Toronto hardware duo World News release “ON STEROIDS,” an analog-only debut that breathes through cables.
A warehouse light blinks once, twice, then yields to a tide of electricity—so begins “ON STEROIDS”, the debut LP from Toronto hardware duo World News, a record that breathes through cables rather than code. The pair—Bill Cutbill and Qu Mi—work with six tiers of machines and no computer, sculpting improvisations into eight pieces that feel both handmade and hypermodern. Indeed, the album reads as a field study in texture: analogue synths purr and gnash, drum machines stutter into muscle memory, and vocals appear as silhouettes—human signals folded into the circuitry. In fact, the project’s power lies in how it reconciles opposites: rave mechanics with ambient patience, house gravity with techno grit, and a reflective core that refuses to flatten into pure function.
Musically, “ON STEROIDS” privileges pulse and timbre over verse-chorus habit. Kicks act like architecture; pads serve as weather. Moreover, the arrangements bloom through accumulation rather than spectacle—layers arriving in small, persuasive increments until you suddenly notice the room is shaking. The duo’s lyrical approach is spare, half-chanted, half-whispered, less narrative than mnemonic: phrases recur like stickers on a flight case, useful, worn, suggestive. However, the intention is deeply human—two artists translating nights in the studio into a language of pressure, release, and afterglow.
A quick tour of the eight tracks: “HYPE” creeps in with heavy bass and padded percussion, dark but kinetic, then opens its shoulders to a kick that thumps like a door you finally choose to enter. “LAST CHANCE” is more chaotic by design—pads and synths swarm while a bell-toned pluck throws a small torchlight across an afro-inflected drum pattern. “MOVE ON ME” pares things down to slow-motion drums, 808 rumble, and an odd, sketchy vocal cadence; the minimalism is a dare, and the groove rewards patience. “EJECTION” begins as sci-fi theatre—FX chatter, bass withdrawn, then the low-end roars back with congas, synths, and distorted vocoder phrases; it’s unruly, yes, but thrilling in its risk. “BALLROOM” moves like fog under neon: a slow pulse, lofi percussion, melancholy piano, and a robotic vocal set just outside the frame. “MAGAZINES” conjures a nocturne of misty pads and brass, peppered with radio-static speech and field-recorded rustles—forest, water, wind—turning ambience into narrative. “I DON’T KNOW” clamps down on a dark kick-and-synth chassis as a chant—“I don’t know how to feel about it”—loops into a kind of micro-anthem for uncertainty. “JELLYFISH” closes the set with chaotic SFX and breath-on-the-mic whispers; the melody resists settling, yet the intrigue never breaks.
Moreover, the duo’s live-first ethos is audible: grooves feel discovered rather than drafted, as if the machines are co-writers with moods of their own. The mix favors warmth over gloss, dirty edges over surgical sheen, which reinforces the album’s tactile charm. In Addition, nods to late-90s electronica flicker throughout—The Chemical Brothers’ propulsion, LCD’s human clatter—without collapsing into homage.
Honesty requires a caveat. The concept occasionally overreaches its catchiness; several pieces prize texture so fiercely that melody arrives late or not at all. The result, at times—particularly on “JELLYFISH” and the densest moments of “EJECTION”—tilts toward beautiful disarray. However, that same extremity is also the record’s signature: a willingness to place curiosity above convenience. What lingers after the last kick fades isn’t a single hook but a sensorial residue—the smell of hot circuitry, the memory of a room vibrating, the sensation of agency returned to the body.
In a word, the project “ON STEROIDS” documents World News honing craft in public, turning improvisation into architecture and texture into plot. It may not always sing; it certainly moves. And when it moves, it convinces you that machines, too, can tell the truth.
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