Replikants

In 1995 Justin Trosper, guitarist from Unwound, and that band’s original drummer Brandt Sandeno assembled Replikants. At first listen the project’s synth-heavy, sample-rich textures evoke trancy space rock far more than the Olympia noise-rock sound Unwound helped define. The same absence of fixed structure and indifference to convention that had placed Unwound at the front of the noise-rock movement was simply redirected by Trosper and Sandeno—joined here by Joe Plummer of Bare Minimum—toward keyboards, jazz phrasing, and generous reverb, producing an unabrasive tangle of sound. The group’s first album, This Is Our Message, appeared in 1997; Slickaphonics followed in 1999, both issued on 5 Rue Christine.