Blacknecks – Blacknecks 0003
Someone somewhere is having a laugh. When the first Blacknecks release appeared – on anonymous vinyl, natch – the people behind it put out the entirely fictitious story that it was the work of a former garage duo from the 90s. Nothing could be further from the truth, but what still holds true is the fact that the Blacknecks project has become a platform for making and releasing music that under normal circumstances would be wrong on all kinds of aesthetic and creative levels.
The most conventional track on Blacknecks 0003 is “Same Old Brand New You”. In essence it’s based on concrete-slab kicks that veer towards distortion and a riff that is roughly filtered and reverbed over its five-minute existence. Imagine a loutish version of Ben Klock, with a beer gut and BO instead of those fine chiselled looks and you’re getting close to what “Same Old Brand New You” is about.
Yet it’s tame in comparison to the charmingly titled “Four Cunts & A Badge”. Pounding kicks provide the intro, but this is all about the screeching, detuned riff that belches and spews forth more bile-filled poison than a Butthole Surfers backstage party.Forget about UK garage, “Four Cunts & A Badge” sounds like the by-product of rainy days spent hanging around dreary, grey housing estates with Laibach, Lenny Dee and Al Jourgensen as a soundtrack.
Like the second Blacknecks release, the authors are also in tune with less intense music and “Fash” shows a different side to the project. On this occasion, they drop a pulsing electronic rhythm, like Alden Tyrell on steroids, that houses a synth riff that is equal parts poppy and primal, familiar and yet unusual, like Spacemen 3’s noisy hypnotism combined with Heaven 17’s slick pop nous. In a world full of workmanlike industrial and worthy noise artists, Blacknecks 03 sticks out like a big, glue-covered thumb.
Richard Brophy
Tracklisting:
A1. Fash
B1. Four Cunts & A Badge
B2. Same Old Brand New You