Remember about the old United we stand, divided we fall slogan ? Punish Yourself (Cult Movie, Pink Panther Party) and Sonic Area (Insensé, Explore) probably had this in mind when they decided to join forces on a common record. Phenomedia is not a classic split-album, or a collection of mutual remixes, but a full fusion of both musical universes - resulting in completely exclusive tracks, going far ahead of
anything you would expect. Influenced by Hint, Download, Clint Mansell, Foetus, Coil or The Downward Spiral, but mostly by the hypnotic power of mass media, Arco (Sonic Areas mastermind) and vx cheerleader (PY singer and programmer) tried to break all stylistic boundaries and restrictions, in a merciless attempt to decipher the Real World or at least give some aural image of his morbid complexity.
Dense, nervous, sometimes hard to describe, Phenomedia mixes cinematic orchestral atmospheres, dirty hip-hop, tribal industrial techno-punk, brutal wall of sounds, hard-glitch breaks and lush ambient soundscapes and if you think its too much, youre probably right ! This is a shamelessly noisy freaks parade announcing the Nightmare Before Apocalypse : acid bass lines, explicit TV sampling, screaming
saxophones, broken drum machines collapsing into moody organic percussions, melancholic piano arpeggios and cello, distorted blues guitar, suicide lullabies, whispers, incantations, rants This is hard cut-
up music for chaos lovers, topped with broken bits of post-industrial mythology the Roswell Alien, Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley, Hakim Bey, Nikola Tesla, Jim Jones, Timothy Leary, JF Kennedy and many more
unwilling guests. Do you feel like youre part of a media-traumatized generation ? Do you feel addicted to the continuous stroboscopic flow of information, entertainment, spiritual promises and advertisement
delivered by TV, the internet, movies, radio ? Is channel/net-surfing/scanning/hopping your favourite killing-time drug ? Do you feel like nothing is good enough, real enough, awesome enough for you ? How can you spend more than twenty seconds of your precious attention span if this record is just another product of the music industry ? Whos the next scapegoat ? Whos the next star ? Whos the next Guru ? Whos the next Prophet ? Whats the next distraction ? Whats the next thrill ? Whats the next reason to believe in something ? Should you buy a new laptop ? What should you fight for? Money ? Power ? Disorder ? Put the remote down and try Phenomedia. Welcome to one of the most innovative, esoteric, poetic and pessimistic cyberpunk album ever recorded !!!
credits
released January 10, 2010
TRAUMA 19 (coproduced with GESIHA MACHINE)
VX69 : vocals and machines
Arco Trauma : machines, piano, guitar, flutes, mixing and mastering
Pierlox : guitar
Miss Z : guitar
X.av : drums
Sax : Cyril Laurent
The experimental rock band's new record is as melodic and inventive as ever, but now with an even more honed sense of play. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 27, 2024
Ross J. Farrar of Ceremony creates dubby outside punk evoking the minimalism of Young Marble Giants on his second solo record. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 27, 2024