CD3 have crafted something genuinely mysterious with Rules For Living – a work that feels calmly capable of doing whatever it wants, seemingly aloof to the humans who made it. This latest offering from Aguirre Records finds the duo creating what can only be described as a melted reconfiguration of popular styles, where familiar sounds are stripped to their bones and distorted into something that feels as old as time itself.

There’s an echo-laden referentiality to Rules For Living that recalls not particular styles of music, but the recently elapsed histories those styles evoke. Cooper and David’s approach brings to mind the free-ranging quality of Vincent Over The Sink’s legendary 22 Coloured Bull Terriers – that same sense of mysterious self-generation that transforms the familiar into something primordial. Like Th Blisks before them, CD3 gesture towards this territory, but here they seem to own it entirely. Tracks like “Glyphted” and “Franzbranntwein” sound like pop songs stripped to their skeletal essence, their sources framed by hindsight in an almost archaeological light. The effect is stunningly weird – these vaguely recalled styles feel ancient, transformed into something resembling folk art through CD3’s distinctive process of decay and reconstruction. “The Duchess” and “Farmhand” exacerbate this impression further, pushing the record into territories that feel yearningly ahistorical yet somehow deeply pertinent.

What emerges is something far north of post-modern yet undeniably ancient – a work that cascades into unexpected epiphanies through its implacable nature. Rules For Living operates in that rare space where experimental process meets intuitive songcraft, creating music that feels both deeply familiar and utterly alien. For fans of Muslimgauze’s more abstract territories, Gastr del Sol’s deconstructed pop experiments, and the outer reaches of the Drag City catalog, this represents essential listening.

Aguirre Records continues their dedication to the most adventurous corners of contemporary experimental music with this remarkable release from CD3 – a duo who understand that the most profound statements often emerge from the careful dismantling of what we think we already know.

A work of stunning imagination that transforms the debris of popular music into something resembling archaeological artifact, Rules For Living confirms CD3 as one of the most intriguing projects operating in the experimental underground today.