With
PFFR perhaps caught somewhere between wanting to record an arty hip-hop album appearing to consist mostly of skits and creating a self-conscious parody of wanting to record such an album,
United We Doth seems to be a weird relic for a mindset more than anything else. Whatever
PFFR's motives and context by the time
United We Doth appeared, the overwhelming sense is one of displacement and a failure of connection; if this was an attempt to break to a wider audience musically after their first self-released and import efforts, it didn't quite work. If this had appeared on Rephlex, Ipecac, or Tigerbeat6 rather than Birdman, maybe it would have found an audience more immediately. For a start, a song like "Total Dicks," with its anti-capitalist sentiments and stop-start arrangements, half glitch and half whatever flavor of '80s revival was happening at the time, certainly seems like it should have
Kid606 all over it. Song titles like "Un Phit Psonique" -- a not-exactly-love duet that dissolves into chaotic noise every so often -- and "Sparse Party" also seem like they could have come from either
606's or
Aphex Twin's brain, depending on the mood and the drugs used. Given the members' work as an art collective, it's entirely possible this is one of those releases that needs the visual as much as the audio in order to work -- not for nothing does the CD release include videos as a bonus. But exceptions like the queasy squelch stomp "Fanfanfantatatasysysy" aside,
United We Doth is something less than it could be in the end.