duck/duck/punch. EP

duck/duck/punch.

It’s annoying to type, sure, but it’s worth the listen.  Comprised of University of Minnesota-Duluth students Bryan Rudell and Trent Waterman and backed by their wide array of electronic instrumentals, duck/duck/punch. has gone from not really existing to opening for Boston lovechildren Freezepop on a mini-Minnesota tour just last week.

A scan of their EP explains why, even though it’s not saying much.

I must be a bad twenty-first century media consumer, because my attention span is a little too long for this release.  Clocking in at a disappointing seven minutes, the duck/duck/punch. EP gets me revved up around the same time it ends and my iTunes moves on to Duran Duran ( coincidentally one of the group’s major influences ).

And while the length is a substantial complaint, it’s really my only one.  I know a lot of artists who set out to make genre music, be it rock, hip-hop, electronica, or anything else, but a number of them seem to fall short.  They have the elements, the instruments, and good intentions, but they’re just slapping it all together and handing it out to their friends.

Waterman and Rudell, though, have clearly done their research.  I can whine all day about the EP only being two tracks long, but the fact is that those two tracks are put together with consideration and craft, not just tossing out synth en masse.  The composition makes me believe that these two are really thinking more about how it sounds than the fact that it makes sound.  They’ve put effort into both recording and thinking – a novel idea for a first disc.

Oh, and they’re danceable as hell.  That’s a major plus.

I do wish there was more to this; I really do.  In a month I’ll have a hard time listening to it because when I want to hear duck/duck/punch., my option will be “This track or this one – oh, but I’ve heard them both a few dozen times.”  But I caught their debut show in Duluth last week and they played much more than they’ve released, so my hesitation about this EP is calmed by knowing that more is to come.

Cheers.

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