PRESS + INTERVIEWS
Select : EXCLAIM Dec 2007 / AVERSION Nov 2007 / ABSOLUTE PUNK Feb 2008 / RAZORCAKE Dec 2007 / ONLY MAGAZINE (February 2007) / LEADER-POST (Sept. 2006)
EXCLAIM! / Dec 2007
Emerging from Vancouver is the latest band to demand your attention, and rightly so. Primes have burst onto the scene with a refreshing new sound and take on the electronic movement. With heavy, distorted synthesisers akin to French sensation Justice, Primes' latest album, Facades and Pink Forms, is a welcome experimentation of sounds. Unpolished, monotone vocals trickle across the tracks while coarse industrial electronics provide the backbone of the album. Elements of old school Underworld are recognisable throughout the disc, melding perfectly with the gritty electro revival Primes have embarked upon. "Voyeur" slows it down with a subdued, steady pulse and lazy vocals, while "Paranoid Freeze" and "Young Education" kick it up a notch with their distinct dark glitches, explosive beats and synth-happy indulgences. Primes offer a unique sound that at times, is hard to nail but perhaps that's the point. Their diverse range of industrial-infused, barbed techno gives Facades and Pink Forms the grandiose entrance it deserves.
AVERSION / Dec 2007
Global warming. Nuclear proliferation. An unstable world economy ready to tip into the brink at China's first economic misstep. Pollution. Additional NFL expansion teams. The future, friends, is not looking up by any means. That '90s optimism about the future is long, long gone.
On their second album, Primes' futurist techno-industrial-dance-pop reflects that dark cloud on our horizon. With cranky programming, bristling synths set to batter ears and pummel the dance floor and a penchant for dreary atmospheres, Facades and Pink Forms is a reminder that the doomsday forewarned by science-fiction writers, '80s electronic artists and nutcases with hand-lettered signs is right around the corner. And frankly, if it ushers in this sort of dance music, it couldn't be more welcome.
Primes hark back to the days when industrial acts didn't mess with guitars, synth-pop was made by weirdoes for weirdoes and the world was bracing itself for a future that had a lot more in common with Blade Runner than The Jetsons. While the trio sneaks in its share of melody -- mostly through vocals that, removed from context surprisingly melodic -- Facades and Pink Forms makes synth sounds designed to rattle your sense of well being as much as get you into a sweaty groove in the club. It does both, really, but Facades and Pink Forms is at its best when it can do both at once.
Following closely in spirit, if not linear sonic similarities, to Front 242, Nitzer Ebb and Front Line Assembly, Primes takes the new-wave synth-pop revival of acts like The Faint and She Wants Revenge and re-injects that sense of foreboding into the music. With densely programmed soundscapes that forgo excessive sampling for rough-and-ready programming, Facades and Pink Forms is a galvanized effort that pulls industrial dance into the new millennium. "Weapons Tanks Fire" takes a creeping bass line and tosses all manner of tweaked drum sounds, wooshes of keyboards and disassociated sounds for an electronic body music nightmare. "Blankets (Nini)" is a little less confrontational, with synth hooks and singer/keyboardist Tanya Pea's controlled delivery an exercise in efficiency. "Voyeur" and "Paranoid Freeze" put more of an emphasis on stripped-down, '80s-styled industrial/pop hybrids, while "Facades and Pink Forms" and "Young Education" strike a balance between Faint-like synth pop and EBM precision.
After watching industrial music inexplicably morph into a metal subgenre, it's strangely comforting that Primes rescues the genre's roots -- along with its overwhelming bleak and pessimistic atmospheres -- for use once again in the '00s. The future might not be so desolate after all.
Primes are a different breed of punk using industrial-ginned techno complexes and a glam rock compass to guide the pieces together. The tracks have robotic movements and galactic stratospheres with vocals that produce an automated voicing. It is wicked how the tracks feed into each other so the dividing lines are minimal, offering little to separate the songs from one another. The trio never drops the ball but stays on track keeping the album moving in a continuous stream of sonic bleeps, sci-fi buzzing, futuristic tonics, and static transmissions being stitched to make seamless transitions. Ordinarily, this continuous flow would be monotonous, but Primes' astro-splicing actually compels you to take an interest in the compositions.
Band members Tanya Pea (synths and vocals), JJD (bass, programming and vocals), and Erick West (synthesizers and sounds) have a sixth sense when it comes to placing and stacking digital effects and sound graphics. They produce metallic shades in the moving beats, cobble stoned planks with the synth programs, and glam-rock tints in the sonic punctuations. The album brandishes a Euro-club vibe with cyber-ringing tones and electro-punk reams vibrating through the organza flecks. It is music that does not sound like it was made by or for the human species, but it is entertaining and attractive to humans just the same.
The seven tracks build from each other like a giant ball of yarn starting with "You're in Danger." The digital formations attach to each other creating one long molecular structure until breaking into "Consumher", which changes the direction of the techno versing. The lyrics for "Consumher" project abstract fragments such as, "A super chrome mirror / Looking glass reflection / Blackout mascara eyes as deep as secrets / An eyelash blink / Trying to turn her tables around / Frost a gloss on her skin / No one knows what happened here / Ring finger hand reaches up to adjust the light only to look back at herself and hear / 'Sweet thing we want you... We want you now." The next break comes with the final track "Convert What Was" which has an outer space aura with misty synths and blurry notes. It is the only track that is completely instrumental, or in the case of the Primes, completely composed of electronic sounds.
The album nestles astro-planes, futuristic synths, and digital effects that have the dialect of a space age generation and suited for sci-fi films, cafes, and festivals. Produced by Tanya Pea and JJD, Facades and Pink Forms is really out of this world and it transports the listener to a futuristic plateau that can only be reached through such sonic channels.
1. Apparently, all of the bike couriers in Ottawa are crazy about weird, electronic pop music. Me, I run at the very mention of electronic music, and if a band gets on stage with a computer instead of a drum kit, I'm totally out of there. I am not very progressive. However, if you, like the bike couriers, enjoy music with bleeps and beats and fuzzy, buried vocal tracks, then maybe you would like this album.
2. Wild-sounding release from a Vancouver, B.C. duo. Front 242's sonics and Skinny Puppy's experimentalism are present, but it's not self-indulgent. "Weapons Tanks Fire" and "Consumher" brought some insistent rhythms that have yet to leave my cranium. If you're looking for synthpop that doesn't fit into any preset categories, Facades is it. This probably sounds fantastic driving on the Autobahn at 2 AM.
It seems like an insult to say that the members of Primes are Vancouver music veterans. They’re not old or anything, but it’s true. Both Tanya Pea (DJ Isis) and Jack Duckworth (Radio Berlin, A Luna Red) have contributed volumes to their respective music scenes for the last decade and have never compromised their unique electronic and punk sounds to “make it.” Now they’ve combined their styles and years, and with the sheer power of the legendary hair, they will turn you all into huge R&B fans. They are the new Supremes.
ONLY: Besides Tanya, what should people expect different from the new album, Facades and Pink Forms?
Tanya: This record crosses so many genres and utilises production techniques from each. I think Jack and I have stretched each other as artists, nerds, and party animals who are also nerds.
JJD: A lot of new stuff, musically and production-wise, is different. We wrote the record over a period of 12 months or so and not only were we writing the songs, but learning how to work together as two people from two totally different backgrounds — learning new software and new gear, and writing the record in various voluntary and involuntary mental states. I think the whole thing has way more depth.
ONLY: What about the singing, you sound like you’re projecting on some Diana Ross type shit?
JJD: Sure, there’s more singing and trying out stuff with our voices and experimenting. There’s an effort in trying more things than the roll-around-and-scream thing like what was going on with A Luna Red et cetera, and more snappy and upbeat than Radio Berlin. I connect less with that thing these days for the fact that’s just a faux prerequisite to be an “edgy” band. We’re more into the idea of having some energy and motion that pushes all listeners in the way to get stoked, get enveloped, bust a move.
T: Songs that are meaningful and have impact don’t need to be screamed, although screaming can drive the point home. Some of the most poignant experiences I’ve had with music have been with music that has no vocals at all.
ONLY: Is the ultimate goal to get people to bust a move?
JJD: Not entirely, but busting a move is always good.
T: I think the ultimate goal is to inspire, to make rad music minus the raging asshole vibe, and dancing is good too.
ONLY: Raging asshole vibe?
T: There are many raging assholes and they are everywhere. The idea is not to be one.
ONLY: Jack, why are music writers fixated with your hair and does my asking this question just perpetuate the idea that the public should have a fascination with it?
JJD: I dunno, man. I think a) my hair is shorter than it used to be—I look at photos from like 2001 and go “yeah, that was kinda big.” And b), it’s kinda overshadowed now by other, sometimes questionable, hairstyles. I think maybe sometimes the aesthetic isn’t “Canadian” enough for most Vancouver press. Tanya’s hair is usually better than mine most days anyway, as apparently I have “aunty” hair.
ONLY: What the hell is “aunty” hair?
T: Sometimes we call him “Aunty Jack.”
PRIMES new full-length on Postfact out soon.
No piece of electronic equipment is safe from Primes. The electronic punk duo from Vancouver has the usual techno arsenal at their disposal such as synthesizers, computers, samplers and guitars. And then there's the unusual. "Sometimes (we use) a Speak and Spell," says Tanya Pea, who completes the Primes duo of herself and Jack Duckworth (JJD).
Pea calls the duo's sound "titillating," while JJD says there are elements of indie, techno, post-punk, old-school, hip hop/grime and world music. "We listen to everything under the sun, recorded and environmentally, and all that gets thrown in the pot," says JJD.
Primes began as an experiment and continues to be one as the musicians tinker with new sounds and combinations. "We've worked hard to stretch our brains and try new methods of creating, writing and playing and the result is like nothing either of us has done before. We surprise ourselves," Pea says.
Although Primes formed in early 2004, both Pea and JJD are veterans in the industry. JJD began playing music at 11 years old, composing it on his Tandy Personal Computer in the '80s. In the '90s, he got his start in hardcore, before the word screamo (hardcore screaming vocals and harmonized guitars) was born.
"Eventually as I burnt out playing that style I gradually started working in projects that expanded into the electronic/synthesis realm such as my previous bands Radio Berlin and A Luna Red," says JJD. "Both scenes have a tendency to house a lot of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) aesthetic and encouragement of experimentation and opening up to new things."
Pea has years of experience working as a DJ, promoter and visual artist in the techno and experimental electronic scene. She played a pivotal role in the evolution of Vancouver's techno scene and has worked alongside Autechre, The Orb and Orbital. She also talks about the DIY mentality in discussing their approach, which factors in their punk roots. "Together, we've worked for a year developing a method of songwriting and live performance based on electronic music production techniques. We are DIY and not afraid to stand up for what we believe in. That's punk rock."
Even though Pea and JJD speak in a language many people wouldn't understand, Pea says the music is accessible because they still sing and play instruments; they just use technology, too. "Someone not versed in electronic music might say that we produce pop and that same person probably wouldn't realize that we consist of only two (people)."
Primes is currently working on a new album, Facades and Pink Forms, which JJD says is an enlightening process. The pair also own The Wax Museum, a company that does Web and print design for bands and labels worldwide. Because of that work, Pea and JJD learned new gear and software as they crafted their own sound. "Needless to say, the sound palette, style, and quality have expanded quite a bit," says JJD.
When it comes to staying fresh in a genre that's constantly changing, Pea and JJD take different approaches. "I really try not to think about it too much," says JJD. He notes Primes has an advantage because few bands are buried as deeply in patchbays and MIDI cables. "We're a bit of an odd duck, but I always tend to end up in odd-duck projects."
Pea, meanwhile, finds the best way to stay innovative is to work creatively with as many other artists as possible, even if it's just a jam session or show. "There are an infinite number of ideas and methods of conveying those ideas. The more I participate the more my mind is blown, and the more my mind is blown the more I'm inspired to participate."
Electronica is now at the point where men and women DJs are in proportion to each other, but Pea is still disappointed by the way women in the industry are portrayed. "There's a whole bunch of wickedly talented female DJs and the ratio is balanced. Unfortunately, girls with records are being marketed in this typically sad marketing way: female DJs selling everything from cellphones to shi shi martinis."
Pea points out that there is also a gap in the female production contingent. Out of her recording arts school's class of 60, only six were women. "Where are girls with gear?" Pea asks, but adds she'd prefer the gender boundaries didn't exist at all. "I think it's time that we are people rather than male and female. I want to be a rad person making rad art."