THE PSYCHOTIC MONKS and the caustic subversion and addiction of "Gamble and Dangle"

 

"prompted by neurons, they create silence..."


When anything reminds me of the subversive artistry of "Warm Leatherette" (1978) by the under appreciated The Normal (Daniel Miller's project) it is a good fucking day. The Normal would produce proto punk electronica that might sound more like caustic machinery than instrumentation (think of the whirring of drills and the nightmares of insomniac factory workers) although it was the most artful instrumentation to me coupled with mind boggling vocal / lyrical theater. Daniel Miller also realized the power of emptiness, the stillness in between sounds. 

I flashed on The Normal almost instantly when dipping into "Gamble and Dangle" by the always interesting French punk outfit THE PSYCHOTIC MONKS. The track from the just released new album 'Pink Colour Surgery', dropped yesterday on February 3rd 2023 via Vicious Circle / FatCat Records, produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band and composed in part by improvisations as "an act of resistance to the ambient violence" like 90's industrial punk and more might have sprung from the kind of seeds laid down by early proto punk artists like The Normal.  

Of the first single from 'Pink Colour Surgery', the diatribal, 'Post-Post-', that I featured on AP weeks earlier I wrote: "with it's dystopic sharpness, it's mechanical edges, it's wonderfully pummeling percussion and feral ID-infused vocal aesthetic feels like industrial rock and horror punk had a mutated baby, a cute one but mutated just the same. This sense of abandonment, the act of spiraling down places one shouldn't go feels dangerous. Bad visions might pop in your head, like goose stepping masses, like falls into the dark side of things".

"Gamble and Dangle" ruts out the same terrain but in a vastly different and maybe more understated way. When it comes to creating a brooding atmosphere is succeeds in spades and other provocative artists from all mediums (David Lynch comes to mind) know the power of creating artful unease by doing less not more. I love the way this track burns for so long on industrial punk-esque embers and even when those embers catch fire, the track does not explode overly so but instead creates a beautiful tension, an artful headache that pushes dark imagery to latch onto. Like a terrifying slow motion roller coaster, the ride injects adrenaline through your body. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://soundcloud.com/the-psychotic-monks

https://www.facebook.com/ThePsychoticMonks

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7GB1a2GjXTCbTtdSv3NTPy

https://www.youtube.com/user/ThePsychoticMonks

https://www.instagram.com/thepsychoticmonks/

After two fiery albums, Silence Slowly And Madly Shines in 2017 (Alter K) and Private Meaning First in 2019 (Vicious Circle / FatCat Records), the members of The Psychotic Monks have never ceased to impress us with their maturity and determination to offer a singular stage and discographic presence.

Their 3rd album, Pink Colour Surgery, is announced today for a February 3rd 2023 release on Vicious Circle / FatCat Records. The album is produced by Daniel Fox of Gilla Band and composed in part by improvisations, and arrives as an act of resistance to the ambient violence. Disconcerting at first sight, this new opus operates in the dark a surgery of the ethics which is fleshed out of pink for a staggering metamorphosis. Its very structure embarks us entirely in an initiatory trip full of secret corners, provided that we accept to dive into it, to plunge into it.

"Gamble and Dangle" , album 'Pink Colour Surgery', apocalyptic, art punk, broken punk, dystopic, French, industrial punk, junk punk, noise rock, post punk, punk, THE PSYCHOTIC MONKS