A year or so ago, the Brooklyn-based label Fuzzy Warbles released K7 by the Pan-American digital funk cadre SPREDTR that simultaneously diversified and fit right in with their already eclectic roster of minimalist synth and art-damaged punk. Opening with what could be the sound of 21st century AI testing out 20th century equipment in an after-hours jam at the last standing Radio Shack, the group makes its invitation / mission statement with “well come to SPREDTR,” a stew of weird whispery incantations and creamy vocal refrains served over a bed of puffy synth. Rather than synching the track to digital grid, it pulses along with what could be a human heartbeat triggering a bass drum sample, with slight hesitations and rushes that complement the pleasantly uneasy mood that is established.

SPREDTR is “deconstructing the history of electrofunk,” patching together a collage of elements you may recognize from breakdance parties or junior high gymnasiums (if you grew up in the ‘80s), combining them with the new and otherworldly, infused with a sense of creeping unease or disorientation.

SPREDTR’s latest is LATTICE. The cover image is built on a grid yet looks hand-drawn, the kind of picture that could probably be easily created on a computer yet shows the imperfection of the human hand. It also does an Escher-esque dimensional flip. I describe the image before the music because, observed and analyzed this way, it can give the listener a framework for understanding.

LATTICE is a musical journey that rewards immersive listening. A double-album-plus-length trip through murky darkness and bright star-stuff. Fear not, there are guideposts along the way, although their directional messages are likely to be cryptic or misleading.
Like the second track, On The Hillside, which sets you comfortably on a pillow of downy synth and pleasant vocals that may be about kids catching fireflies, but by the second verse seem to be the fireflies themselves singing in the logic of their insect minds, before the track melts in a burst of digital distortion.
Brown Sunshine may sound like a mid-period Funkadelic workout (albeit if Worrell and Hampton recorded their parts in different sections of the space-time continuum) but is repeatedly interrupted by a distorted keyboard riff that does/doesn’t match.

Having snuck in to the party through the kitchen door, commandeering the boombox with K7, LATTICE moves SPREDTR into the living room with bold confidence. Within the first minute of the first track, you can enjoy the split-mind feeling of funky digital dancing with thick synths and muscular bass paired with a loopy bright sound that hops across the surface of the track like a water strider. Its companion track Phantom One has keys that blend together to suggest majestic and sad chord progressions but never resolve into expected patterns… then a human/robot voice recites a half-decipherable rhyme that has to do with sausage, waffles, providing for one’s family, and dancing with a metaphorical bull.
And I’m only at the end of side one. The twelve-minute Lagoon soundtracks a nature documentary from Neptunian wetlands. I Over is a party jam for those manikins from the ‘Rockit’ video when they finally get a babysitter for date night. It establishes an angular groove, then an even deeper groove one minute in. Right at the moment when you think you know where it’s going, the second “solo” instrument comes in so far out of the Saturnian space-scape that your hemispheres fight for control. Let go, your ass will follow.
On Double Digits is two songs at once. At first. Their fight is moderated by space guitar that helps them come to terms somewhere in high earth orbit. Ree 91 sounds like Edgar Froese’s cloud consciousness downloaded in Marvin Gaye’s abandoned storage unit. Tree Four builds on a beat you heard before, but don’t open that door—the party house is now submerged in balmy waves of brine. We’re not sure if the panes of glass can hold back the increased pressure but we’ll dance until they burst as I’m pretty sure we can breathe underwater by now.

LATTICE by SPREDTR is available here (as a name-your-price download for a few more days). Try it on the treadmill. Listen while you launder. Put in your ear goggles and close your eyes. Astro travel with SPREDTR.