Nikki Nair‘s new EP is very much a record for our times. In times as eventful and fast-moving as these, that phrase refers to a shorter span than it normally would—less an era, more a financial quarter. The title, Violence Is the Answer, could be a riff on any number of 2025’s events so far, from Luigi Mangione’s alleged killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, to, more broadly, the unprecedented level of political violence in the U.S. over the past year. On “Smooth,” Nair lazily croons, as if rubbing his temples from stress, “I just need someone to pay my bills while the violence continues.” I feel that. I think a lot of us do. On a lighter note, the EP also contains a track about filing taxes, which, like something out of a Pynchon novel, is both a jokey love song and a satire about wage slavery: “Going to work I want to walk right into traffic/(Just wanna file my taxes with you)/But I know if I did that then you’d have to file alone.”
That a dance music EP should have such depth and wit shows what makes Nikki Nair great. The L.A.-via-Atlanta-via-Knoxville producer forged his art at DIY shows—a far cry from the nightclubs and music festivals that shaped so many of his peers. This gives his music, even when it’s perfectly groovy and what you could call “DJ-friendly,” a unique punkish flair. Stylistically, his music is gleefully unbound by conventions of genre and, often, the needs of the club—including by centering the lyrics, which Nair himself often sings.
That is perhaps more true on Violence Is the Answer than on any of Nair’s previous releases. The record contains what may be one of the strangest genre mashups of all time: “Juliette,” a collaboration with Harmony Tividad and Blaketheman1000 that successfully melds twee indie vocals and guitars with stuttering footwork drums and samples of cocking guns. This kind of scampish boundary-pushing is the EP’s strength as much as its weakness. “Juliette” is a trick well-landed: an impressive feat of musical synergy, but not much more. It has none of the personality or emotional depth of the indie rock it’s drawing from. And, outside a basement show or, perhaps, a set by DJ Bus Replacement Service, its dance floor potential is nonexistent.
Nair has an impressive command of a wide range of genres, able to confidently switch across them from one record to the next. Unfortunately, his sound of choice this time around is a kind of PC Music-style hyperpop, and though he captures its lurid funhouse energy, his take lacks the subtle gravitas that characterizes the best versions of this music. Also, while I can understand how this kind of demented vibe works within the context of our deeply weird era, I’d personally need Brat Summer to be a little farther in the rearview before I could get down to this sort of sound again.
