After a solid 7-inch, a decent full- length and now this mediocre EP, Olympia's IQU (formerly icu) are still struggling to realize their vast potential. They come closest with their live show, where magnetic frontman K.O. lays down the beats on turntables with a guitar around his neck, headphones on his head, and a lengthy cigarette dangling from his lower lip. To see him working the theramin with the neck of his guitar as he stands between a fashion- conscious girl on Moog and a spastic punk on standup bass is to see one possible permutation of the rockband of the future. But as fun as they are to dance to, IQU's compositional skills are underdeveloped, and their records inspire only passing interest.

And then there's filmmaker and performance artist Miranda July. On Girls on Dates, July adds a surreal spoken word narrative to IQU's backing tracks. That's right, I said "spoken word." You thought it went out in the early '90s? No such luck. And while the music on Girls on Dates is rather dull, July's vocals render the tunes virtually unlistenable. Think about it: how often do you reach for those Bongwater LPs? For Chrissake, people, records should be enjoyed repeatedly, and no one wants to hear these goofy stories more than once.

July's contributions are a shame, because "Kida Co-Coma"-- a song on which IQU comes up with a cool metallic hip-hop beat and runs it through a ridiculously overstated flanger-- definitely hints at something interesting. With that groove and a gentle synthesizer line, "Kida Co-Coma" is somewhat reminiscent of Boards of Canada's warm electronic universe. Sadly, Miranda's lame storytelling kills it dead. The rest of the EP, consisting of three different mixes of the title track, has less good music for July to ruin. The lilting, forgettable original seems like mere ambience for July's rant, and the two stripped- down remixes (one by K.O. and one by DJ Swiggs) thankfully reduce the words to a few looped phrases. So, be sure and catch IQU when they come to town, but don't bother picking up this record.

-Mark Richard-San