Big noise to get your neighbours knocking
Who?
Amps Kill is the new post-industrial project from composer, improviser and audio engineer, Stephen Bailey. Based in Denver, Colorado, his creative mission is to reflect on our post-pandemic world with “nihilistic aggression”, a move which has seen him swap the avant-garde chamber music of his previous group, Nebula Ensemble, for darker electro hues. See his recent single ‘Torn And Scattered’, which practically throbs with a mass of hyper-synthetic textures and foreboding drones.
Why Amps Kill?
Warning. If you’re looking for sounds to transport you to a better place, this isn’t the music for you. Take another single ‘Rage/Decay’, featuring a collapsing industrial tune stripped back to its rotten core, as a manipulated machine vocal describes the process of decaying bodies. We did warn you. But despite the gnarly aggression, it’s not all sledgehammers. Bailey’s interpretation of drone is far from one-dimensional, probably thanks to his classical training. His music is imbued with a deliberate subtlety, and he says every sound, with the exception of voice, was made using a digital synth. “Even the drums,” he adds. “I’m too poor for analogue synths, too lazy for sampling and too introverted to start another band.”
Tell Us More…
Bailey’s music often entwines with a central theme he is musing on. ‘Piles Of Flesh’ explores the US Supreme Court overturning a ruling for women to make medical choices about their bodies, which takes a “disturbing, misogynistic viewpoint that women are either mothers or whores”, he claims. And released last month, ‘The Sting Of Ash And Oil’ is a violent feast of elemental noise ready to turn you inside out. Indeed, if you want catharsis through noise, dive right in.
‘The Sting Of Ash And Oil’ is out via Bandcamp
