The Spoon Girls
Satan A Devouring Beast
Experimental noise anarchists, The Spoon Girls, have a penchant for aggressive experimental songs that range from womb-sound to jilting punk, electronic to lo-fi, and brooding to downright scary.
‘Satan a Devouring Beast’ is a violent song that starts life as a quiet electronic riff before being corrupted by the sandpaper wielding drum sound and expletive riddled and threatening lyrics. The song evolves through several states, with feedback being preferred above melody and white-noise and screaming lurching from every shadowy corner.
If you’ve ever listened to your reflexology ‘Whale Song’ record while hoovering, you will already have an idea of what is created in the second track, ‘Limit Your Ambitions’. Bathroom noises are accompanied by the sound you’d expect to hear when the evil girl from The Ring crawls out your TV.
‘Never Believe What You Feel’ supplies the music to accompany a future Stephen King fairground horror with otherwise sweet instrumental sounds abused to the max until they sound rather twisted. The off-kilter sound is reminiscent of David Holmes’ incidental music on Therapy’s ‘Infernal Love’.
The last offering, ‘More Wires We Add The Closer We Get to God’ has bit of a polka rhythm over which semi-distorted and very discordant keyboards are plastered like evil-polyfilla. A different insane keyboard appears in each speaker, turning stereo into a new form of attack with artistic laziness when it comes to the accuracy of the keys being pressed.
Foreboding, unique and just a little bit scary, this is definitely not one for those with a nervous disposition and probably shouldn’t be played late at night if you’re home alone.
These songs bring to mind the discussions that surrounded DuChamps ‘Urinal’. ( This concerned a shop-bought urinal, which was signed, exhibited and subsequently voted the most influential piece of art by a broadsheet newspaper!) Is it art or is it just a urinal?
The Spoon Girls hit the same territory musically, is it music or is it just noise? The beauty of this, of course, is that it isn’t the answer that matters – it’s the fact that people will discuss it and hopefully be provoked by it ( who knows, they may even end up getting voted ‘most influential noise, 2005’.)
Written by Fenton on
