4/5

Words: Luke Page

After a short hiatus, DiW has thankfully returned. For the uninitiated and in case it is not entirely clear after this review, this is electronic hardcore – a mash of beats and sounds ranging from genres of music not invented to dance and drone.

Listening to this EP, you can’t help but feel it as a filmic experience; sounds that are of this world, but not from this world keep the listener on an imaginative journey through the stories that unfold. Visualising a Flash Gorden vs Erasorhead plot that starts with a walkabout journey, transgresses towards a tribal animal chant and ends with sexual encounters with an alien in a Tokyo pop dance club, are all par for the course within the track And Observe This Curious Beast.

Generally ominous and unsettling, this EP is best listened to in a dark room on your own, dancing eyes closed and sweating out the comedic demons. But don’t let this ramble scare off those less masochistic of you, as the record is surprisingly accessible, with a fairly regular rhythm and songs that transcend merely the bizarre and touch beauty. If you’re even intrigued then you should buy it and have a listen.

Released: 11.05.09

 

With the number of laptop punks whose music toes the line between “violent” and “stupid” rapidly gaining pace, Yorkshire’s Dressed in Wires (a.k.a. Simondo Topless) has turned to Bill Hicks for inspiration on The Big Black Cock of Death. A mangled car crash of digital hardcore, gabba, splattermash, ear-bleed electronic hip-hop, and garbled white noise, this Distraction Records picture-disc is clearly the work of a feverish, miscreant imagination.

The centerpiece is arguably the epic, 13-minute “Hiroshima Was a Shithole Anyway,” which tars hip-hop beats with dancehall shout-outs, drum n’ bass peaks and Dizzee Rascal breaks. There’s also the truly unhappy-hardcore finale of “Blood Touching Glass” (a tribute to Sydney’s face-glassing noise artist Justice Yeldham, perhaps?), a squelching squall that ends the EP in suitably horrifying form. The relentless speaker-hammering crunch—largely achieved through Topless’ use of guitar pedals—is often overwhelming, but balanced by a resolute refusal to stick with an idea for too long.

Allan Harrison

The hacksaw job on the E.T. theme turning it into a grinning digital grind soon leads into a full-blown case of descending pixelated rot. A climbing obstreperous clanker of a beat (something between breakcore and leftover Ikea parts shaken in a jar) hauls up to chest height a dread fuelled face punched electronic piece. Reminiscent of a '80s synth soundtrack, this melodic centrepiece of the 12 minute A side shows Dressed in Wires doesn’t really want to crap on his own dinner plate. Even the expected finale of a disassembled through degradation piece of possible euro-pop doesn’t harm.

The flipside, “Miscarriage, Where Were you”, appears to take another screwdriver to the Spielberg / Williams partnership. A much briefer piece, this stuttering scratchy shambles sees high end feedback carving a melody out of rubbish like Merzbow doing the Close Encounters theme. As ever, Dressed in Wires is thoroughly entertaining.

Written by Scott Mckeating
Sunday, 22 October 2006

 

Well, it appears that the man who calls himself Simondo Topless has a thing with making music that will annoy most people and enthral the rest! This is released as a 12” Picture Disc and has 5 tracks with very strange and controversial names like Hiroshima was a Shithole Anyway and Proposed Theme Tune #4 “Let’s Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus”. The 12” opens with The Breeders, which is some Coil meets Nine Inch Nails type thing and quite cool. The whole production is very raw like the old industrial stuff of the early 80’s, not the clean stuff. Proposed Theme Tune #4 is something quite different with strange music and a guy saying” Something saved your Pecker, suck it” looped over and over. Strange…The last track on side A is That Rarest of Beasts; Hay Parabola, Crack Chikin/Nex Nine Times for Sunshine, a sort of twisted hip hop thing with young black kids saying nasty shit… Hiroshima was a shithole begins with a huge amount of noise that immediately makes you go to the volume knob as a low bass just about blows out your windows! It evolves into Mr.Topless having a little drum battle on his laptop and going completely mad until a sort of techno bass kicks in the sound intensity increases and then the listener dies… This track lasts for 13 minutes. The last track Blood Touching Glass makes you quite sure he is trying to destroy your hearing.. Phew…..

If you dig: Coil, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin

4 Razors: Fantastic...like in really really good.

ESSENTIAL LISTENING FOR THIS WEEK> Dressed In Wires THE BIG BLACK COCK OF DEATH on Distraction

It sounds like Ministry should sound these days. It sounds like the granny didn't gave the kids the promised cookies. And was later set on fire. With all of her photo album memories. Kid 606 should dress in wires. Britney Spears should have at least one friend whose into this stuff. Cause Madonna doesn't. Big Black Cock Of Death, as an expression, says more of the world than CNN's two-hours coverage of the world's scariest ongoings. Dressed In Wires made my girlfriend worry about me.

IT’S ONLY YOUR DIGNITY, SUCK IT

Dressed In Wires “The Big Black Cock Of Death” EP (Distraction Records)

Naturally this a record I’ll be playing when I man the wheels of steel at our local BNP disco this weekend, should go down a bomb as well, you know how the Nazis love all that gothic electronic, black metal disco stuff. Just as well that Dressed In Wires are masters of these black arts, not so much fusing their metal, disco, electronica and goth-glam as incinerating it with laser beams from their retro-shaded eyes before chopping the ash into mega-snort lines. This is a cracking slab of aural crack, and here’s why; “The Breeders” sounds like a starship battle in Thomas Dolby’s lab, but catchier and with a better light show, oh, and someone slaughtering robot elephants at the end. “Let’s Hunt & Kill Billy Ray Cyrus”, for the idea alone, but the tune is nicely barking as someone drawls the old Bill Hicks line, “sucking Satan’s pecker” while a toy piano gets splatterated by clone drums and doomy synth smashes. “Hiroshima Was A Shithole Anyway”, over sentimental perhaps, but the tune is a kicker, guitars hovering on feedback warp, one or two note bass assaults, heavy breathing and drums programmed by Satan himself. It’s really quite amazing and as Dressed In Wires are part of the “hotbed of electronica talent spawning in the north-east of England” I now know why Michael Owen jumped at the chance to move to Newcastle. You just move to here www.dressedinwires.co.uk and all will be well, or not.

Dressed in Wires ‘The Big Black Cock of Death’ EP (Distraction). Ought to come with a parental and medical practitioners warning this 5 track release from Dressed in Wires aside the fact that’s it’s a head splitting glitch horror show of some measure it’s so violent sounding that we swear we actually spied our hi-fi wincing with tears of pain. Dressed in Wires is Simondo Topless (you sure) who has it seems been terrorising the electronica fraternity for a fair few years now having to date released 11 equally inspired and radio unfriendly albums (which sadly have past us by - questions will be asked mind you). ‘The Big Black Cock of Death’ EP (from herein referred to as BBCD - because it’s a mouthful - boom boom - nah seriously if I write that to many times I’ll either get a warning message from AOL’s Room 101 spies or else I’ll subconsciously start signing off my emails with it) features 5 cuts and lasts a whopping 35 minutes all lovingly pressed on 12” of picture disc vinyl and features who we assume to be Simondo on the front either that or an adult sized Brains from Thunderbirds with his grooviest Trevor and Simon ’Swing your Pants’ gear on. Ho hum - said enough - the music. We’ll start by saying it’s rabid stuff especially the opening onslaught ’The Breeders’ - the kind of thing that a) will win you admiring looks from neighbours b) scare the bejeezus out of small pets, plants and ceiling plaster and c) is probably the closest thing to recreating that sound of an aural autopsy that you have in your mind’s eye as your ever gonna hear for real on vinyl. Think prime time SPK ganging up with early Front 242 to beat the living shite out of Einsturzende Neubauten. A punk ’zoid battle ground of white hot industrial beats bleeding from the inside of wired IDM structures (that’s Insane Dance Music as opposed to the Intellectual variety). Think upon it as a friendly and funkier variant of Merzbow and the likes but all the same equally punishing and ruddy scary with it. ’Proposed theme tune #4 for ’Let’s hunt and kill Billy Ray Cyrus’ has if I’m not woefully mistaken Bill Hicks samples - a screwed up hill-billy-hip-hop-abstract-scizoid-psychopathic-jaw-jarring-brain-bashing-head-fuck - think we’ve covered everything there. ‘That rarest of beasts; Hey Parabola, Crack Chikin / Nex Nine Times for Sunshine’ is well as un-fucken-friendly as you can get - obliquely grimy and gritty hip hop - Run DMC and Grandmaster it ain’t. ‘Hiroshima was a shithole anyway’ title alone will ensure the PC brigade are out with their flags picketing on the steps of DiW’s sonic bunker but then title aside what you get is some good honest wholesome lip smacking party boogying sound scapes - okay I lie unless of course all the tools in the shed have suddenly come to life to be found having acid flashbacks and decided to re-enact ‘Psycho‘, this is wickedly off the wall laptop manipulations being squeezed through a blender at pace - and is that the Chipmunks I can hear shrieking in the mix - well good riddance ya furry cute lookin’ fuckers - of course we joke - rampant, un-danceable but then what did you expect - tunes? - Well yes now you’ve come to mention it. Last up ’Blood touching glass’ is what I can only describe as the sound I often hear when I visit my local dentist except magnified a tad - under no circumstance to be played in a room adorned by moveable objects, alone and during the hours of darkness, think EAR and BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the throes of a slow painful death at the hands of a steel finger tipped Pimmon scratching down along a humungous blackboard - guaranteed to make your ears bleed, your skin crawl and your teeth grate. Consider yourselves warned enter at your own peril. www.distractionrecords.com

 

 

Don't you think 'The Big Black Cock of Death EP' is one of the best record titles ever? That's what Dressed In Wires have called their spanky new 12" picture disc on Distraction records. This is crazy stuff indeed. There's something for everyone on there, well maybe not everyone but it's hugely varied, covering industrial, breakcore, ragga, electronica etc. It's excellent as well. I think this will appeal to fans of late 80's Blast First noise ala Big Black and Butthole Surfers and also folks who dig Kid 606 and V Snares. It doesn't really sound like any of them but it's gonna appeal to you folks I think. Not for the faint hearted but the music and artwork (utterly superb!) together are tremendous so this gets my record of the week.

 

BEHOLD MY MIGHTY STAR is the first official album by Dressed In Wires, a solo project headed by Simon Earp. The ten tracks of the CD gather irony (try to think how songs titled "First gay black president" or "I can see myself cumming in your hair tonight" could sound), electronic sperimentalism and good intuitions. Particular vocal samples gives humanity to the tracks while razor blade sounds (like the ones on "Aphids in me") give rhythm, cutting in two the atmosphere just to make space to new rhythmical structures and to some sick atmosphere. Everything is packed with a DIY atmosphere and the insane imprint of the project makes you wonder what's coming next. When IDM bands seem to be too pretentious, Dressed In Wires arrives just to clean the blackboard of modern music with his impetuous way of doing. If you think that Simon's music is a joke, you're wrong as he seems to be dead serious about what he's doing. If you are into industrial, IDM and electronic sperimentalism allow me to suggest you this project, then let me know what do you think about it.

(Four Mighty Stars Out of Five)

Fifth album published on the French label Estrunax Records, Dressed In Wires posts as of the first piece of pretty sonorities tintinnabulantes, a light concerto for small bells in the medium of which rhythmic is invited dries completely in shift. Piece unfortunately not very inclined with the variations, but there remains the title of the track, Lactating For You, rather strange. Too Clever By Half connects on tablecloths of keyboard dramatizing for a piece which gains in power as the samples colonize it. Not really of blow of glare, a loop sinks but not really charismatic, Dressed In Wires affectionne the disillusioned landscapes sound, a little futuristic, rather rigid. Introduced by a dialogue of the impolite fellow Gummo d' Harmony Korine, First Gay Black President continuous in the way of the absurd titles and joins again with vibrating metal sonorities. Tended piece, once more calcified, the music is maltreated there by an overshrill sample which seems to lacerate it briskly. One feels a little more the concern which traverses the tracks like an adrenalin which is infused and pushed the structures to bandage their muscles wildly. The end of the piece is a kind of strident flight which contracts you the jaw the air of nothing. And gradually, Behold My Mighty Star appears dark, very dark, exploring oppressive cybernetic universes, depicting the night landscapes of a yelling futuristic city whose steel heart can constantly to pack frantically and howl. Liver Of Love, symphony synthetic for keyboards grandiloquents, awakes an obscure tragedy and surprises by making valser the robots in their clothes of rust, making them whirl with death. A small tear, ambiguous, for a definitely sordid screen.

Urban violence, man-machine duel, conspiring computers, a constant electric tension authorizes only very rare variations towards softness, relative bus unceasingly drowned to the medium of worrying echoes. The melodies, in fact, are often ruined and unmatched, morbid and revealing of an infernal bug in the beautiful silica machine. Dressed In Wires assene without pity its drones overshrill and its rates/rhythms desiccated for a true musical nightmare, tells corrompu and highly-strung person whose fairies are biomechanical junkies and the princes of fascistic mackerels accros to the ultraviolence. A beautiful quite modern history, all things considered.

Sebastien