Noze

Before there was Ed Banger, there was Katapult. The locus of Paris' other electronic crew, Katapult hews more closely to Berlin-styled minimalism -- think restrained bass burble and choppy percussive samples -- but it also displays a debt to hip-hop's cut-and-paste methods, serving as a halfway house for all kinds of fellow travelers, including electro kingpins Black Strobe, Kill the DJ doyenne Chloe and even Ed Banger's own Feadz. ARK's oddball approach, winding untethered jazz samples around unbalanced clunks, sums up the prevailing style. An intriguing snapshot of a scene finding its way.