Add N to X
On the Wires of our Nerves (Mute)
by Aaron Lazenby
I must admit, I spent the better part of the late-’80s in black clothing. I may have even teased my hair once or twice, though I never whited-out my face with ghastly foundation or adorned my mouth with black lipstick. I would, however, burn black candles in my room and listen to Goth/electro/industrial bands with vaguely spooky names like Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly, and Front 242. I would brood over the seething laments these bands pronounced – bands whose mostly-mediocre music limped for years beyond my flirtation with the dark side by virtue of the crutches of high-concept and affected creepiness. With the Bauhaus reunion upon us, it’s time to catalogue the lessons we’ve learned from our Goth youth: 1) wearing all-black is an excellent way to get your ass kicked at your neighborhood bar, 2) fishnets are never a good idea for men, even if you are only wearing them on your arms, and 3) it is possible to make intensely scary music without sampling old horror movies or writing ponderous lyrics inspired by medical textbooks.
Lessons 1 and 2 are learned from experience, but lesson 3 is taught by Add N to X. Backed up by an army of Moogs, Vocoders, and drum machines (and the occasional live drummer), the London-based trio of Barry Smith, Ann Shenton, and Steve Claydon delivers a fantastically sloppy piece of analog hardcore that is abrasive, dissonant, disorienting, and downright scary. On their debut full-length, On the Wires of Our Nerves, Add N to X busts out with a retro-aware synthesis of Kraftwerk’s throbbing Krautfunk with the dystopic future screeching of Aphex Twin and the paranoia of Trans Am. Ultimately, Add N to X’s formula equals one thing – electronic devil music.
And every element of On the Wires reinforces this, from the gory techno-surgery depicted on the cover to the songs’ range of moods, alternately eerie and hateful. With its minor-key electronic baroque opening, “Sound of Accelerating Concrete” could be the updated soundtrack to either Nosferatu or Metropolis. “Murmur One” breaks down the hardcore electronic riffing of Atari Teenage Riot into its intense, minimal components, topped off by a disturbingly unintelligible vocoded vocal. The freaky distant droning of just three notes in “The Black Regent” combing with a taffy-like Moog riff and the sound of someone tuning a radio produces the musical equivalent of being stalked. The beauty of Add N to X lies in the band’s ability to throw a curveball into the mix. “King Wasp” builds grating analog effects around an incongruously organic Slim Harpo sample, and sounds like the house band at a devilish juke-joint somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn. And the experience of “Planet Munich” can only be described as listening to a cat die in a tornado.
Such oddball descriptions may read as absurd on the page, but the perplexing sounds of On the Wires of Our Nerves are exactly what make it so affecting. Gothic industrial this ain’t, but Add N to X makes music that is genuinely scary in its otherworldliness. Fake fangs not required.
(140 West 22nd St. #10A New York, NY 10011)
