I Am the Fly Pattern/Function 12″

I AM THE FLY is a synth punk duo out of Essen, Germany. The players here identify as “Musca domestica ♂” and “Musca domestica ♀,” so that should give you a pretty good idea of what we’re dealing with. The music is pretty by-the-book for this kind of stuff—skittery drum machine beats, post-punky bass lines, and kitschy sci-fi synths. The vocal delivery falls somewhere between a sing-songy chat and like a dry physics lecture. It’s clearly a choice—one that might even work were the lyrics less awkward! Instead we’re getting clunkers like “The least enjoyable part of my existence / Is your existence.” I’m sure I would have been kinder to the record had the lyrics been in German, but I still don’t think there’s enough going on here to say that I would have enjoyed these songs—an assessment I feel pretty shitty about making seeing as how I only speak one language and cannot, for the life of me, write music. So, if you’re less likely to be annoyed by lyrics and just love downer-y robotic synth punk, give this a go.

• Reviewer Alex Howell
• Label self-released
• Issue MRR #469 • June 2022