The music of West Coast producer oOoOO is probably best described as dreary. His new EP, Our Loving Is Hurting Us, reaches again and again into a seemingly endless reservoir of melancholy, pitting washy vocals against crisp hip-hop percussion and chirping synths. At around seventy beats a minute, each of the record’s five songs are just a hair too slow to fit in with the Brainfeeder or Wedidit beat-oriented, space-glitch aesthetic; instead, oOoOO’s songs seem intent on conjuring sustained feelings of decay and dissolution. It’s the kind of music that would provide a perfectly quiet soundtrack to a car accident, or the day after a break-up when you can’t get out of bed and instead drift in and out of sleep.

Not that’s there’s nothing to speak of on OLIHU – in fact, the clackety hi-hats and pulsing drums provide quite a bit of forward momentum – just that its remarkable energy is seems to turn in on and finally consume itself. Much of each song is spent in suspended animation, alternating between activity and near-silence. On the standout “Starr,” the tension peaks in a blistering guitar solo that stretches over treble-y strings, stuttering drums, and pitched down voice. Immediately afterwards, “Break Yr Heartt” unleashes rapidfire hi-hats against vibraphones and a dreamy, auto-tuned chorus. “I didn’t mean to break your heart,” someone stutters, but they sound so far away you wonder if it even matters.

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