Patti: Good Big 12"

Patti: Good Big 12"


Tags: · 10s · egg punk · hcpmf · melodic · post-punk · recommended · spo-default · spo-disabled
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Debut LP from this band out of Oakland now based in New York, though I'd forgive you for thinking they’re from Minneapolis as they sound strikingly similar to Uranium Club. 

 

Like society as a whole, punk rock seems to go through eras of conservatism and progressivism, and despite (or maybe because of?) the fact that the right-wingers seem to be ascendant in the United States’ and Europes' wilder culture, we seem to be experiencing a moment in the punk scene when nothing is cooler than letting your freak flag fly. 

 

Rhythmically, Patti have more of a Minutemen / Suburban Lawns-type white funk swing to them, but the deadpan vocals and Krautrock-ish way of riding simple, repetitive riffs will do any Uranium Club fan right. The bass lines, guitar lines, and vocal patterns are uniformly interesting, but one place Patti excel is in writing cool bridge parts. 

 

Most of the songs on Good Big have a middle section about 3/4 of the way through where the song goes to some strange, unexpected place. The transitions are fluid, so you find yourself thinking, “wait, is this the same song?” until they drop back into one of the familiar parts from earlier in the song. Having that sense of movement and development to the song takes what would have been an interesting collection of riffs and makes them into something more than that, a set of musical stories that unfold in front of you. 

 

This is top-notch egg punk, so even if you only mess with the hits like Uranium Club and Coneheads this is worth checking out. 



Our take: After an earlier 7” on Erste Theke Tonträger, Good Big is the debut 12” from this New-York-by-way-of-Oakland band. Their earlier EP reminded me of Uranium Club, and while Good Big has a similarly clear recording and locked-in rhythm section, it also finds Patti developing their own voice. Not that their voice is monochromatic; with 16 tracks averaging around two minutes each, Patti spreads out and explores a ton of different variations on their sound here. Most songs revolve around quirky rhythms, snaky bass lines, skronky and/or angular guitar, and deadpan vocals, but Patti adapts that framework to several ends. One one track they might remind me of Gang of Four, while on the next they can evoke an atmosphere that reminds me of C86 indie-pop, and then the next one wades into math rock levels of rhythmic complexity. If you’re a fan of the smart, punky post-punk bands of bands like Uranium Club, Parquet Courts, or Lithics, Patti treads a similar path.