Dusted Reviews Artist: Knifehandchop Album: How I Left You Label: Tigerbeat6 Review date: Mar. 17, 2005

Knifehandchop, a.k.a. Billy Pollard, is yet another precocious project by yet another wunderkind electronic musician in a market already drowning on white boy angst all too willing to genuflect to a legion of “gangstas” who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – give the condensation off their bottle of Veuve to sate a dehydrated laptop whiz such as this.

How I Left You, like a myriad other electronic releases, sounds like so much Nintendo white noise – background for digital robbery, snowboarding, or shooting. The funny thing though, is the disc’s titles – which are an even mix of pixels and puberty: For every “We Used to Make Love,” there’s the “Tizzy Tixbown Riddim” – replete with waving glowstick and 4/4 arterial thud. “Vacant Chinatown Recital” is somewhat tasty, with its pulsing vocoder and anorexic thin keys recalling the soundtrack work of the young John Carpenter.

Those who have somehow missed out on Richard James’ dazzling oeuvre, or haven’t yet discovered Pro Tools will find Knifehandchop to have all the necessary “skills.” They’ll just rue the day they admitted as much after hearing a DJ/rupture or Coil record.

By Stewart Voegtlin

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