Brainfeeder beat wizard [Matthewdavid](http://pitchfork.com/artists/28977-matthewdavid/) and his partner, the visual artist Jesselisa Moretti, founded the cassette label [Leaving Records](http://leavingrecords.com/) in 2009. Since then, they've released everything from freak folk to instrumental hip-hop to free-jazz and psychedelic funk. The pair recently partnered with Stones Throw to release the Dual Form compilation, a set of 19 new tracks that highlights that eclectic Leaving Records vision and also serves as an announcement of an ongoing distribution agreement between the two labels.
While the collection is the perfect primer for Matthewdavid's and Moretti's taste, it's almost impossible to pin down what that taste reveals about the two artists, one of whom is already on a shortlist of the strangest musicians currently working. The Leaving Records vision forms a large umbrella, and most of the music the label releases is abstruse, and difficult to classify. But the tracks on Dual Form do tend to have some comfortable points of comparison to help listeners get their bearings.
For one thing, most of them contain a loose thread of focus, a core which is surrounded by distracting noise. That noise comes in the form of loose dialogue, in arrhythmic interruptions, anything that your yoga teacher might refer to as "the distractions of your day." "Windy Windy" by [Dntel](http://pitchfork.com/artists/1121-dntel/) (aka Jimmy Tamborello, of [the Postal Service](http://pitchfork.com/artists/3377-the-postal-service/)), is a perfect example. The track builds off a pleasant little loop, and then totally submerges that loop in a waterfall of ambient noise, before the pattern finally emerges unscathed at the end of the song. Even the most straightforward song on the collection, a kind of gateway drug in the form of [Julia Holter](http://pitchfork.com/artists/29994-julia-holter/) covering [Arthur Russell](http://pitchfork.com/artists/3635-arthur-russell/), has snippets of dialogue floating through the performance, as if it were a bootleg recording that turned up in somebody's basement, a long-forgotten remnant of some LA newbie's obsessive recording of his first week in the city of angels.
Most of the songs are unsettled, surreal, and distorted, never ugly but never particularly easy to get a solid grasp on, especially given how quickly they flow into one another. Pleasant, off-kilter bass from Liverpool producer the Cyclist on "Visions" melts into loose verses from [Serengeti](http://pitchfork.com/artists/29808-serengeti/) whose abstract, hollowed out voice makes perfect sense for a loopy beat from Matthewdavid himself (the duo are identified as Davis, the name of an EP they released together in 2011). From there, we tumble into the minute-long "Lion's Dream", another simple loop, this one dwarfed by domino shuffles and replete with rattles and fuzz. Thankfully, there's an internal logic governing these transitions that helps to cushion the shock of diving into a new sound experiment every couple of minutes.
When interviewed Matthewdavid, born Matthew McQueen, tends to couch his preference for offbeat music in spiritual terms. And while sneerers are going to sneer, it's impossible to deny that there is some spirituality to Dual Form. That's partly because the collection jolts you out of everyday listening patterns so effectively; expectations are useless in the midst of an album full of left turns, and the experience puts the willing listener in the most open mindset possible. And it's partly due to the unique beauty of the collection. Anticon co-founder Odd Nodsam's contribution, the stunning "Sisters", is all gleaming tones and angelic voices. And "Peace", from Muscovite producer Lapti, is aptly named with exceptionally pretty rainbow chords and a friendly shuffling pace.
That open mindset we talked about is necessary for the most outre tracks here. "Labelle Gross", provided by the field recording hip-hop instrumentalist Oscar McClure is as disjointed as you might expect those two genres to be when combined and nearly impossible to get your head around. Some of the interruptions on Dem Hunger's "Glue Suit" are unpleasantly jarring, similar to the static expulsions on Lou Reed's "Kicks" without that calming heroin croon. But in contrast there's a straightforwardness to contributions from Philly beatmaker Knx (formerly Knxledge, whom Dilla heads should be familiar with) and Belgian loopmaster Ssaliva, who somehow manages to effectively deploy bird calls in the midst of an electronic melange. Perhaps the most enjoyably simple track of all is "Cooked Love, Lady Bomb", a slice of sun-ripened funk from the one-man Floridian band, Dream Love.
So what can we tell about Matthewdavid and Moretti from this collection? They are definitely outsiders and they favor their fellows. They are likely both inheritors of the "freak" mantle that Hunter S. Thompson assigned to himself and his ilk. And they are probably two of the most open-minded artists you're going to hear from. Dual Form, might be just too plain weird for many listeners. But for others it should be a worthy exploration, a journey into the curatorial whims of two artists whose tastes, as obscure as they might be, have an undeniable, if indefinable, cohesion.