Beautiful Skin: “Sex is the Triangle for the Perfect Square” 7”

The prominent use of synthesizers tends to overshadow other common tendencies on new wave records. While Brooklyn duo Beautiful Skin rely very little on synthesizers, they probe far less obvious characteristics of the new wave era. Their single features subtle use of effects, especially chorus, and electronic percussion that does not neatly define a beat. They also play and record nearly everything to emphasize its rhythmic qualities, rather than its tonal or harmonic content. They combine these atypical approaches with a more conventional approach to songwriting and structure. The resulting single looks to the past without overtly dated or derivative. While the group recorded one side of the single themselves and the other with Scott Hollingsworth of the World/Inferno Friendship Society, the two songs provide similar views of the group's approach. (GSL, PO Box 11794, Berkeley, CA 04712-2794)