As the dystopian sci-fi futures foretold in Philip K. Dick stories and Cronenberg movies inch closer to our present reality with each day of technological oversaturation, even the most optimistic among us must admit that machines will outlive us all. But hey, maybe it won’t be so bad. Right? Not all machines want to destroy us. While the agents of the despotic robot regime roam the streets, I imagine that electronic instruments will continue fulfilling their own mission in the shelters of the human resistance: to make us groooooove, man. Keep your head down for a few decades and emerge from your bunker when the recon drones are charging. Go and scrap through the shells of demolished residences and stores. Find the perfect hardware rig. There is no one to stop you anymore.
For a present day model of how to shake your body through the ruins of society, refer to Moon Pool and Dead Band. Having pieced together a catalog of eminently scuzzy analog technoid jam, as documented on releases with labels including Not Not Fun, AA Records, and Agitated Records, the duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes, infinite etc.) and David Shettler (SSM, infinite etc.) unearth one of their earliest recordings for a fresh edition via new Chicago-based imprint Midwich Productions (spearheaded by noise/industrial lifer Jim Magas). The MEQ 2x12” presents the title track in all of its foul glory, replete with corrupted garbles of synth melody and distorted percussion, alongside a slew of remixes from Detroit-orbiting luminaries like Patrick Russell, BMG, and JTC. The original mix of “MEQ” proves thick and detailed enough to warrant such treatment, unfolding over 7-plus minutes of cyborg roof-shaking. Like fellow “mutant techno” groundbreakers Container and Prostitutes, Moon Pool and Dead Band operate within a burned-out husk of the style’s signifiers while prodding it into more and more twisted permutations. Beats trample onward at a steady clip, letting heads bob to the simulacrum of a rhythmic grid, while the individual tones and textures issued from the duo’s machines surpass previously conceived limits of disfigurement.
MEQ arrives July 14 via Midwich.
• Moon Pool and Dead Band: https://soundcloud.com/moonpooldeadband
• Midwich: http://www.midwich.net/
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