Archive for September, 2023

Burning Motherfuckers – An Ki

Posted: 3 September 2023 in Albums
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Hærverk Industrier – 25th August 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Having a memorable name counts of a lot – as does having one that stands out at the top of Google searches. How many times have you had conversations where one of you has been struggling to think of the name of… that band… that band… You know, the one with… they did an album…. They supported… clicking fingers, scratching heads, gesticulating. Nah. And the acts that are simply untraceable, particularly those with banal single-word monikers. It’s like they didn’t think about the practicalities when picking a name – or they simply have no interest in being found, which is commercial suicide before they’ve even started.

This is not an accusation which can be levelled at this Oslo-based noise rock duo, who follow up their 2012 self-titled 12” EP on Handmade Records and self-released 2017 cassette This Century with their new album An Ki, which is being released by Hærverk Industrier and promises ‘Four tracks of extreme dynamics, density and intensity, resulting in an almost claustrophobic chaos of sheer rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy (sic)’. Burning Motherfuckers is neither forgettable nor hard to find.

The same is true of their music, in terms of its being memorable at lease. An Ki is an album which contains just four tracks, but ‘Lost It’ is a beast which clocks in at ten and a half minutes, and the title track is over twenty minutes long, making this a monster that runs for over forty minutes of feedback-strewn riffery. It’s a noisy mess of a record, and truly glorious in the most cacophonous and challenging way. ‘Difficult’ music, when it’s harsh and loud and discordant, isn’t simply something you can step on from. It’s hard to describe, but it’s disruptive, physically, and mentally. Such turbulence disrupts the mindflow and makes waves around the organs.

‘Eilert’ builds and builds and builds and it takes the very idea of building to a ludicrous level, up, and up, and up… what do you do with this? The form is very much 90s underground alternative, and this manic racket calls to mind the likes of Terminal Cheesecake – but then again, the driving guitars and thrashing drums of ‘Lost It’ are quite reminiscent of That Fucking Tank – arguably one of the greatest noise duos ever, and an act who really pushed the parameters not only of noise rock, but of the two-piece format to the max. And Burning Motherfuckers… woah, do these bastards make a racket. ‘Lost It’ hurts; the tempestuous assault of everything all at once is not comfortable. But it’s more than that: the vocals are deranged, demented, and this is brain-splitting, cracked, something else, an unapologetic mess of noise.

‘Unless It’s Trees’ is a real departure and stands apart from the rest of the album: a soft, almost folky indie piece, it’s largely bass-driven and it’s uncomfortable but gentle at the same time.

And then there’s the title track. Fuck, and fuck, and fuck. It’s a monster in every sense, taking the mutant form of an eternal guitar drone and mangling noise which builds while discordant vocals melt and burn among a riotous racket.

It’s not neat or tidy, it’s not even ordered or organised. But it’s not conventionally noisy or messy: this is something else. It’s a new level of mangled noise and it’s difficult, awkward, It hurts, and it feels like taking a kicking and being hit around the head with a plank. These motherfuckers sure know how to make music with impact.

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Watch: ‘Dead Air’ by Modern Technology

Posted: 3 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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‘Dead Air’ is the lead single from ferocious noise rock duo Modern Technology’s new full-length Conditions of Worth.

‘Dead Air’ kicks into life with a dense smog-like atmosphere, engulfing the listener in a battering of hard-hitting drums, fuzzed out bass riffs and gruff, acidic yelling. The song’s chorus “IS THIS HOW THE WORLD ENDS!?” becomes a cautionary mantra as the duo reminisce about good times gone, trudging on through a world that has become increasingly scarier, more dangerous, inhospitable and absurd. Dead Air is a sonic beatdown forged from chaos, restlessness and hostility concerning our impending shared future. The goal for the Dead Air music video was simple – to capture the rawness and visceral live energy of Modern Technology’s celebrated live performances.

Shot in exquisite black and white, director Chris Purdie favours simplicity and authenticity, stripping everything back and placing the duo and their live gear into a proverbial blank space, captured in minimal unbroken takes. Even devoid of an audience feeding back their energy, the heavy pair showcase the sweat, fury and unyielding power that makes their exhilarating shows so compelling. With this song and much of the album being written and demoed during the pandemic, the band’s on screen solitude echoes the conditions in which the album was conceived. The visible anguish on the faces of band members Chris Clarke and Owen Gildersleeve mirror their shared concerns about social unrest, austerity, the climate crisis, and the feelings of fear, hopelessness and anger that came from such turbulent times – the very themes that make up Conditions Of Worth.

Director Chris Purdie, who has previously worked on seminal videos for the likes of Oxbow and AVSA, says of this project “I knew from the first time I heard Modern Technology that I wanted to work with them on a video like this. Visually I felt we shared similar aesthetics, so I pitched to them the idea of a RIFF.Underground-style performance video, minus the trappings of the live environment. When the band explained the meaning behind the song to me, it became clear that we were all on the same page so the visual design came together quickly. Having that extra freedom to explore meant we could really go to town with extreme camera angles, fog, and especially light placement.”

Watch the video here:

Binary Order – Slow Blade

Posted: 1 September 2023 in Singles and EPs
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28th August 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Techno/industrial is rather like craft beer. It was invented in Europe (KMFDM are obvious progenitors back in 1984), before being embraced in the States and with Wax Trax! almost singlehandedly spawning a factory for the genre, which in turn found significant popularity in mainland Europe, particularly in Germany.

English exponents are rather harder to come by, although Benjamin Blank, who has been working under the Binary Order moniker since 2008, is a worthy representative. His words on this latest single, lifted from forthcoming album The Future Belongs to the Mad (out at the end of November), illustrate perfectly why this mode of music is ideally-suited to life in Shit Britain: “’Slow Blade” is a reflection of the decline I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. It’s a decline that has gotten us to a point where we are more concerned with passing the blame than attempting fix the decay that has rotted away at us all, leaving many despondent and lost, myself included.”

I’m writing this in the week that, as schools are due to reopen after the summer break, hundreds are being forced to close or otherwise relocate students because the buildings are unsafe, built using cheap concrete which is structurally unsound and liable to collapse without notice. Our government has known about this for years, but has failed to act. And, indeed, over the last thirteen years, our infrastructure has been slowly crumbling – our roads, our sewerage systems, our rail network – as profit has been put before people, and we’ve become embroiled in petty patriotism, culture wars, and outright horrible racism and prejudice of every kind. It’s no wonder Blank feels as if our small island is sinking while the only things rising are rates of poverty, depression, and other mental health issues.

‘Slow Blade’ feels like a significant progression from the material which comprised previous album, Messages from the Deep. While it incorporated guitar elements, it was very much in the vein of early Nine Inch Nails, the sounds crisp, tight, overtly synth-dominated. In contrast, ‘Slow Blade’ is far more gnarly, far dirtier, more raw, rough-hewn, and simply more metal. And not the kind of metal you’d likely associate with industrial – the likes of Ministry or perhaps Godflesh – but gritty, murky black shit smashed together with the guitar slabs of nu-metal. At least, to begin with – because ‘Slow Blade’ is a song of psychotic multiple personalities, and a song in three parts.

Unexpectedly, the songs slows and goes first expansive and melodic, then explodes in a frenzy of stuttering techno beats that’s more Fixed than Pretty Hate Machine, and then it brings the two elements together in the third and final stage. While to suggest it has a particular arc, narrative or otherwise, feels like something of a stretch, ‘Slow Blade’ transitions through a series of emotions, from blind raging fury to the acceptance of defeat as everything collapses. The end is final. And we all know it’s coming.

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Watch: ‘Flesh it Out’ by Proteins Of Magic

Posted: 1 September 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Operating in the same dark and subversive corners where Fever Ray, Jenny Hval or Bjork may find solace, ‘Flesh it Out’ is a track that arrives shrouded in a mystique all its own, with a strident confidence to defy conventions.

Written while gazing into the flickering flames of an open fire in her current base of Nashville, Proteins of Magic found herself caught in the daze of a flashback in which she had seen a young couple openly having sex during the day on the beach in Aotearoa / New Zealand. As Kelly Steven AKA Proteins of Magic remembers:

“The hope and the idealism, the youthful sheen on their skin, being unaware of what life lies ahead for them. That is what triggered the start of the lyrical process. I think the song lays out an emotionally treacherous life for them, a day in the life spanning 10 years and 2min52 seconds.”

Surrounding surrealistic lyrics with hex-like incantations, tribal rhythms, sinister synthesiser trills, and haunting woodwind sections, PoM creates an unsettling ambience and intimidating presence to send shivers. “If I give you a smile will you resuscitate me?” she coos through gritted teeth. Building to a hypnotic climax, ‘Flesh It Out’ couples brooding instrumentals with a litany of foreboding vocal textures, each representing a disjointed voice of differing lost souls. Foreshadowing a bleak future, these spectres emerge to erode the wide eyed innocence of youth and replace it with existential questions and hollow false promises.

As its title may suggest, ‘Flesh It Out’ was born from within a jam to evoke a spirit that is discernibly raw and immediate, before being layered and moulded repeatedly to find its current recorded form. The finished song spawns, regenerates and severs over its three-minute course, summoning a sense of self determination out of the chaos.

Directed by Ranger Garrett, ‘Flesh It Out’ arrives with an art-house style official video intended to capture a ‘day in the life’ in Nashville. Showing another side of the fluorescent glitz and glamour of the music city, it was shot around various alternative landmarks using a vintage Sony PMW-F3 and Sony Handycam DCR-SX45, including footage of the Dragon Park that was featured in Harmony Korine’s Gummo.

“I liked the idea of it being lo-fi and raw, and I wanted the filming to be like the recording process,” says Kelly of the video. “Less formulated. The cameras were actually literally held together with tape and things were falling apart. I wanted it to be a ‘day in the life’ in Nashville, in a manic, irregular, fractured way.”

Watch the video here:

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Credit: Chris Cuffaro

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