Davey Harms

Providence-based producer and hardware beat kingpin Davey Harms has been grafting the textures and intensity of noise onto technoid rhythmic grids since the mid 00s, before “mutant techno” was a common placeholder for this style. As that wave crested and many of its practitioners lurched off in other directions, Harms continues to fine-tune his practice and do what he does best: incite head-banging mosh pits in the club, or inject a bit of the club, however bonkers his vision of it may be, into the basement noise gig. His output under the monikers Mincemeat or Tenspeed, World War, and his given name always keeps us guessing. Harms excels in a state of constant forward motion, his beats compounding and complicating without ever losing their jagged groove and searing in-the-red intensity. Flecked with neck-jerking beatdrop moments and passages of abstracted electronic grit, his sessions gather mass and layers of complementary rhythm as they streak through time. The composite effect evokes the forward momentum of a giant metal machine barreling down an empty highway, or the augmented body of the Six Million Dollar Man leaping over a wall as his limbs swing in heavily traced delay trails. Davey's music gives off heavy Robocop vibes, but only if Robocop could smile, dance, and have a good time with his friends instead of, you know, fighting an evil corporation and avenging his family.