Supersystem

For a bunch of guys who spend their days creating off-the-charts musical concoctions, the boys in Supersystem sure came up with a shitty name. Sure, it’s supposed to be all about the music. The craft. The art. But — this just in — I’m a petty bastard. Besides, the generic moniker hardly does justice to the kind of screwball synth-punk-world fusion found on the band’s new album, Always Never Again. Then again, this is a fresh start for the quartet, given the addition of a new drummer, a minty-fresh contract with Touch and Go (home of TV on the Radio and Blonde Redhead) and, sigh, a name change. The band dropped its previous name (El Guapo) in favor of something that is perhaps more fitting to all the Kraftwerk and Ethiopiques comparisons that Supersystem garners. But if the band should have learned anything from those artists (other than copping their music), it’s that all that cutting-edge artistry doesn’t matter if nobody remembers your name.