After a night of completely sobriety and academic discussion on gender issues, Luke of
Trapdoor Tapes handed me this cassette of his and Harriet's (Military Position among other projects) live PE duo Armour Group, featuring recordings of two live performances. The dub on this copy is somewhat low. I'm told that one of these performances was from the last International Noise Conference, which I managed to see. Its very basic material, synthesisers and vocals and some samples (tapes, I think) and what sounds like bass guitar, which would be right as that's Harriet's main instrument. Side one has more consistency during the sound, with prominent vocals. There's a raw base which supports some of the higher, wider synth sounds, giving them a nice machine like quality, battle sound samples coming over at the start, then hard and echo-ed metalesque vocals (both comrades love their Metal). Sometimes the overall sound is stripped back to a few quick elements, then overloaded again with all hiss and distortion. Basic lo-fi PE grunt. Side two has a slightly higher sound. Blasts of pure synth distortion, very pleasant, which occasionally drop into lower or blanker sounds. A more broken and less consistent piece than side one, though, with a lot more crumbling and contrast, although hardly in a cut-up way. Ends with a very nice sounding delay loop of crumbling low distortion which I would have preferred to have been longer.
Luke's solo project, Mshing, has a 3" cdr out on L.White records that I greatly enjoy. This is more paced, controlled and structured Power Electronics, very heavy and bottom end, moving slowly. Very basic elements of heavy electronics put together, just that simple, raw, heavy sound from tones to pulses, reminding me a touch of both Shift and Deathkey. Totally satisfying. There was only fifty copies of the actual cdr but you can
download it if you miss out.
Long time "post-punk" band Primitive Calculators was a group I paid no attention to, mostly due to the name. Not sure if it's time to catch up but it's definitely time to praise the most recent album, "
The World Is Fucked". Most of these synth punk groups tend to be a bit too clever for their own good, emphasising a lighter tone. putting the synth before punk. This album is the synth punk I've been waiting for. It's savage, raw (although still studio sounding), heavy and punk as well as synth. The vocals are pure Aussie bogan, the lyrics pure punk simplicity ("Stick it up your arse! Stick it up your arse!", "Why do I even fucking bother fucking getting up in the fucking morning?!", "God loves me, me, me, fucking meee, cunt!"), each song usually based on one simple bass line done on heavily distorted synth with screeching guitars around it and ultra simple, chanted lyrics. There's not a lot of variety in tempo - a live gig with this stuff must be exhausting - but the overall effect is savage and unrelenting, aggressive and suburban-hell bleak. Everything's fucked and is going to stay fucked and there's nothing to do about it but get drunk and whinge about it. Or kill yourself. Whichever.
