Beat Detectives

Oakley Tapola, Chris Hontos, and Aaron Anderson make up Beat Detectives, a Minneapolis/New York City-based trio whose lush, trippy lo-fi rhythms playfully blend influences such as '80s Chicago house, new wave, dub, and boogie. The group's messy, collage-like tracks typically feature Tapola's echo-drenched vocals over a patchwork of blown-out rhythms and samples. After Beat Detectives tracks started surfacing online in 2012, they began issuing cassettes on several well-regarded underground labels, beginning with 2013's Casual Encounters of the Third Kind on Moon Glyph (also home to Hontos' Krautrock-inspired band Food Pyramid). Music... About Time (Night People) and Music 2 (100% Silk) followed by the year's end. After attracting attention from DJs such as Legowelt, Beat Detectives' fourth tape, Ass Cop, appeared on Vancouver's 1080p label in 2014. Ambitious double cassette Boogie Chillen/The Hills of Cypress was released by British label Where to Now? in May of 2015, and the trio made its vinyl debut a month later when Not Not Fun released Climate Change.
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