Last time we heard from Pit Er Pat they were a trio living in Chicago. Now they’re an L.A. duo. Butchy Fuego and Fay Davis-Jeffers reportedly wrote most of their new eight-song collection The Flexible Entertainer specifically for a European tour — true occasional tracks focused on providing an interesting climactic set as well as stripped-down simplicity for traveling’s sake. Things beefed up a bit when they sat down to record, but they tried to keep the clean feel of the original easy-to-cart material. (The final instrumentation: Voices, guitar, synthesizer, drums, MPC, melodica, conga, and cuica.) It worked: Even when there’s a lot going on in these fractured pop songs, you can always find spaces and plenty of breathing room. The album’s one new post-tour track “Intro” was captured in the studio, inspired by a vocal loop they’d used to open those aforementioned sets. After some hazy blips, it’s dark, clanging 2 minutes and change drift like a ghostly chain-gang into the upbeat, immediately danceable “Water.” We’ll start there with the album’s (sorta) Hot 97 moment.
The Flexible Entertainer is out 1/26 via Thrill Jockey.
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