Insound Staff Pick - 2008! On his first solo album, Tobacco explores a darker, starker, and altogether more badass dimension of his complex vision. With his group, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Tobacco distinguishes himself as a master of jagged beats, glowing melodies, and pronounced tension. This time, he works alone, in rural Pennsylvania, away from conventions and interference.

As always, Tobacco recorded Fucked Up Friends using analog synths and tape machines, which gives his work a timeless distance from digital pop music at large. His tracks evoke sonar, mellotrons, and deteriorating cassette tapes; his windshield-rattling beats thump hard against their technological limitations; his hooks emerge from thick ponds of distortion, which heightens their hypnotic power. Fucked Up Friends is equally cosmopolitan and self-contained, the soundtrack for an imaginary underwater cop show, a welcome stranger anywhere in time and space.