I never thought much about GANG GANG DANCE before last month, when this much-hyped NYC art-rock combo released the CD-DVD set Retina Riddim (Social Registry). A band with live visuals that tries to sell them on disc usually just comes off as self-indulgent (now everyone in flyover country can dig the Super-8 footage our groovy friends shot for our stage show!), but Retina Riddim actually clarifies and codifies the Gang Gang Dance aesthetic–for the first time I can appreciate the group’s experimental-postpunk-tribal-improv ethos, which owes more than a little to the Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The half-hour DVD, its soundtrack, and the 24-minute CD were all pieced together from audio and video captured on the road or at rehearsals, live shows, and sound checks, as well as field recordings and abstract visual vignettes created specifically for the release. Thematic rhymes and recurring motifs blur the lines between the two media, disrupting the usual music-video hierarchy where image follows sound–the throbbing, organic music shifts and evolves the same way a visual narrative might develop, and the film’s permutations have the rhythm and flow of music. –J. Niimi
