Motor: Klunk
Novamute

Calling Motor's T.Raumschmiere-meets-Plastikman sound 'punk-techno' comes close, but 'gutter-techno' is closer, given the gleefully filthy and gutted synths-and-beats sound Mr. Nô and Bryan Black embrace throughout their hellacious temper tantrum Klunk. To be fair, the disc ranges beyond techno with the duo (who also operate under the alias Xlover) dropping menacing takes on house, acid, and jack-boot electro (“Yak”) too. Throughout the hour-long set, hammerhead beats and squealing keys collide while deathly vocals occasionally rise from the crypt (e.g., “Hey man, have you got any gak?” in “Yak”). Divebombing synths roar over slamming drums in “Black Powder” and “Stuka Stunt.” If ever the term 'overdriven' applied, it does so here with Motor's machinery pushed to such merciless extremes, one expects it to detonate at any moment: meat-cleaver beats in the aptly-titled “Killer” sound primed to slice limbs, Nitzer Ebb vocalist Douglas McCarthy adds to the hedonistic mayhem by lasciviously drooling over the electro-throbber “1 X 1,” and, when it's not dragging its mutilated corpse across the floor, the wailing, seizure-gripped “Spazm” sounds like your worst nightmare brought to life. Subtle? Hardly. But in its own shamelessly brutalizing way, fabulous.

August 2006