Dan Friel — Valedictor​ian/Exoske​leton

When Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor went on hiatus after a ten-year run this year, it was sadly with a whimper rather than a bang. Despite a unique position in American rock, friends in the scene, frequent mention on music sites, etc., they just never got the kind of break that would have made their solid last album, Constant Future, the household release that it probably should have been, at least amongst indie’s cognoscenti. Nobody else is delivering anthemic punk propelled by lo-fi electronic noise in quite the same way: Trans Am is too retro, Lightning Bolt too heavy, and Oneida way too far out on the fringe.

So now that Parts & Labor’s cofounder and keyboardist/vocalist Dan Friel is stepping out on his own for the first time since the band called it a day, the question is whether he’ll pick up the mantle of the band’s anthemic direction or stay in the realm of electronic sound experimentation that he fully explored on his Important Records outing,  Ghost Town, in 2008. The answer, based on this brief EP release from Thrill Jockey—the taster of a full length due next February—is that he’s going to do a little bit of both. The EP hosts two new tracks in their original form, a remix of one of those tracks, and a remix of a track not featured here but instead slated for the album.

Though essentially a chuggy rave-up produced by noisy keyboards, “Valedictorian” introduces Friel’s sound with an over-the-top melodic poppiness that at once astonishes and embarrasses. Its sheer energy is delightful, but something about it carries the same comfortable familiarity as a Christmas singalong or (perhaps deliberately, based on its title) “Pomp and Circumstance,” meaning that busting it out once a year for a particular party or event will probably be enough. The second track, “Exoskeleton,” fares much better, as it offers up a better balance of challenge and accessibility while its electronics pulse and ponder under a slightly sci-fi melodic theme squealed out by feedback.

The remixes make stronger statements about the remixers than the original artist—as remixes tend to do—but they also mark Friel’s songs as commendable options for remixing. The “Exoskeleton” remix by Moss of Aura (the side project of Gerrit Welmers of Future Islands) uses its electronic pulses as an underlying rhythm for a massive, spacy Italo-disco styled dance track in the Lindstrom vein. The final remix is a 12-minute electro-prog odyssey called “Ulysses” (see what I did there) by California’s Peaking Lights. It chugs and clatters along like Neu!’s “Für Immer” crossed with Cabaret Voltaire’s “Yashar,” but it’s nearly impossible to tell what Friel’s original track sounds like.

Overall, the EP showcases a likable assortment of electronic sounds and styles, but it’s simply not the kind of release that makes a definitive statement about the artist’s sense of purpose.