After trailing with the too-hot-to-handle ‘3souled Women’ and reflective lift-off piece ‘Earth Dreams,’ Detroit’s Mother Cyborg launches her début album Pressure Systems. Mother Cyborg, a long-time activist and face on Detroit’s music scene, was previously been in experimental folk rock band Jöjjön and collaborated with Tunde Olaniran, MGUN and Electric Street Orchestra. She founded and is resident at ‘Temple Of Cyborg’, the monthly queer-women-friendly dance night at Detroit’s Temple Bar that has seen her throw down with luminaries such as DJ Ripley and Stacey Hotwaxx Hale. This is her first solo collection...

Mother Cyborg delivers a sound like no other. Depending on your point of view this is either the strength or weakness of her debut album, Pressure System. For me, the majority of the tracks sound like beefed up dance tracks from the '90s. There's nothing that interesting here to get excited about.

But while it's a pretty stable album to start with, 'Earth Dreams' is where it begins to lose it. This song sounds like a parody song by Flight of the Conchords, but worse than that the singing is off key and just sounds awful. Maybe this is the point, and I just missed what they were trying to do, because the rest of the album is much more enjoyable. Yes, it must have been intentional - it was originally released as a single!!!

The first time I played these 8 tracks (33 min, 31 sec) I actually rather enjoyed it (with the exception of 'Earth Dreams', which had me clapping my hands to my ears and shaking my head in dismay). But the more times I listened to the album the more I realised it was just too shallow and had nothing of any real substance - to my ears, at least.

In all honesty, I think this is an act that has to be seen live, with the full laser experience. Then, you may want to pick up the album as a loving memento. As it stands, on its own merits, it's a pretty run of the mill, out of date, Dance album.

6

Nick Smithson