JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the life and music of Depeche Mode’s Andy ‘Fletch” Fletcher.
Category: industrial electronica
New Video: Liz Lamere Takes the Viewer on a Tour of the Underworld in New Visual for “Sin”
Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work […]
New Audio: Liz Lamere Returns with a Club Friendly Banger
Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work for the better part of three decades.
Lamere finally steps out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her solo debut Keep It Alive. Written and performed entirely by Lamere, Keep It Alive was recorded in the Lower Manhattan apartment she shared with Vega during pandemic-related lockdowns — in the same space where the Suicide frontman constructed his light sculptures. Keeping it a family affair, the album was engineered by Vega and Lamere’s son, Dante Vega Lamere. Keep It Alive was co-produced by Lamere and The Vacant Lots‘ Jared Artaud.
“There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” Liz Lamere says in press notes. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues “ We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.”
The album’s material reportedly courses with the bold and defiant energy that motivated a young Lamere through her early double life as a Wall Street lawyer by day and a downtown New York musician, before she met and fell in love with Vega. Her relationship with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboardist on his solo work including albums like Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dugong Prang, 2007, Station and IT, as well as the posthumously released, lost album Mutator, which led to the Vega Vault, which she curates with Jared Artaud.
After Vega’s death in July 2016, Lamere found it cathartic to write down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Artaud had started working together on overseeing the mastering of IT and the production and mixing of Mutator. During this very busy period, the pair discussed working together on her own solo material.
Keep It Alive is a homage to a song on her late husband’s New Raceion that has a deep and significant meaning for her. It was one of the key lines she would chant on stage, becoming a staple of their live performances together. The main theme and vision of the album is preserving your own inner fire. “Alan always encouraged me to make my own music, and I’ve waited until the time was right as I’ve been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision and building his legacy,” Lamere says.
Over the past month or so I’ve written about two of Keep It Alive‘s released singles:
- “Lights Out,” a swaggering banger featuring tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening and melodic synth washes paired with Lamere’s coolly delivered boxing and fighting metaphors. While centered around a gritty and familiar, in-your-face, New York aggression, “Lights Out” is an upbeat, life-affirming song that will give you the energy to keep on fighting the necessary and good fight.
- “Freedom’s Last Call” a brooding and cinematic track centered around thumping industrial beats, jagged and ominous synth arpeggios and a menacing bass line paired with Lamere’s icy delivery. Sonically, “Freedom’s Last Call” sounds as though it could have been part of the Blade Runner soundtrack — or the soundtrack of almost any John Carpenter film.
“Sin” Keep It Alive‘s third and latest single is centered around glistening and oscillating synths, a sinuous bass line and tweeter and woofer rattling beats paired with Lamere’s sultry and plaintive delivery and her uncanny ability to craft an infectious, razor sharp hook. While, “Sin” sonically bears a resemblance to a slick synthesis of Depeche Mode and New Order, the song’s narrator has a unique, non-moralistic, non-Christian view of sin — one that seems to say that sin is just one part of the human experience.
“‘Sin’ is loosely inspired by Dante’s Inferno and the search for meaning in the journey of life,” Lamere explains. “The message is one of redemption, as sin is not always evil, but rather offers a glimpse into the dark side of the human condition. For me the song is more about not letting the judgment of others, of good and evil, hold you back from fully experiencing life. Ultimately, I hope the listener will interpret the song and find meaning in their own way.”
Keep It Alive is slated for May 20, 2022 release through In The Red.
Lyric Video: Liz Lamere Shares a Brooding, Post-Apocalyptic Single
Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work for the better part of three decades.
Lamere finally steps out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her solo debut Keep It Alive. Written and performed entirely by Lamere, Keep It Alive was recorded in the Lower Manhattan apartment she shared with Vega during pandemic-related lockdowns — in the same space where the Suicide frontman constructed his light sculptures. Keeping it a family affair, the album was engineered by Vega and Lamere’s son, Dante Vega Lamere. Keep It Alive was co-produced by Lamere and The Vacant Lots‘ Jared Artaud.
“There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” Liz Lamere says in press notes. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues “ We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.”
The album’s material reportedly courses with the bold and defiant energy that motivated a young Lamere through her early double life as a Wall Street lawyer by day and a downtown New York musician, before she met and fell in love with Vega. Her relationship with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboardist on his solo work including albums like Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dugong Prang, 2007, Station and IT, as well as the posthumously released, lost album Mutator, which led to the Vega Vault, which she curates with Jared Artaud.
After Vega’s death in July 2016, Lamere found it cathartic to write down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Artaud had started working together on overseeing the mastering of IT and the production and mixing of Mutator. During this very busy period, the pair discussed working together on her own solo material.
Keep It Alive is a homage to a song on her late husband’s New Raceion that has a deep and significant meaning for her. It was one of the key lines she would chant on stage, becoming a staple of their live performances together. The main theme and vision of the album is preserving your own inner fire. “Alan always encouraged me to make my own music, and I’ve waited until the time was right as I’ve been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision and building his legacy,” Lamere says.
Last month, I wrote about Keep It Alive‘s first single, “Lights Out,” a swaggering banger featuring tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening and melodic synth washes paired with Lamere’s coolly delivered boxing and fighting metaphors. While centered around a gritty and familiar, in-your-face, New York aggression, “Lights Out” is an upbeat, life-affirming song that will give you the energy to keep on fighting the necessary and good fight.
“’Lights Out’ was the very first track I wrote,” Lamere says in press notes. “You write about what you know. It’s boxing themed. When you step in the ring your life is literally on the line. ‘Let your hands go’ is a boxing term and my mantra for going full tilt in whatever I’ve set out to do.”
Keep It Alive‘s second and latest single “Freedom’s Last Call” is a brooding and cinematic track centered around thumping industrial beats, jagged and ominous synth arpeggios and a menacing bass line paired with Lamere’s icy delivery. Sonically, “Freedom’s Last Call” sounds as though it could have been part of the Blade Runner soundtrack — or the soundtrack of almost any John Carpenter film.
“This track emerged from the post-apocalyptic vibe around all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and the political, social and media-driven upheaval and divisiveness,” Lamere explains. “Uncertainty of certainty. Freedom is the most elemental part of the human condition, which is now being assaulted from so many directions. The song is a call for unity and redemption, and about having one shot to keep hope, humanity and free will alive.”
Keep It Alive is slated for May 20, 2022 release through In The Red.
Mark Pompeo is a prolific New Jersey-based electronic music producer, best known in EDM/techno circles as Mark Wise. And since the release she this solo debut, 2018’s Blizzard EP, Pompeo has recorded and released club bangers that feature a unique blend of minimalist techno, progressive techno, house and increasingly metal, which has received support from the likes of Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, Cristian Varela, Spartaque, Lisa Lashes, Phaedon, Vikthor, Illario Alicante, and DJ Dialog.
Pompeo began the year with the release of the Rumble in the Jungle EP. The EP featured the crowd-pleasing expansive banger and EP title track “Rumble in the Jungle,” and the Guilia and Paxtech remix of “Rumble in the Jungle,” which retained the original’s melodic breakdown while pairing it with relentless tweeter and woofer rattling thump and a trippy, cosmic sheen.
The New Jersey-based electronic producer then released the two-track Heavy Metal EP. The EP featured “Heavy,” a high energy, crowd pleasing banger that found him firmly establishing what he has dubbed “heavy metal techno” with the song centered around scorching synth riffage, tweeter and woofer rattling beats and trippy cosmic squeals. “Metal,” the second and final single pushed the heavy metal techno concept even further with the song featuring a seamless synthesis of thrash metal, goth, industrial techno and acid house — while being equally crowd pleasing.
Continuing a remarkably prolific period, Pompeo’s latest release Riff Machine sees the New Jersey-based producer further honing his heavy metal techno concept. Centered around power chord-driven synth guitar riffage, skittering techno hi-hat, rock ‘n’ roll-like drum fills, explosive cymbals and deep low end, the EP title track “Riff Machine” is a high energy, industrial headbanger that pairs arena rock bombast with euphoria-inducing hooks. (EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a radio edit that clocks in a little over five-and-a-half minutes; the full song, which is also on the EP clocks in at a little over seven minutes.)
New Video: Liz Lamere Shares Sultry, Boxing-Themed Visual for Thumping “Lights Out”
I’m grateful for New Colossus Festival’s triumphant return this week. But as you can imagine, it means that this week I’ll be very busy running around Manhattan’s Lower East Side to cover shows; chatting and bullshitting with friends and colleagues; and of course, doing that valuable in-person networking that has been hampered by the pandemic. I’ll be posting when I can; it’ll just be kind of sporadic.
But let’s get to the business at hand . . .
Liz Lamere is a New York-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, who has had a lengthy career playing drums in several local punk bands — and perhaps more famously for collaborating with her late partner, the legendary Alan Vega on his solo work for the better part of three decades.
Lamere finally steps out into the spotlight as a solo artist with her solo debut Keep It Alive. Written and performed entirely by Lamere, Keep It Alive was recorded in her Lower Manhattan apartment during pandemic-related lockdowns in the same space where the Suicide frontman constructed his light sculptures. Keeping it a family affair, the album was engineered by Vega and Lamere’s son, Dante Vega Lamere — and then co-produced by Lamere and The Vacant Lots‘ Jared Artaud.
“There’s something very magical about creating music in the same environment where Alan created his visual art,” Liz Lamere says in press notes. “His energy is pervasive and is inevitably infused in the recordings.” She continues “ We were living through unprecedented times and Keep It Alive took adversity and uncertainty and turned it into a message of resilience and empowerment.”
The album’s material reportedly courses with the bold and defiant energy that motivated a young Lamere through her early double life as a Wall Street lawyer by day and a downtown New York musician, before she met and fell i love with Vega. Her relationship with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboardist on his solo work including albums like Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dugong Prang, 2007, Station and IT, as well as the posthumously released, lost album Mutator, which lead to the Vega Vault, which she curates with Jared Artaud.
After Vega’s death in July 2016, Lamere found it cathartic to write down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Artaud had started working together on overseeing the mastering of IT and the production and mixing of Mutator. Interestingly, during this very busy period, the pair discussed working together on her own solo material.
Keep It Alive‘s first single, “Lights Out” is a swaggering banger, featuring tweeter and woofer rattling 808s, glistening and melodic synth washes paired with Lamere’s coolly delivered boxing and fighting metaphors. While centered around a gritty and familiar, in-your-face, New York aggression, “Lights Out” is an upbeat, life-affirming song that will give you the energy to keep on fighting the necessary and good fight.
Interestingly, “Keep It Alive” is a homage to a song on her late husband’s New Raceion that has a deep and significant meaning for her. It was one of the key lines she would chant on stage, becoming a staple of their live performances together. The main theme and vision of the album is preserving your own inner fire. “Alan always encouraged me to make my own music, and I’ve waited until the time was right as I’ve been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision and building his legacy,” Lamere says.
Lamere is an avid boxer, who has been involved in the boxing world for over fifteen years. And the Jenni Hensler-directed video for “Lights out” was fittingly filmed on 8mm film at New York-based Trinity Boxing Club. The sultry video features Lamere and a collection of men and women of various ages and backgrounds at the punching bag and sparring to strobe lights, while others dance along.
“’Lights Out’ was the very first track I wrote,” Lamere says in press notes. “You write about what you know. It’s boxing themed. When you step in the ring your life is literally on the line. ‘Let your hands go’ is a boxing term and my mantra for going full tilt in whatever I’ve set out to do.”
New Audio: ADULT. Return with Techno-influenced Banger “I Am Nothing”
Throughout their 25 year history, acclaimed Detroit-based multimedia and electronic music production and artist duo ADULT. — the husband and wife team of Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus — have a sprawling catalog of material released through Mute Records, Ghostly International, Thrill Jockey, Third Man Records and a list of other labels that has seen the duo obscure and blur lines between genres and styles in a cohesive fashion within the album format.
“but for this we wanted something that’s falling apart.” Becoming Undone, ADULT.’s ninth album reportedly sees the duo explicitly aiming for that goal, while simultaneously rejecting and reflecting the planetary discord that inspired and informed it. Written between November 2020 and April 2021, Miller and Kuperus kickstarted the creative process through additions to the rig: a vocal loop pedal for Kuperus and Roland percussion pads for Miller. They also reconnected with some of their earliest influences including Test Department and Throbbing Gristle’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats, which helped spark a series of fruitful and frenetic sessions, centered on themes of impermanence and dissonance. “We weren’t interested in melody or harmony since we didn’t see the world having that,” ADULT.’s Miller bluntly reasons.
While there are still plenty of the dance floor bangers the duo is known for, Becoming Undone is also informed by deep, personal loss: Kuperus’ father died during the height of the pandemic, just before the duo were about to start working on the album. As his hospice caretakers, she and Miller faced the banality of finality, surrounded by objects drained of meaning — “the joy of having a body, but also the drudgery of having one,” they say.
The end result is an album that crackles with revulsion and dissent, and it seemingly equal parts exorcism and denunciation, centered around a breadth of vocal effects: Kuperus at times sounds alternately indignant and possessed, decrying the crimes, fears, and failings of a deluded, broken world. “Humans have always been pretty terrible,” Kuperus explains. “But every year the compromises of culture just accelerate.”
Late last year, I wrote about Becoming Undone single “Fools (We Are . . .)“, a glitchy and uneasy banger centered around stuttering beats, dense layers of arpeggiated synths paired with an unhinged and desperate vocal performance by Kuperus, who sings lyrics describing the sensation of being hopelessly stuck in a seemingly endless and foolish loop of the same ol’ banal, things while everything else around them collapses.
“I Am Nothing,” Becoming Undone‘s second and latest single is an abrasive yet accessible industrial techno banger, centered around arpeggiated synths, tweeter and woofer rattling thump, metallic clang and clatter paired with Kuperus’ desperate howls inspired by Detroit techno between 1992-1995, Suicide‘s Alan Vega, Swans‘ Micheal Gira and Malaria!‘s Gudrun Gut.
“The meaning of ‘nothing’ in the context of this song is not in regards to worthlessness, but of being lodged into something we can not understand and yet somehow accept it / or not accept it,” the acclaimed Detroit-based duo explain. “We are collectively living in liminality. And personally, we are more content currently to be in a state of nothingness.”
Mark Pompeo is a New Jersey-based electronic music producer, best known by his stage name Mark Wise. The New Jersey-based producer emerged into the electronic music and techno scenes with 2017’s Loco Motive EP, a collaboration with Mike Stein.
His solo debut, 2018’s Blizzard EP was released through Reflekt Records. And since Blizzard EP‘s release, Pompeo has been remarkably prolific, releasing material that found him crafting a unique blend of minimal, progressive techno, house and lately, heavy metal, while receiving support from the likes of Marco Carola, Richie Hawtin, Cristian Varela, Spartaque, Lisa Lashes, Phaedon, Vikthor, Illario Alicante, and DJ Dialog.
Pompeo began the year with the release of the Rumble in the Jungle EP, which featured the crowd-pleasing, expansive banger, EP title track “Rumble in the Jungle,” and the Guilia and Paxtech remix of “Rumble in the Jungle,” which retained the original’s melodic breakdown and relentless tweeter and woofer rattling thump while placing it with a trippy, cosmic sheen.
Continuing his long-held reputation for being prolific, Pompeo recently released the two-track Heavy Metal EP. EP single “Heavy” sees the New Jersey-based producer exploring what he has dubbed “heavy metal techno,” a sound that features scorching synth riffage, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, trippy cosmic squeals paired with crowd-pleasing, high-energy techno. Play loud, rock out — and maybe mosh a bit, too.
New Audio: French Artist Lafin Releases a Bruising and Brooding Single
Lafin is the solo recording of a mysterious French musician, who cut his teeth drumming in a number of Paris-based doom metal and post hardcore acts, including Forge and Remote.
He started Lafin two years ago as a way to pair electronic sound textures, weird ambiance and acoustic drums in a way that was aggressive, modern and human.
The French artist’s full-length debut Umwelt was released earlier this year. The album’s first single “Head VI (F.B. 1949)” is a brooding mix of industrial metal, stoner rock, post rock and others, centered around thunderous drumming, layer of glistening and oscillating synths within a slow-burning and cinematic song structure. The end result is a song that — to my ears — sounds a bit like a forceful meeting of John Carpenter soundtracks and One Day As A Lion.
Maurin is a Nantes-based musician, electronic music producer and electronic music artist. After spending the past decade as a touring and studio drummer, the Nantes-based artist turned to sound design, composition and production — and by 2019, he launched his first solo recording project Leo Cassidy.
Informed by his professional experiences and the know-how he picked up in that time, Leo Cassidy was created as a way for the Nantes-based artist to create with complete freedom. Interestingly, his latest Leo Cassidy single “White Pills” further establishes his sound: hypnotic, club rocking industrial house centered around tweeter and woofer rattling beats, layers of shimmering, analog synth arpeggios and some metallic clang and clatter. Sonically, the track may remind some listeners of early Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and even John Carpenter soundtracks — with a primal and forceful feel.
Emerging Vienna-based electronic music production and DJ duo Oszillator is comprised of two classically trained pianists, who have been friends for the better part of the past decade — 21 year-old Max McManus and 20 year-old Benedikt Meschik. Last year, the duo got together to produce Anima‘s debut single a cover of “Naima,” that was a lush synthesis of atmospheric jazz, skittering techno beats, chopped up vocal samples and glistening synth arpeggios centered around Anima’s ethereal yet soulful crooning.
The duo’s remix of Anima’s “Naima” is a thorough reworking of their original production. Centered around an expanded version of the trip hop meets house music bridge from the original, the remix features Anima’s achingly plaintive melodic wailing and her spoken word-like chants paired with bruising industrial clang and clatter, glistening synth arpeggios and relentless, tweeter and woofer rattling thump to create a song that evokes a hallucinogenic and tribal ritual for a seemingly all-too-soon dystopian future.
The Vienna-based duo are currently working on new material with Anima, which will be released this year; but they also have plans to release their own original material, as well.
New Audio: JOVM Mainstay LutchamaK Releases an Industrial and Futuristic Banger
Over the course of the past 13 months or so, I’ve spilled copious amounts of ink covering the frenetically prolific, French electronic music artist, producer and JOVM mainstay LutchamaK. And during that same period, the French JOVM mainstay has released an array of EPs, standalone singles and albums with material that generally draws from techno, with elements of deep house and EDM among other electronic music genres, sub-genres and styles.
The French JOVM mainstay started off this year with the release of his latest full-length album Pi. Written and recorded in an inspired three month burst, Pi finds LutchamaK crafting the darkest and heaviest material of his rapidly expanding catalog to date. So far I’ve written about three of the album’s singles:
“KindaHot.” an expansive, trance-inducing track that brings Tour de France-era Kraftwerk to mind.
“Gesture,” a swaggering and infectious banger centered around squiggling and wobbling synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, a glistening melody and a sample from the 2013 major motion picture The Family.
“Jump in Time,” a futuristic and swaggering take on dub with a cosmic sheen.
According to the French JOVM mainstays Pi’s fourth and latest single, “Au-delà du reél” can be translated into English as “Beyond Reality.” Featuring industrial clang and clatter, jackhammering beats and shimmering synth arpeggios “Au-delà du reél” manages to be a slick synthesis of industrial and tribal house from the 38th century with female vocals that LutchamaK says ask to be taken beyond reality.
New Video: TRZTN Teams Up with Karen O on a Glitchy and Futuristic Single and Visual
Tristan Bechet is an acclaimed Portuguese-born, Paris-based (by way of Brazil and NYC), singer/songwriter, composer, producer, sound designerr and electronic music artist, who has developed and honed an idiosyncratic approach to music and sound design through stints fronting industrial no wave act Flux Information Sciences electronic rock duo SERVICES and Sauna Kings and with his solo recording project TRZTN.
Bechet has composed pieces for an impressive and eclectic array of internationally renowned brands including Nike, Karl Lagerfeld, Dior, Chanel, Givenchy and The Creator’s Project — with some of his work being featured by The New York Times, Nowness and many others. The Portuguese-born, Paris-based composer, producer, singer/songwriter and electronic music artist is currently composing the score fo a psychological horror drama film.
Bechet’s latest TRZTN album, the recently released Royal Dagger Ballet is an edgy yet lush and mesmerizing compilation of genre-defying, experimental industrial tracks featuring guest spots from Jonathan Bree, Surfbort’s Dani Miller, Ize Teixeira, Estrael Boiso, Interpol’s Paul Banks, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Karen O and countless others. Each individual track manages to inhabit its own different world — and that shouldn’t be surprising as some of the album’s songs are cinematic and melodic and others are more cacophonous and industrial.
Royal Dagger Ballet’s latest single “Hieroglyphs” is a slow-burning track centered around an eerie track that sonically seems to continuously disintegrate and reintegrate, as its centered around industrial clang and clatter, glitchy and chopped up vocal samples, buzzing bass synths, atmospheric and melodic synths — and it’s all held together by Karen O’s imitable and expressive vocals. “‘Hieroglyphs’ resembles an odd Lynchian dreamstate; bizarre and beautiful. A sonic portrait that warbles away into space dust,” Bechet explains in press notes.
Bechet and Karen O have been frequent collaborators throughout the years, including work together on the music for Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are and the Rise of The Tomb Raider video game.The writing process behind “Hieroglyphs began after Bechet sent Karen O an initial sonic sketch, to which she quickly recorded her cosmic lyrics. “Without holding back, I embarked on a phantasmagorical way of production – sculpting sound more than composing conventionally. I recorded clangs and digital white noise. I re-shaped her voice, deformed the structure, and resampled her own vocals creating the main staccato vocal theme. The track disintegrates and falls back together like the push and pull of a rubber band stretching.”
Directed by Barnaby Roper, the recently released video for “Hieroglyphs” is a glitchy fever dream in which Victoria Dauberville, appearing as though she just ended a shift at an office job and walking into an empty parking garage to expressively dance — until she’s taken into a wildly different dimension.
Throughout the course of the past year, I’ve written quite a bit about Carré, a Los Angeles-based indie electro rock act featuring:
- Julien Boyé (drums, percussion, vocals): Boyé has had stints as a touring member of Nouvelle Vague and James Supercave. Additionally, he has a solo recording act Acoustic Resistance, in which he employs rare instruments, which he has collected from all over the world.
- Jules de Gasperis (drums, vocals, synths, production and mixing): de Gasperis is a Paris-born, Los Angeles-based studio owner. Growing up in Paris, he sharpened his knowledge of synthesizers, looping machines and other electronics around the same time that Justice, Soulwax and Ed Banger Records exploded into the mainstream.
- Kevin Baudouin (guitar, vocals, synth, production): Baudouin has lived in Los Angeles the longest of the trio — 10 years — and he has played with a number of psych rock acts, developing a uniquely edgy approach to guitar, influenced by Nels Cline, Jonny Greenwood and Marc Ribot.
Deriving their name for the French word for “playing tight” and “on point,” the Los Angeles-based trio formed last year, and as the band’s Jules de Gasperis explains in press notes, “The making of our band started with this whole idea of having two drummers perform together. It felt like a statement. We always wanted to keep people moving and tend to focus on the beats first when we write.”
The act specializes in a French electronica-inspired sound that blends aggressive, dark and chaotic elements with hypnotic drum loops while thematically, their work generally touches upon conception, abstraction and distortion of reality centered around geometric shapes and patterns, and a surrealistic outlook on our world.
The trio released their self-titled EP earlier this year, and the EP featured “Urgency,” a track centered round a bed of tweeter and woofer rocking beats, layers of shimmering synth arpeggios, bursts of slashing guitars and gauzy, electronic textures. And while being hypnotic and dance floor friendly, “Urgency” possessed a murky and menacing air that brought Ministry and Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails to mind.
Recently, the members of the JOVM mainstay act partnered with local act President Drone, who completely reworked “Urgency” into a minimalist yet propulsive track centered around stuttering beats, wobbling and shimmering synth arpeggios, industrial clink and clang that pushes Carré’s sound into an even more dystopian and murky direction.