August 12, 2009

Album review: Cougar - Patriot

Elitist electro gets a sense of party

8 / 10 Ninja Tunes has been responsible for a lot of po-faced instrumental noodlings over the years, resulting in a community of smug elitist dudes with huge Bose headphones, bleached hair and vast camo jackets who are “only listening to dark techno jazz right now”. But Cougar know how to have fun: the NY/Chicago/Madison/Austin/Milwaukee collective would probably still rather be termed sonic artistes than post-rockers, but ‘Daunte V Armada’’s warm melancholy and the Battles-Lite ‘Pelourinho’ render any pompous attitude fine by us. As does the wistful country of ‘Absaroka’ and mars volta-inspired ‘Florida Logic’. If this is the kind of stuff bleached Bose dude is listening to right now, we should probably all be a bit more like him. Now’s the time to start…

Matt Warwick

Click here to get your copy of Cougar's 'Patriot' from the Rough Trade shop.