Published by Alessandro Violante on July 4, 2017
From iron pillars of highway bridges to overwhelming towers in which rhythmic noise music is played, there’s a strong connection amidst them. The devilish dance of Einsturzende Neubauten has been a strong influence for the rough, noisy, annihilating and syncopated rhythms of Last days of S.E.X., project of Greek Manos Chrisovergis. He has now released his third album Sabotage normality, after an eight years long hiatus, always under HANDS tutelage.
Chrisovergis renounces to any possible embellishment that could cover his political message. A storm of very heavy and syncopated rhythms, plenty of distortion (even if less than in his past releases), and noise injections. Sabotage Normality is a nervous, fast and frenzied album, from the first to the last song, never giving to the listener a softer, less claustrophobic, episode.
Seventeen songs, among which there’s a remixed version of Blixa Bargeld’ band Tanz Debil, and five remixes made by five artists belonging to his same scene, which sonic immediacy is only less important than the strength of the message this music wants to transmit. Noise becomes a Burroughs-inspired interference within the capitalistic system, an element capable of breaking the status quo and the “machine of control”, of criticizing politic authorities, of inciting to the battle against social “darwinism”. This approach, once again, strongly links Chrisovergis’ ideas to those of early industrial music bands.
With the motto Work less, consume less, live more, included in his previous album Great irony and the politically S.E.X.plosive, Chrisovergis wants to sabotage the regular decorum, destroy taboos (among which sexual ones), and everything imprisoning us in selfcreated prisons, isolating us in our Postmodern individualism. Noise against the nation is a declaration, a scream of war expressed in music without vocals, with strong and rough drum machine rhythms. In Sabotage normality, there isn’t anymore the ironic message of his past releases, the joking on how art industry can transform average artists such as Jeff Koons into worldwide acclaimed superstars. One of the best songs of the album is Fight back, having a strong IDM influence.
In his attempt to record the perfect beat, Chrisovergis has recorded with Sabotage normality a particularly solid and rough album, old school-sounding and going straight to the point, without ever losing itself into unknown areas, although his music is best expressed into the live dimension, in which it acquires a stronger incisiveness, as recently happened during his performance at FORMS OF HANDS 17. Seeing is believing.
Label: HANDS
Rating: 8, 5