter’s vocals, or a rousing horn part. There is very rarely a bridge or chorus to break this monotony and while individual moments can engage, the repetition weakens their power.

Songs like 'ZZZ Penchant' and the especially pleasing 'Love Time Now Please' are redeemed by the strength of their central idea. However, when the ideas are more lacklustre, Rafter reduces the length of his songs to just a smattering of bars lest they become dull and repetitive. The result is a swathe of material that sounds under-realised – a mere jingle and a cute lyric and it’s all over before the listener can skip out of mediocrity to the next track.

This is a shame, because the filler really undersells some of the truly golden material on Sex Death Cassette. Rafter's fetish for sound allows him to evoke a broad scope of places and spaces, the south-sea island melancholia of tracks like 'Breathing' and 'Tropical' channel 1950s exotica with a deft irony. Likewise, the flashes of ecstasy and moroseness in 'Casualty of Dance Music' evoke impeccably the existential crises that tail a drug binge under disco lights.

There can be no doubt that Rafter is an insightful and prolific musician with a keen ear. In fact, in the months leading up to and beyond the release of Sex Death Cassette and beyond, he has released a track a week on the label's website. I can't help but feel that Rafter ought to spend more time though giving a smaller sample of his creations the attention they deserve.

If he can overcome this attention deficit, then there could be something magical in his future.