Friday Five highlights music by Washtenaw County-associated artists and labels.

This edition features electronica by Doogatron, instrumental rock by Mickey Richard, tribal hypnosis by simulatent, outsider music by Klobur, and classic college rock by Suburbo.

Doogatron, Burn Material
Ypsi electronic music trio Doogatron calls itself "Techno Luddites." I don't know enough about the equipment the group uses to create its music to proclaim, "Doth, they'th right'th! Now'th let'th me join'th in'th: Lads, handeth me the woodblocks so I may also lay down a most vociferous four-on-the-floor snare." But there's always been a hands-on sound to the group's techno-informed music: Doogatron's music breathes where techno can sometimes suffocate. Electronic music that's entirely guided by computers tends to reflect that by being perfect, and Doogatron's songs aren't that. They're sometimes awkward, frequently off-kilter, full of wheezy moments that can only come from humans making decisions in the moment to turn that knob right there—even if they're not 100% sure we're it'll go. The 10 songs on Doogatron's latest album, Burn Material, sound like they were created how most of the trio's past songs were: through long-form jams that get edited down (or not—the jam is the key). The tunes feature industrial influences, electro, IDM, and of course, techno, but in its most low-key bedsit form, because while I'm sure Doogatron loves to fill dancefloors, it's not the band's main objective, which is about making music that feels alive.

Mickey Richard, Every Time I Look Outside
Ypsi guitarist Mickey Richard was a longtime member of the Joe Summers Jazz Trio, but he has retired from that gig. And for his latest solo record, Richard's retired from swingin' jazz, too: Every Time I Look Outside is a bluesy instrumental-rock record, and he played everything on the LP, including making the drum loops, so there's a pent-up quality about the music since all the parts were layered into place. 

simulatent, Empathic Rhythms
It's been three years since Ann Arbor's simulatent released any music, and I had forgotten what the project sounded like, but this great two-song EP, which is two hours long, has me going back through the vaults. This is pure headphones music, with rhythms pulsating between the left and right and drones bouncing back and forth. There's a relentless cyclical energy to these tracks, reminiscent of Muslimgauze's epic hypnotic explorations in the rhythm and sound, and the best thing you can do is donate your brain to the tribal vibes and float away in your rapidly expanding headspace.

Klobur, L'harmonie, Une expérience d'écoute détendue
The debut album by Ann Arbor's Klobur might be the closest thing to outsider art that I've written about in the Friday Five. I don't know anything about what is almost certainly a one-person project, and that individual has created something baffling. Klobur describes the eight-track album as a "relaxed listening experience," but it's so quirky and working within its own logic that I found it anything but chill. Like, "Bonne Venue Pommes Soif" has extensive audio drops from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby—a very yell-y movie—that seem to have nothing to do with the song's wheezing synths and off-kilter handclap beats. "Emotional Piano Hijinx" has drops from The Hangover over a similarly herky-jerky synth-and-rhythm track. "L'harmonie poem: Quand ils te voient," which translates to "Harmony, A relaxed listening experience," but this wacky ballad sounds like the soundtrack to a haunted-house ride in a French psychological thriller. I truly have no idea what's going on here, which makes me want to understand L'harmonie poem: Quand ils te voient all the more.

Suburbo, Braving the Muskrat
Ann Arbor's Michael Burbo might be a familiar name if you hang out in Kerrytown's Encore Records. But the longtime music slinger also makes music as Suburbo, and his latest full-length effort, Braving the Muskrat, is another collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas, just like 2020's You Won't Feel a Thing. Both of these albums also feature Pulp contributor Fred Beldin on bass and guitar, and Braving the Muskrat also features Maggie Hopp (Raw Honey) on vocals. One of Burbo's favorite artists is Dave Kusworth, a Keith Richards-esque singer-songwriter who made a long career of ad-hoc creations with friends and pick-up bands on a series of great albums that were more concerned about documenting the tunes than trying to gloss up a rock 'n' roll production. Braving the Muskrat is filled with catchy, twangy, psych-rock, guitar-led songs that I'm sure would have been a local favorite at Schoolkids Records back in the mid-1980s when post-REM jangle-pop bands were a store staple.

Christopher Porter is a library technician and the editor of Pulp.