Nebraska isn’t the work of a breadbasket state. There’s no rolling plains in “Stand Your Ground,” and no golden fields of wheat or worn, cattle-spotted pastures. It’s too calculated, too mechanical to rise from the dirt of the American West.
Instead, you’d find Nebraska in the London clubs, spun by an electronic craftsman named Ali Gibbs. “Stand Your Ground” is an invention of the dance floor, where movement evolves and drifts into psychotic bliss; where grooves and drones roll across each other into a light-footed concoction of disco and popcorned electronics.
Gibbs, who creates under the pseudonym Nebraska, molds “Stand Your Ground” from a simple bass line, winding it into an infectious loop as claps count off the beat. A drum and wood block join in before the synthesizers ease through. Sugary bursts of electronics join “Stand Your Ground’s” fray, sliding and swaying above their disco base in a way that’s too buoyant to ever merely stand its ground.