Earlier this year, the members of the Los Angeles band Mae Shi compiled a sampler disc drawn from fan-supplied mix-CDs, and to squeeze in as much as possible, they picked only the best few seconds from each song, creating an hourlong barrage of licks and one-liners. The results range from the unlistenable to the strangely enlightening, as fragments of XTC, Led Zeppelin, Television, and Journey share space with Jay-Z, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Andrew W.K., and various avant-garde noisemakers and forgotten indie-rockers. The experiment breaks down genre distinctions, re-imagining music as an unbroken string of inspiring sound.
Mae Shi's own music resembles—at least theoretically—this "ultimate mix." The band draws on a more limited set of influences, crashing brittle funk and abstract electronics with whimsical brat-punk, but it holds to the principle of brevity, and when an idea strikes the group as worth exploring, Mae Shi hits it from every angle. Terrorbird features multiple songs with the titles "Revelation," "Chop," "Bite," and "Body," and it ends with five consecutive tracks called "Repetition," each of which contains the same stunted riff and refrain, played as dance-punk, skronk, and piano balladry. Imagination and ambition pop up all over Terrorbird.
Unfortunately, it's tunefulness that's lacking. Like Deerhoof, Mae Shi has a better reputation as a live act than as a recording artist, because reckless energy translates better in a sweaty club. Records need hooks, and no matter how much Mae Shi admires its classic-rock and punk-funk forbears, it hasn't yet come up with anything remotely as canonical. The spirit is willing, though, and any band capable of 90-second wonders as frenzied and witty as "Takoma The Dolphin Is AWOL" and "Virgin's Diet, The Hand Of Wolves" may soon write a song worth excerpting.