Last year's Secret Lawns pegged Portland's Charlie Salas-Humara, a.k.a. Panther, as yet another one-man laptop explosion, mining dance-floor freakouts from his proverbial sock drawer. It was fun but limiting, which is probably why Salas-Humara recruited 31 Knots drummer Joe Kelly for 14 kt God, Panther's debut on Kill Rock Stars. Things are much different here, as Panther eschews twitchy boombox chic for a gangly, rhythmic clusterfuck that's alternately math-y, tribal, sexy and even mellow.
Ropey bass pulls every song along like a 10-time tug-of-war champ, leaving Kelly's lockstep stick work and Salas-Humara's dreamy singing to follow suit. The catchy title track is as choppy and swooning as a slow-motion Pattern Is Movement, while bongos and jungle chants invade “These Two Trees.” “Take Yr Cane” uses an off-kilter string loop for unsettling effect, and the leadoff “Puerto Rican Jukebox” finds Salas-Humara crying, “Wait, wait, it's a defective trait” over rubbery post-funk in the vein of Q and Not U's final album.
Panther's transformation plays in reverse to that of Supersystem, who started life as the double-drummered, rhythm-mad El Guapo, but moved into complicated dance pop (and helped produce Q and Not U) under their later guise. 14 kt God is frustrating, squirming all over and often following slices of sublime pop (“Her Past Are the Trees” and “Worn Moments”) with needling exercises full of irksome, repetitive sounds. And while the drumming is solid, it begins to feel monotonous by the end, the one constant while Salas-Humara makes a mad grab for every fleeting whim.
Some of the experiments do come off well, though. “On the Lam” and “Glamorous War” take their time with a syrupy slowness that satisfies, perhaps because each song is less than three minutes. It's a good start, one that could spell something even better in Panther's next incarnation.
