Dionysian Industrial Complex

A “Global Ear” report and playlist for the UK music magazine, The Wire.

The report covers Brasiliense artists and groups such as Cigarras, the Brasilia Laptop Orchestra (BSBLOrk), SCLrN and Karla Testa, as well as artists from the label.

And the playlist features tracks from them, plus all the current Dionysian Industrial artists and other friends.

Listen to the playlist here.

EuFräktus is a three headed monster; an unholy trinity. Three persons in one. One person in three. Schizocitizen.

By day, avant-garde academic. Founder and leader of the Brasilia Laptop Orchestra, developing software guided by holofractal semiotics, quantum physics and neuroscience. By night, a skeletal metal guitarist. A lich axeman on stage, patiently pounding the audience with riffs.

And at the weekend, a black-clad psytrance trickster, electric wizard. Delightedly leading the kids of the satellite towns hedonistically astray from behind turntables, light-shows and clouds of vapour.

Three persons, each recognisable in its own way.

But the scientists at Dionysian Industrial labs wanted to run an experiment. What if we sewed these three personas together? Into a single chimera. Cerberus, hound of Hades. The experimentalist. The metalhead. The trickster DJ? What Frankensound would emerge when the three were plugged together? What glitched heaviosity might the composite creature wreak?

It starts with a mechatronic rattling and scraping. A flux of electricity pulsing through the monster’s veins as it comes to life. And, surprisingly, a lost haunted voice. The electric energy flooding through the monster has summoned a banshee to flutter and croon around its birth. euFräktus, like the Cloverfield monster, is accompanied by parasites that are fearsome in their own right. Uninvited musical guests from out of the dark.

The monster shifts. A few tentative steps of bass. A Boston Dynamics lurch.

A guitar solo stretches and bends and dilates through holofractal degradation. Pneumatic machines rattle and thump. The banshee screams and cackles.

euFräktus arises. Stretches its wings. (Wings? Who scheduled for there to be wings? What rogue DNA is this?) And seems about to take flight, flapping and clattering its tinny limbs. But its weight betrays it. The creature is half molten rock. It is chained into the earth. It writhes, struggling to break free. Wires and tendrils are bursting from its body, gripping and entangling the surrounding architecture.

It fights.

Finally it bursts its bonds. And starts a low-slung, lolloping run, half dancing forward on a pulsing, scratched breakbeat … tails swooshing and slashing as it smashes its way through all obstacles.

And then it runs out of breath … the breakbeat slows and collapses. The monster tumbles in slow motion. Batteries empty.

It howls and whimpers quietly to itself as it recharges. As an army of bass technicians scurry around, analysing and fixing. The euFräktus worked! They’re making notes. Great success!

A few repairs and recalibrations. And now … a quiet prayer before the storm. The levers are pulled again. Van de Graaff energy streaks through the sky.

The creatures is ready for prime-time.

This time it stands erect. Triumphant in a hail of thundering kick drums. Guitar riffs spraying in all directions. Swarms of banshees circle its flaming torso. The technicians are all headbanging.

And then it is over. The man is burned. Ghidorah rests. Each eye closes into sleep. Glaciers roll in over the desolation. The banshee sings a final lullaby.