San Diego"s Kill Me Tomorrow borrows heavily from the post-punk minimalism of The Fall and injects its own collage of noise and obscure melodies to spruce it up for modern consumption. Influences range from 1960"s garage ("Lawn") to dark, experimental-electronic fusion ("Travelling Salesman Dilemma"). It sounds like holding a glass to a damp wall, eavesdropping on The Fall in the studio during the Kurious Oranj sessions with Calvin Johnson on guitar. Do you like The Fall?

Several remixes from fellow San Diego pals (members of Tristeza, The Black Heart Procession, The Album Leaf, etc.) add varying degrees of texture to the proceedings, which are confusing due to the fact that several songs surface in altered forms as many as three times on this ten-tack EP. The result is a tense head-trip not unlike listening to the soundtrack to a Dario Argento film. Beneath all the scary noise, though, is the simple set-up of guitar, voice, and drums.

Other audible influences range from The Cramps to mid-period Wire and even German experimentalists, Can. The tinny racket of "Stronger Toys" showcases a latent knack for songcraft, but the trio does its damnedest to avoid any semblance of convention. The slurred vocals promise some sort of deviance is afoot, but the lyrics could be about Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen for all I can decipher. Wait, I think he just said "shit on the floor" or something in "Liason", so scratch that last bit.

Kill Me Tomorrow has been kicking around San Diego for a handful of years, pushing itself further and further away from the mainstream by pairing down its instrumentation and embracing the glory of dissonance. This EP proves that the members of Kill Me Tomorrow are strange birds indeed. I could not imagine playing this music live night after night- it just seems so loose and haphazard. I could, however, imagine going to see it played, and in the meantime I am going to listen to it.