Being conservative with the stats, let’s say 90% of music videos today are garbage. Straight up. Garbage. We don’t care that you and your band have worked out how to synchronise your wardrobe and headbangs. No one does. Thankfully, the music video we’re debuting for you today couldn’t be any further from your local bands’ metalcore warehouse performance clip. Pairing acid-washed visuals with their collaborative digital hellscape “Agoraphobic Claustrophobia”, experimental acts Gridfailure & Megalophobe step away from noise and industrial clichés and deliver a troubling, dizzying multimedia assault on all six of your senses. This doesn’t have a content warning, but if you’ve just micro-dosed, please take care.
From their collaborative LP Tasukete (Japanese for “help me”, a phrase you might need to use upon viewing), “Agoraphobic Claustrophobia” definitely isn’t for everyone. Unearthly bleeps, cheeps, and creeps dance over a somewhat primitive drum loop and harsh, grinding vocals call out, seemingly from this realm and the next. Multi-faceted is a term you could use when describing this. Or you could just scream “tasukete” and hope someone nearby understands and can assist you. The video was shot and cut by David Brenner (Gridfailure), with additional footage by Friederike Schüür. I’m on a bit of a Euro cinema kick right now, and the closest comparison I could make for this particular noise-deployment is that of Gaspar Noé’s Enter The Void. If you’ve seen it, you’ll get it.
Tasukete is only one string in the bows of Gridfailure and Megalophobe, each act bringing distress and terror to life with voice, instruments, and an unflinching disregard for keeping their audience comfortable. If you’re tired of the same Aphex Twin remixes, and Merzbow isn’t weird enough for you anymore, you’d be doing yourself a gratitude by going deeper into the vortex of disillusionment these two acts thrive in. That’s enough from me, anyway. We’ll leave you with some words about the track and video from the parties responsible for this wonderfully terrifying sound. Adieu.
“While this is one of the most straightforward rock/groove-driven songs from either Gridfailure or Megalophobe, the tension level is high, and the psychosis levels are uncharted. With the transference of these factors into a visual format, we feel that our intention to create a similar, if not magnified, result, has been met. We encourage maximum density and volume when attempting to view the results of the experiment.”