If we are now living in the age of anger this is surely the soundtrack of discontent.
MRT. A Division of Lux Rec. There seems to be little division between these two sides of the Swiss imprint. The black bile from which MRT was born has infected the entire label. Downtrodden. Dank. Dark. What has been cultivated has attracted a certain type of artist, one with a certain type of sound. Marginalized music, a style shot through with pain and suffering, EBM fused with industrial techno, acid stained mechanics that drive bodies towards the floor.
A Bleak Reality, aka LVRIN, is an artist cast in MRT mould. Inevitable Disaster is an EP of sorrow, lost hope and grinding frustration. Melodies are broken, dashed against gravel before being stamped on. “Your Resonance” seethes. Blisters of sound burst, spiking hi hats digging their nails into rumbling bass. Turning his attention to the floor, the rest of the 12” are grisly belters. Bars bend in on themselves, drowned in distortion and rinsed in static. Thump is the foundation around which serrated synthlines stab and snares slash. Lips curl in disgust for the title track, wretched acid smirks baring chipped and yellowing teeth. “Immoral Nature” and “Alpha Opposites” come from a similarly ghastly place, beats hammering sharpened pins into contorting chords.
If you thought things couldn’t get even darker, think again. Steinzeit, the team of Hansruedi Schnriger, one half of Echo 106, and Bjorn Magnusson, have just arrived back from pressing plants with Wahrheit, a triumvirate of tracks wishing blight. Well, the opener wishes it. “Wahrheit 1” is scarred and scorched. Notes have been boiled in lime, acrid keys coming to the surface in a hail of pound. Despite this gruesome start the EP begins to thaw. “Wahrheit 2” maintains some of the haggard features of its sibling but expression has softened. The finale, “Wahrheit 3” is less barbaric again. 303 lines are simmered in a soup of static, keys dripping with hopelessness.
I’ve noticed my tastes change over the years. Of course I still have a huge soft spot for all that went before, but a harder point has grown within my listening, a dark cankerous style has crept its way onto my turntables and refuses to budge. MRT, and its band of unmerry musicians, have been pivotal in this sadistic lean, this leer into rasping rhythms and maltreated melodies. If we are now living in the age of anger this is surely the soundtrack of discontent.
Inevitable Disaster and Wahrheit area available on MRT.
