Prinzhorn Dance School

It goes something like this: Suzi yelps, “Harworthy Sports and Leisure Centre!” like she’s too hip to care, and then an even more affected Tobin barks, “Is a sports and leisure centre!” Is it now? Tell me more! But no, Prinzhorn Dance School is far too clever. It opens with ‘Black Bunker’, at first a promise that this angular, messy, call-and-response game is a chaotic prelude to something of substance, the pulsating door to a jiggy dance party, the bubbles around the edge before the pot comes to the boil. Instead of the intended homage to outsider art, however, it’s a solipsistic non-feast on a big white plate.
‘Eat And Sleep’ is one of the few tracks that almost has a decent structure, and indicates that if the trio put as much time into writing songs as they did into not writing songs, this would be a worthwhile venture – but they come across as listless hipsters who prefer to keep music to themselves. A self-regarding minimalist mystery, they’re too stylish for MySpace and seem to think that if you have to ask, you don’t deserve to know.
Stripped down, stark, raw – whatever you want to call it – their music sounds like the waste product of a session with Steve Albini and feels like a flight delay. At a time when bands are more like orchestras, Prinzhorn Dance School wanted to be sparse, but while interesting sound designs can keep sparing music afloat, this displays only the most grudging regard for the listener’s patience.