Fuckpony: Children of Love

Nothing quite gets my juices flowing like an electronic artist/group with a pointlessly profane name, and yes, Fuckpony fits the bill as such just fine. Unfortunately, the name of the duo is just about the only thing about Children of Love that gets my juices flowing. Consisting of Jay Haze and Samim, two fellows who’ve actually been doing the dance music thing for a while, Fuckpony seems too content to chill out and let the music flow to spark any real feeling, any real sense of engagement with the music — the beats are sparse, the vocals incidental and highly processed, and the synths lack any kind of punch whatsoever. Sure, exceptions exist as they so often do, and on Children of Love, “It’s Only Music” actually has enough of a beat to establish something approaching a groove, and “Mafalda” is actually sort of appealing in a Nine Inch Nails (see: “Sanctified”) sort of way until the off-key torch singing shows up. For the most part, however, this is too easily relegated to background listening, which is probably for the best, given that whenever it hits the foreground, it’s nothing short of boring.