Dance To The Radio

Like Demontré (check out yesterday’s post), Project:KOMAKINO are part of what is now known among its followers as The New Think, a London-based movement which includes the likes of the now ubiquitous The Horrors, Neils Children and hipster favourites S.C.U.M. A movement which brings together bands who share a common overall esthetic more than musical similarities.

As expected, Project:KOMAKINO have received some help in the making of their debut album The Struggle For Utopia from The Horrors’ Tom Furse but also from other people involved in the scene: British industrial act Micron 63, Russian post-punkers Motorama and member of DiscError Recordings, Ciaran O’Shea. With an obvious influence from the German cold wave esthetic, a simple manifesto “To Konstrukt” and tales of dystopias and totalitarism that would make even George Orwell blush, Project:KOMAKINO sound more like a journey back to the unremembered 80s than a mere band.

The opening song, KV-1 (surprisingly, not a Kraftwerk cover) might be familiar to those of you who have heard Spider And The Flies mixtapes for Vice Magazine (yes, it was on one of them and yes, I get extra points for being a nerd). Even so early into the record, you know these guys love krautrock though, as soon as the second track Penumbra 1 begins, you are tricked into believing this is actually Libertines Last Post on the Bugle (the drum pattern is identical). But Project:KOMAKINO might just love toying with your mind. The track is by no means a garage-punk piece, it actually takes a dark path, the same one Bauhaus took when they created their seminal work Mask.

If you were happy there was no Joy Division reference, don’t. Like other fellow bands, Project:KOMAKINO’s music is heavily influenced by the Manchurian quartet, sharing the same sharp guitars, fragments of cold synths that steadily creep into one’s ears and a dense atmosphere of their last years. Even the drums beats give you the impression Martin Hannet was there to produce this album. But they also add elements of late Bowie like in the case of Nebula and Walking on Glass, making a niche of their own. It’s also hard not to feel the similarities between them and S.C.U.M and the way both bands use industrial to give they music a claustrophobic feeling (Civility is the perfect example). And then there is Kris Kane’s voice, a strange mix between Ian Curtis, Peter Murphy and Sisters of Mercy’s Andrew Eldritch.

The album ends majestically with Tom Furse’s remix for Syndrome, majestically because Furse uses his contorted view of electronica and love for BBC Radiophonic Workshop and, yes, German industrial to create a spaced-out four minutes and a half reinterpretation of the song (the almost alarm-like synths are finger licking).

This being said, beyond any references, any similarity, what you actually need to know is that these four guys with sharp Kraftwerk haircuts are incredibly good and a force to watch out for.

*photo from here