Funckarma & Cane (live)

Funckarma are two brothers, Don and Roel Funcken, hailing from the Dutch capital of The Hague. Though they can sound similar to the likes of Autechre and Funkstorung, with a former DMC mixing champ and a student of "sonology" (a distinctly European blend of scientific principles and electro-acoustic and musique concrete recording and compositional practices) between them, Funckarma are anything but. The brothers' first material appeared in 1999 through Djak-Up-Bitch, a label parodying fellow Dutch label Djax-Up-Beats, a comparatively more dancefloor-apologetic imprint and the subject of scorn among Dutch producers with a desire to push the envelope of experimental post-techno. The group's first EP featured a Funkstorung remix, which seemed to pitch them as the latest outcropping of the busy-drums-and-minor-key-melodies set, but the EP's collage of textures and sophisticated patchwork harmonics far exceed that association. A second EP, titled simply "2, " followed a few months on, but didn't achieve the same level of innovation as the first. A Djak full-length, as well as a release for Funkstorung's Musik aus Strom label, are forthcoming.