U TOTEM

RIO-flavoured supergroup U Totem present a debut album which is rich in intriguing and eccentric musical diversions. You tend not to think of RIO as a subgenre in which there are many supergroups, but arguably what U Totem are doing here is analogous to the blending of Slapp Happy and Henry Cow that ultimately yielded projects like Art Bears and News From Babel. Boldly kicking off with the alarming One Nail Draws Another - a truly bizarre epic but also a curiously accessible entry point to U Totem's world - the album rattles through its 62 minutes with a minimum of filler and deserves to be investigated by any fan of avant-garde prog.