Flamin' 'ell. Let's just start by saying that Pest are the
kind of band you don’t want to say anything about in
case you ruin it. And whatever you say reduces how they sound
a little, coz frankly they sound like nothing on earth.
So we could tell you that the five young men based in South
East London with backgrounds in everything from classical
music, techno, hip hop, jazz and, sampling, combine to make
the kind of noise that you’d expect the Blockheads
to be creating if they were starting out now, or the Mothers
of Invention if they worked in a caf’ in Deptford (and
some of the boys from Pest actually do). Or what Mr Scruff
might be doing if he were split into five evil clones and
fed bad acid for a month. None of which really gets near.
Alternatively, we could point out that one of them got
a scholarship from Gibson guitars whilst at Liverpool Institute
of Performing Arts while another is a classical cello player
who has performed with Roots Manuva and Kosheen and produced
UK garage for Pure Silk. Or that another one was a progressive
techno bod with releases for Flatline Recordings. Or that
one of them plays trombone and studies African drumming.
Or that another has DJ’d hip hop and funk all over
the capital for more years than he should have and is a
mean rhymer on the microphone.
We could concentrate on their live outings as Spynaworkshop
and say that they've played all over London from painfully
hip dotcom parties to the spiritual home of punk, the Hope
& Anchor, taking in both Turnmills and The Spitz on
the way.
We could feed you some shit about bands and the zeitgeist
and all that nonsense. We could even dress them in matching
suits or vintage wear and re-name them The Hokes, or we
could continue to complicate the issue. Basically they're
a perfectly nice bunch of people who have cocooned themselves
in an unfashionable part of London and are now ready to
fly out and show themselves to the world. Not as a butterfly,
but as a hairy six legged nasty, idiot savant of a creature.
What they share is the belief that dance music needs a good
kick up the arse! What they deliver is less of a kick and
more of a nudge through a black hole backwards.
Confused? Me too.
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