Comprising Oakley Tapola, Chris Hontos, and Aaron Anderson, Beat Detectives function as a Minneapolis/New York City-based trio whose lush, trippy lo-fi rhythms playfully blend influences such as '80s Chicago house, new wave, dub, and boogie. Tapola's echo-drenched vocals typically ride the group's messy, collage-like tracks, which layer a patchwork of blown-out rhythms and samples. Once tracks from Beat Detectives began appearing online in 2012, the group launched a series of cassette releases on respected underground labels, opening with 2013's Casual Encounters of the Third Kind on Moon Glyph—the same imprint that houses Hontos' Krautrock-inspired band Food Pyramid. Music... About Time (Night People) and Music 2 (100% Silk) arrived before the year closed. Attention from DJs such as Legowelt preceded the 2014 release of the group's fourth tape, Ass Cop, on Vancouver's 1080p label. British imprint Where to Now? issued the ambitious double cassette Boogie Chillen/The Hills of Cypress in May of 2015, after which the trio achieved its vinyl debut one month later via Not Not Fun's Climate Change.
