Active on the label 2014-2016

Raba-HIFF arrive from Stockholm with the kind of electronic attitude that feels too unruly to be polished down into ordinary synthpop. Created by John Gordon and Joon Pontén, the duo channel a rough-edged, punkish sensibility into music that still understands the value of a pop hook. Their songs are playful, abrasive, sly and strangely infectious, the sort of material that seems to smirk at polite expectations while still knowing exactly how to lodge itself in the listener’s head.

Electric Fantastic Sound introduced the group as a mysterious Stockholm duo inspired by names such as Suicide, The Normals, Cosmic Overdose and Cabaret Voltaire, and that lineage makes sense: Raba-HIFF work with primitive machine pulse, outsider wit and a taste for cultural friction rather than smooth surfaces. Releases including FRBFRT STHLM and Diagnos:Galen capture a project that holds up a cracked mirror to everyday life and lets the distortion become part of the truth. For listeners looking for Swedish electronic music with bite, oddness and genuine underground character, Raba-HIFF offer a sound that is gloriously difficult to domesticate.