for your consideration: TAP. The Anything People (TAP), the musical duo and their eponymous debut album, are quite the enigma – enigma electronica, if you will. In attempting and then attempting to avoid dissection of their presence and work, two lyrical moments strike me – full of melodious cynicism, in ‘Opaque’ they sing ‘you believe in anything, because we are anything’: a damning observation of our hollow, post-modern state if ever there was one. Their ethos appears to be the very anti of this kind of lost-sheep behaviour. And then they admit, ‘we believe in anything, because you are anything’, perhaps (though I imagine, perhaps not) admitting their own tendencies towards the seduction of ‘anything’: anything being better than nothing. And so, before I write of the second lyrical epiphany (or anti-epiphany, for I am none the wiser), I shall speak of their music. TAP: this is electronica, this is hip hop, though they profess that they ‘[brew] intriguing ideas and inventive designs that choose not to abide by the limitations set by the general hip hop community’. Thus we have a post-hip hop sensibility infused by a European synth feel, a touch of electronic-orchestral, a smidgeon of musique concrete/musique abstraite: I sense a stroke of Kraftwork, Walter Carlos, Schaeffer, Russolo, Pratella & Cage. cf. the automotronic mayhem that segues betwixt ‘The Trust’ and ‘Have a Good One!’; the change in tempo towards the end of ‘Safe Distance’ and the driving thump, infused with haunting chanting of ‘Cool Kidz Combo’; the pseudo-orchestrations of ‘In The Clear’. This album contains some catchy tunes. It has atmosphere, scope and an under-the-skin quality: I smiled, I closed my eyes. I really like this album. And so onto the second lyrical moment that makes my understanding of the TAP boys ever oblique. TAP themselves again: ‘Critics may say that TAP is a gimmick in itself with elitist egocentricities, but driven by an opinionated belittling curve’ and it’s easy to view this music, this project as one that has a tongue somewhat in its cheek. It’s also easy to see that these guys have an earnest dedication, a conviction, a passion fuelling their creativity: this is music that at one level really means business. Then, in ‘Showtime’ they tell us, ‘you don’t even know, this is just a show.’ To me, this is telling and sums up the post-structuralist sensibility that states we are all living in our own constructed performance, a performance built from the materials of available discourse therefore we are not ‘real’, this is not ‘real’ – it’s a construct, a device, a stage. A show. Yet, as Brecht showed us, even the most entertaining of shows can have a biting substance, a subversive intent to pull the rug out from under us.