P-Tek
Oh! What a Miracle!“Greetings From the Life!” – for P-Tek, life happens in Austin, even if the sound on second LP Oh! What a Miracle! comes from an Iowa native. Tek, who relocated to Cap City in 2008, spits with the pointed focus of Atmosphere’s Slug (“An Attempt at Focus”) and rocks beats that would fit on a Doomtree disc. The latter’s dynamic MC Dessa contributes both verse and hook to “This Bridge Is Burning for You,” a murky bit of intergalactic futurism that, along with the angelic “A Prayer” (sung by Mother Falcon’s Claire Puckett), keeps Miracle‘s first half from boiling over. Its flip side never stood a chance. The disco- ballroom blitz of “True Romance” kick-starts a “Cold War (Question I)” of industrial strikes (“Meiko Kaji”) and Midwest madness (the title track), cold-shouldered, conceptual aggression that pits P-Tek’s mic styles somewhere between Mac Lethal and former local Paradox.
This article appears in November 25 • 2011.