Prepare for a heady dose of left-field fire from little-known duo BARAKOUNTA and their debut track ‘Crime’. What first sounds like grunge-rock with a dirty guitar line and bold vocals, a combination that brings to mind Blood Red Shoes, very quickly turns into a whole other beast. With siren sounds, escalating tempo, and hit-the-floor bass drops which echo patterns of old-school EDM, there’s nothing traditional about BARAKOUNTA. Here’s how the band depict their first release: “The point of the song is that we got tired of people to telling us what to do, what to hear, what to see, what to wear. We love to do things in our way even it’s wrong.” The pair of Chloe Ann and Nikonn moved to London from Athens in 2015 and have been working on their album ever since, so we can be sure of more riotous acts of sound vandalism soon: sonic graffiti we welcome wholeheartedly. - HT