Night City to Release Debut EP Kuang Xi March 11
Ah man, this is pretty cool. The namechecks below are right on. I hear exactly the part in “Molly Million$” that is the source of the Ministry comparison. Night City is another guise in the increasing number of them from Los Angeles-based Collyn McCoy, known for Circle of Sighs (on whose record I got to guest last year or was it the year before?), Aboleth, Diesel Boots, Trash Titan, The UEMG and so on, and it leans to the industrial side of the dark atmospheres one might expect from Circle of Sighs. There’s a lot going on with it and no tracks streaming yet — I think I had a request in to do a stream? — but a teaser is live and you’ll find it at the bottom of the post.
Also, I think this is like the 33rd post today? They’re not in order of preference or anything, don’t worry. But really, I think this might be number eight or nine on the day. I gotta look.
Oh the things you think about when the beats start to get crushing.
Anyone out there doing laundry?
From the PR wire:
Night City – Kuang Xi
Dealing in Godfleshian cyber-brutality, NIGHT CITY is an industrial/sludge metal project from multi-instrumentalist Collyn McCoy (Circle of Sighs, Aboleth). Anarchist, anti-authoritarian, and anti-capitalist, this project draws thematically from near-future dystopian speculation–think the gritty and disaffected cyberpunk worlds of William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Phillip K. Dick. Mirroring the unfiltered harshness of these literary visions, Night City sonically recalls such benchmark acts as Throbbing Gristle, Swans, Ministry, Author & Punisher, and Killing Joke. Perhaps most consequential, however, is the unrelentingly heavy formula established by the aforementioned Godflesh.
In the world of Night City, machines grind bones. Obsolete technologies gain sentience, taking their revenge against the selfish creators who abandoned them. It is an undoubtedly grisly affair. While occupying this unique aesthetic arena, Night City seeks to bring industrial metal back to its aesthetic roots and the implicit harshness and leftist politics demonstrated by the progenitors of the style, all while moving the genre forward in terms of production and sheer heft. To this end, Night City’s debut EP – the four-track Kuang XI – will be released March 11th via Dune Altar, an LA-based label defined by a demonstrated willingness to release music across an eclectic spectrum. The title itself is a dual reference to the Mandarin phrase for “crazy happy,” as well as the computer virus featured in Gibson’s Neuromancer. At risk of making a statement, Kuang XI is the opening salvo of the Next Wave of American Industrial Metal.
Night City sits at the cross-section of two impulses. On one hand is McCoy’s desire to recreate the overwhelming sensation of encountering industrial metal for the first time. On the other is a drive to write music with politics at the core–anarcho-socialism, post-capitalism, toxic media, social media, climate change, workers’ rights, the reemergence of global fascism, and revolution are all topics and targets of the Night City lens. The result of this thematic, intellectual, and sonic conglomerate? A blunt soundtrack for rage and revolt. A digital death rattle for a rancid, dystopian world.
March 11, 2022 on Dune Altar.
NIGHT CITY
Kuang XI
a1. Broken Dick
a2. Encryptor/Decryptor
a3. Steppin’ Razor
a4. Molly Million$
program repeats on side B
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