Techno producer Bruno Pronsato and Benjamin Myers (one-half of Benoit & Sergio) return as NDF, with their new EP, 'Cruel Is The Color'. It comes six years after their only release so far, the William Trevor-inspired twilit-techno opus, 'Since We Last Met'—an EP which caught everyone off-guard. * Issued on James Murphy's DFA label, and also featuring a 17-minute Ricardo Villalobos remix, its title track was heralded as a "10-minute dance track you don't ever want to end" by Pitchfork, who subsequently included it as one of their highlights in their My Decade in Music So Far round-up of last year. * By September 2014, Pronsato & Myers had been sharing a studio in Berlin for about a year, but were focusing on separate projects, keeping opposing schedules. Lunch plans at the studio one day that month instead resulted in the creation of a new track, the eponymous 'Cruel Is The Color" .The entire process took about 30 minutes, with Pronsato on percussion and synths, and Myers on vocals, synths, and an acoustic guitar which had been lying around the studio. It was the first time they'd worked together in years—and they recollect that 'the guitar and synths just climaxed together, like two lovers reuniting after a long absence.' * Having now resolved to write an EP, they felt that the other tracks needed to follow in that same vein—'a more acoustic treatment with elements of dance music still present'—so they sat down the following winter in Pronsato's apartment and recorded 'Certain Corners' (with Israeli bassist Yonatan Levi), and 'Another Year' ,in that same style. Myers recalls 'waking up early and walking in the cold Berlin mornings to Bruno's spot and, perhaps because there was a lot of personal turmoil in those winter months, we both really got into skullduggery and chicanery as concepts for the record—the ways that dishonest behaviors amongst friends, acquaintances and lovers (old and new) undermine a sense of self and security in our music scene and all its overlapping systems of value and parameters. We wanted to make a moral record.' * The EP also includes reworkings of the new tracks by BBC Radiophonic Workshop director Matthew Herbert, and Foom label head Ben Freeney. It is set to be released on October 21st on Foom.
