Rating: 4/5 stars

Electronic duo Jockstrap (“50/50”) released a collaboration with rapper Ian Starr (“MEADOW”) and while the track does not even last two minutes, it promises their next semi-remix of their debut song “I Love You Jennifer B.”

“Red Eye” is technically a sped-up and glitchy remix of the breakdown in Jockstrap’s track “Neon” off their debut. The title references the opening lyric of the album, “Red eye of the dawn…” However, the art-school sincerity of “Neon” has completely left the building on “Red Eye.” The track sounds like the band put itself in a blender and barely escaped unscathed. 

Starr’s growling evokes a glitchy rage like that of Drainer’s bladee (“The Fool”) and ecco2k (“Crest”). Ramblings like “furry paws all on my beans” and “broken mirror Tabi boots/Margiela toe socks” reveal the lyrical nihilism behind this collaboration. 

Jockstrap’s production sounds like a collection of klaxons overlaid on each other. It is jarring and head-aching, but for certain audiences who do not mind getting tinnitus, it is a mind-numbing enchantment. Fans of SEMATARY (“KING OF THE GRAVEYARD”) and Dorian Electra (“My Agenda”) will love this. 

Most of Jockstrap’s initial audience were pilgrims from member Georgia Ellery’s second band, the post-rock giant Black Country, New Road (“Ants From Up There”). BCNR’s monumental chamber rock and lengthy emotional opuses are a universe away from the hyperpop-adjacent knob-twiddling of the Ian Starr remix. Jockstrap’s electronic avant-pop already serves as a genre experiment for Ellery, but even “Red Eye” is an enigma for anything she participates in. 

Jockstrap’s upcoming remix album, egregiously named “I<3UQTINVU,” pronounced “I Love You Cutie, I Envy You,” follows a trend among experimental artists of releasing remix albums that sound absolutely nothing like the source material. 100 gecs’ (“10,000 gecs”) “1000 gecs and the Tree of Clues” somehow creates more noise out of its original noise-pop blueprint. “Dawn of Chromatica” from mainstream artist Lady Gaga (“Chromatica”) seems more like an afterthought on her end and more of a Frankenstein creation from its bizarre hyperpop contributors. 

Even less ironic artists like SPELLLING (“The Turning Wheel”) released an album, “SPELLLING & The Mystery School” of the similar caliber to the Jockstrap plan, in which the album is closer to a “re-imagining” than a remix.

Despite what seems like garbage out of respected electronic duo Jockstrap, those who this track disappoints should simply remember the name of the band and let it sink in. Jockstrap is as amazing as ever. If their next release reaches the ears of viral TikTok accounts, everyone’s streaming services will bear the name Jockstrap for weeks on end. What a gift!

Image from Magnitude via Twitter.com