Comprised of Detroit-based husband-and-wife multimedia artist duo Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus, ADULT. have received both national and international attention both for their music, which features elements of industrial electronica, house music and punk rock — and for their visual art, which includes sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, videos and installations; in fact, since the act’s founding back in 1998, Miller and Kuperus have strove to blur and intersect the lines between visual art and their music, exhibiting their work at the Austrian Cultural Forum (NY), Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), Detroit Institute of Arts, MOMAS (Saitama, Japan) and Centre d’ar contemporain de Meymac (France). Their film The Three Grace(s) triptych has been shown at the Anthology Film Archives, Distrital Film Festival, Mexico City and Grey Area for Art and Technology.
The duo’s latest effort Detroit House Guests is largely based on the visual artist residency model, in which Miller and Kuperus invited a varied and impressive array of musicians and artists, including Nitzer Ebb‘s Douglas J. McCarthy, Swans‘ Michael Gira, Light Aslyum‘s Shannon Funchess, Lichens, Austrian thereminist Dorit Chrysler and multidisciplinary artist Lun*na Menoh and others to their studio for a three week period — with the parameter that they all live, work and collaborate together to create an album that also manages to be an anthropological sound experiment.
“We Are a Mirror” is the latest single off Detroit House Guests and it finds Miller and Kuperus collaborating with Nitzer Ebb’s Douglas J. McCarthy. Featuring an glitchy and minimalist yet propulsive production consisting of subtle, industrial clang and clatter, an assortment of bleeps, blips and bloops, stuttering drum programming and club-rocking that manages to seamlessly mesh both artists’ sound while being incredibly brooding and seductive.
Directed by Hazel Hill-McCarthy III, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker, whose previous work includes a documentary featuring Throbbing Gristle‘s Genesis P-Orridge, the recently released video for “We Are a Mirror” was filmed in Miller and Kuperus’ hometown of Detroit between the hours of 6pm and 6am — and it employs a relatively straightforward concept: the trio of Miller, Kuperus and McCarthy in a sparsely arranged mirrored room with a light display, broodingly posing and performing the song. And while evoking a murky nightclub, the video also feels as though it could be an fashion shoot as it possesses a grungy and glamorous quality.
The duo is currently on tour to support the release of Detroit House Guests and it includes a May 13, 2017 stop at Brooklyn Bazaar. Check out tour dates below.
ADULT. 2017 TOUR DATES
5/5/17 – Dallas, TX – Three Links
5/6/17 – Tulsa, OK – The Vanguard
5/10/17 – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
5/11/17 – Washington, DC – DC9
5/13/17 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Bazaar
5/17/17 – Allston, MA – Great Scott
5/19/17 – Montreal, QC – NewSpeak
5/20/17 – Toronto, ON – Velvet Underground
5/26/17 – Detroit, MI – Marble Bar
5/28/17 – Detroit, MI – Movement Festival
6/1/17 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
6/3/17 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
6/7/17 – San Diego, CA – Casbah
6/8/17 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
6/9/17 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent
6/10/17 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Catalyst Atrium
6/15/17 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir Lounge
6/17/17 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
7/27/17 – Brussels, Belgium – Bazaar Club
7/28/17 – Berlin, Germany – Krake Festival
7/29/17 – Barcelona, Spain – Razzamatazz
8/3/17 – London, UK – MOTH Club
8/4/17 – Plougonvelin, France – Festival Visions #5
8/6/17 – Glasgow, Scotland – Optimo 20 at The Galveniser’s Yard