Haud the bus (or the train…)
Fuck me, where has this music been all my life…
I got that feeling today.
That one you get when you don’t really know much about a band, but you get their new album to listen to.
You have no expectations one way or the other.
You’ve been sent some info about the release, but you don’t read it.
You press play.
Then that feeling hits you.
That is how Humans of Late Capitalism, the new album by Natalie Pryce hit me.
Innocently standing on the platform at Cathcart station, I was waiting for the train to work, wondering how many more of these journey’s I’d be making before I’d be confined to barracks. Having downloaded some new music onto my antique iPad classic, I was scrolling through the albums and decided I’d give Natalie Pryce a whirl.
As the strains of SUZ1E infiltrated my eardrums, I immediately knew that was the best decision I’d made in a while.
As SUZ1E faded out and left me, INKHA replaced her and I knew. I knew this was meant to be. I was well and truly in like Flynn. There was no escaping the magnetic pull of these tracks. Don’t fight it, let them take over.
I’m in Love – L.U.V.
When I say I’m in love with this album, you better believe I’m in love, L U V.
How do I describe Natalie Pryce to someone who hasn’t heard their music? Taut but woozy, classy but somehow sleazy late-night futuristic electronic rockabilly blues with an ominous edge. A bit like a Westworld (the film not the Sonic Boom Boy band) version of The Cramps for a 21st century computer generation, liable to transmute and take over at any moment, hypnotically chilling but enigmatically addictive.
The tracks are all designed to infiltrate your very being. SUZ1E is a sinister creepy synth-heavy bluesy tale of a computer becoming self-aware. That is the start of the takeover. Many of the tracks have “names” like they are characters sent to quietly permeate your soul, subverting your thoughts and reprogramming your consciousness.
INKHA signals its arrival like the radio in an old Plymouth Fury being tuned and finding a classic rock n roll station, the band? Ronnie Rocket and the 50,000 Volts, the song retaining that constant air of threat, futuristic bleeps and squelches pervading your eardrums. Maybe that Plymouth Fury is Christine…
Trapped in a Simulation?
The technology takeover continues as MAR1A is “trapped in a simulation”. I’m now wondering if we all really exists or are we living in an “AI nightmare”. Is Covid 19 actually a computer virus that is wiping us all out? “My face is rendering…”
An uneasy calm returns with URAL, another seemingly dream-walk of a 1950’s rock n roll number, it retains a jittery backdrop of futuristic noise, a feeling that all isn’t really well remains. LUCY still tries to re-assure in her hypnotically soothing manner, sweeping synth forming a dizzily mesmerising backdrop to the ongoing assimilation.
What follows in AXIUM is what I imagine Elvis would have sounded like if he and Eddie Cochran had joined Sigue Sigue Sputnik and given them a more mysteriously dangerous rockabilly edge. Captivating. TETAN1A then goes all Stooges meets The Doors on us trying to persuade us in inimitable style that humankind being taken over by computers is “better than the real thing”. The command has been given … Search & Destroy.
ICARUS II is the sound of impending doom. We are flying too close to the sun. A tune than should be played under dark midnight skies, scaring the shit out of anyone who dares come close. If you loved Amazing Snakeheads, you’ll like this one.
One final respite before the end beckons. OPTIMU$ is the final rock n roll number, with its mainframe now infected by the out of control all pervasive virus, seemingly innocent but with space age wonky noise telling us that all is not well, something is out of whack.
Oblivion
The takeover is complete. The final track NEWTON goes all sinister again, an ominous tale along the lines of Velvet Underground’s The Gift or Strangelove’s Extract From a Journal. As the tale progresses, the narrator becomes infected by the same virus as the protagonist she is recounting the story of, her voice crackling and becoming more distorted and mechanical as the tale reaches… its… END. Oblivion.
…
What have I just heard? The future of rock n roll?
…
I got to work. Or did I, am I really here? I need a lie down.
Go and buy or download this album quickly, before it downloads you…
Album of the year material right here.
Available Exclusively from:
https://nataliepryce.bandcamp.com/album/humans-of-late-capitalism
or direct from www.neverfoundrecords.co.uk
This is the second album released by Never Found Records following up the magnificent Kidney Flowers
Natalie Pryce Links
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/natalieprycemusic/
Youtube channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3jIZVxDFG7gKA9gy96u01A
Twitter – @NataliePryce
Itunes – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/artist/natalie-pryce/548456595
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/4yh693gvjlmBbqx3bKTRh3
Intriguing and well-written article about a band, I’d never heard of, but made me want to check out. Job done, Ginger Quiff!