You might want to check out the I Die: You Die article on it. There are interviews with Jairus Khan and Andy LaPlegua: http://www.idieyoudie.com/2012/05/kinetik-update-2012-ad%C2%B7ver%C2%B7sarys-performance/
Also an interview with Thomas Rainer about it here: http://www.idieyoudie.com/2012/05/an-interview-with-thomas-rainer-of-nachtmahr/
That interview with this Rainer chap is absolutely hilarious! He hasn't even got a clue about the 'genre' he claims to be working in. Cabaret Voltaire didn't even use a synth on their first few albums - Chris Watson used an old Vox organ, Mallinder played a bass guitar, Kirk played a guitar through an Electro-Harmonix bassballs, and they used clarinet, sax, tape loops, drum machine, etc. It certanly wasn't cutting-edge technology, and their influences included dub reggae, Can, Velvet Underground, Faust, Sun Ra, Soul music, etc.
As for Clock DVA, their first couple of albums owed more to Hendrix and Coltrane than they did to synth music of any sort!
Test Department were not 'Industrial', but were part of the Metal-Bashing movement that was sort of the indie pop of its day. Using scrap metal discarded on the rubbish tips of New Cross was hardly a utilisation of cutting edge technology either.
AS for his 'politics', even if the guy is just some ultra-conservative creep rather than a 'Nazi', he is still a fucking knobhead.
I can partly believe Andy LaPlegua's disclaimer, though it doesn't make me too positive towards him regardless. I think he's an opportunist rather than a fascist, really. He's a Norwegian who got (slightly late) onto the EBM/futurepop bandwagon with Icon of Coil, then made a shrewd shift to the "TBM" sound that he had a role in defining after he moved to Atlanta. I'm not a huge fan, but he's a talented composer of hooks in that space. And he's good at the image-making around it: he built up this whole ironic-white-trash shtick around it, with the Confederate flag and the wife-beating and the over-the-top misogyny that just about held together into a coherent concept.
But as far as I can tell, he didn't really do anything with the concept except continue to push it without any interesting subversion. So it's not too surprising that he attracted a lot of fans who took it seriously, because it honestly got pretty creepy after it just kept going. If it was one concept album, sure, people do concept albums, but I have no idea what the endgame was for Combichrist, or if he had one, or if it was just to ride it as long as his "Combichrist army" was willing to buy merch and tickets, or what. And if it's supposed to be a long-running concept, well, Combichrist ain't no Laibach. And there are these slight suspicions that maybe he himself was not entirely innocent of indulging in some misogynistic enjoyment with those lyrics, fantasies of revenge on ex-girlfriends and women-who-are-all-bitches and whatnot.
I guess minor kudos that he finally realizes, after someone pointed it out pretty clearly, that he's attracting the wrong kind of fans, and is not playing an interesting or positive role in the scene if he continues it. Hopefully it's true what he says in the interview, that he's wrapping this project up.
As for Nachtmahr, I don't know much about that project, but the music is so transparently club-targeted that I could believe he's just going for some kind of aesthetic. On the other hand, I wouldn't be 100% surprised to find out his politics sucked, either. Mostly I don't know why it's interesting. It's four-on-the-floor club music, but with stupid imagery.
You might want to check out the I Die: You Die article on it. There are interviews with Jairus Khan and Andy LaPlegua:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.idieyoudie.com/2012/05/kinetik-update-2012-ad%C2%B7ver%C2%B7sarys-performance/
Also an interview with Thomas Rainer about it here:
http://www.idieyoudie.com/2012/05/an-interview-with-thomas-rainer-of-nachtmahr/
That interview with this Rainer chap is absolutely hilarious! He hasn't even got a clue about the 'genre' he claims to be working in. Cabaret Voltaire didn't even use a synth on their first few albums - Chris Watson used an old Vox organ, Mallinder played a bass guitar, Kirk played a guitar through an Electro-Harmonix bassballs, and they used clarinet, sax, tape loops, drum machine, etc. It certanly wasn't cutting-edge technology, and their influences included dub reggae, Can, Velvet Underground, Faust, Sun Ra, Soul music, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs for Clock DVA, their first couple of albums owed more to Hendrix and Coltrane than they did to synth music of any sort!
Test Department were not 'Industrial', but were part of the Metal-Bashing movement that was sort of the indie pop of its day. Using scrap metal discarded on the rubbish tips of New Cross was hardly a utilisation of cutting edge technology either.
AS for his 'politics', even if the guy is just some ultra-conservative creep rather than a 'Nazi', he is still a fucking knobhead.
I can partly believe Andy LaPlegua's disclaimer, though it doesn't make me too positive towards him regardless. I think he's an opportunist rather than a fascist, really. He's a Norwegian who got (slightly late) onto the EBM/futurepop bandwagon with Icon of Coil, then made a shrewd shift to the "TBM" sound that he had a role in defining after he moved to Atlanta. I'm not a huge fan, but he's a talented composer of hooks in that space. And he's good at the image-making around it: he built up this whole ironic-white-trash shtick around it, with the Confederate flag and the wife-beating and the over-the-top misogyny that just about held together into a coherent concept.
ReplyDeleteBut as far as I can tell, he didn't really do anything with the concept except continue to push it without any interesting subversion. So it's not too surprising that he attracted a lot of fans who took it seriously, because it honestly got pretty creepy after it just kept going. If it was one concept album, sure, people do concept albums, but I have no idea what the endgame was for Combichrist, or if he had one, or if it was just to ride it as long as his "Combichrist army" was willing to buy merch and tickets, or what. And if it's supposed to be a long-running concept, well, Combichrist ain't no Laibach. And there are these slight suspicions that maybe he himself was not entirely innocent of indulging in some misogynistic enjoyment with those lyrics, fantasies of revenge on ex-girlfriends and women-who-are-all-bitches and whatnot.
I guess minor kudos that he finally realizes, after someone pointed it out pretty clearly, that he's attracting the wrong kind of fans, and is not playing an interesting or positive role in the scene if he continues it. Hopefully it's true what he says in the interview, that he's wrapping this project up.
As for Nachtmahr, I don't know much about that project, but the music is so transparently club-targeted that I could believe he's just going for some kind of aesthetic. On the other hand, I wouldn't be 100% surprised to find out his politics sucked, either. Mostly I don't know why it's interesting. It's four-on-the-floor club music, but with stupid imagery.
we demand butter? shut up and be happy to have margarine! ingrate!
ReplyDelete