The self-styled purveyor of “TN trash
electronics,” Johnson City–based Revenge Technician is a full-on #aesthetic
waiting to happen. Not only does Revenge Technician salvage guttural noise from
scrapyards, he also organizes that noise into strangely euphonic sheets of
gothic menace, which counts as “euphonic” when you’ve decided you’ve had enough
of HNW. Look, you try listening to “Negative Cutter” with beautiful guest
vocals by Emm Organ without thinking it’s a breath of fresh air after the
claustrophobic (and thrilling) “Cold Slither.” Once you do that, then we’ll
talk about what’s euphonic and whatever it is you’re trying to argue with me
about.
Revenge Technician has eschewed the noise and
gone off the weird end, to electrifying results. With a J-card that looks like
an old hardcore zine, and a zine that also looks like an old hardcore zine,
“Problem Addict” has the DIY look and feel down perfectly. The visual art
itself is a collage-based amalgamation you’d find in any local punk scene, but
it’s done with a verve and panache that suggests deep intentionality as you
page through it. It’s a really nice touch.
But you’re not here to listen to me blather on
about visual art, am I right? That’s great, because you should just dive right
in to “Problem Addict” – it’s a headrush from start to finish. It’s like
industrial music slowed to a crawl, peppered with samples and voices, distorted
to within an inch of its gritty life. If you imagine it’s emanating from the
center of an atomic blast, melting circuits and wires and knobs and other metal
components as it plays, you wouldn’t be far off from the sound of it. Its
nuclear fallout captured on recording gear; it’s radioactive decay as a sound
source.
And yet I feel moments of genuine delight as I
listen.
--Ryan
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