.Super_Collider

Music is so much better when it challenges the listener. Super_Collider, the UK duo comprised of longtime abstract techno producer Cristian Vogel and producer/vocalist Jamie Lidell, has released its second LP, Raw Digits, a deliberately murky, new-school funk classic in which the listener is whisked away to an alternate reality. The lead vocalist sounds like Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, if he were black and from the deep South. After just a few tracks, you’ll feel like you’re walking in the aftermath of a scary soul-funk battle; like there’s a group of hard-worn soldiers grooving along in their tattered clothing, scraping their walking sticks along the roots and stones on a long, winding path. Raw Digits drifts, crisscrosses, and ingeniously floats from one off-putting rhythm to another in a scratchy, bubbly sound world. This shit has got some deep, spare-ass rhythmic funk with such a quirky, dubby edge that you’ll have no idea how to dance to it — mainly because you’re trying to figure out where the hell the confounding, wormy beat is going to go next. The music’s slow, methodical, and deliberately goofy, yet still likable. In short, Super_Collider asks you to please readjust your brain.