#huntronik

The Rhys Rants gang talks lawsuits, Satanism, and the Lostprophets breakup.

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Huntronik

Saturday, 27 April 2013

Huntronik - Huntronik

Album review by [email protected]

Formed in 2010, beginning as a duo and then adding a bassist into the mix, Huntronik are a power-psych rock trio from Brooklyn who merge the genres of electronics and rock on their 9-track, self-titled debut LP, and that my friends is pretty much all I know about them. There seems to be a deceiving hush following the electro/krautrock scene where quite often the artists are nameless and faceless hidden behind bright lights and synthesizers allowing the music to do all the talking in the truest, computerised form. Keeping their comparisons within the folds of the modern New York experimental scene, Huntronik give an insight into their sound being an "edgy" version of Battles, and a more melodic and structured Black Dice which, when looking at the album from the point of view of progression, is apt in its futuristic and contemporary expansion beyond the roots of '70s kraut without letting go of those foundations entirely. When I saw that the opening track was entitled 'Rabies', I prepared myself for what I guessed would be a manic epidemic of overwhelming, infectious sound. While the sound is catchy, it's not overpowering and after a relatively long and steady metronomic intro, the vocals, ironically in my circumstance, kick in with “we’re gonna tell you how it’s gonna to be”. Good on you lads, no one likes an assumption do they! 'Everyone is A Website' makes a fair amount of use of psychedelia to give the impression that every fibre of your being is being fed into a computer and then regurgitated back out again. The track leaves a scan-like imprint charging you up and then bringing you back down again. 'Baldy' is a good 'un, with an underlying eccentric '70s flare. There's a quirky electronic splurge full of funk and fun and is definitely one of the richest tracks on the album. Beginning with quirky organ 'No Deceiver' makes full use of instrumental, literally bubbling off in all kinds of racy directions and is without a doubt my favourite from a charmingly eclectic album. Nice work, Huntronik.

<a href="http://huntronik.bandcamp.com/track/rabies">Rabies by Huntronik</a>

<a href="http://huntronik.bandcamp.com/track/baldy">Baldy by Huntronik</a>

<a href="http://huntronik.bandcamp.com/track/no-deceiver">No Deceiver by Huntronik</a>

From an interview with Huntronik.

Cake Shop. The Cake Shop. The Shop of Cake. 

They really do sell cake at Cake Shop in the Lower East Side of New York City, but the place is more about the music than the cake. 

Reviews of Cake Shop online often refer to its "DIY aesthetic", this is not an accurate description of the venue, and likely refers to the the strings of Christmas lights that are stuck to the ceiling acting as stage lights. A punk/indie aesthetic yes, but not DIY, Cake Shop has seating comprised of worn, but matching, and semi-hip looking leather cubes, and there's a full bar, and a PA system that actually sounds good and doesn't electrocute people, and a legit sound guy, and a short only semi-funtional stage, but a stage none the less. The stage looks like a high school wood shop project and is set approximately half a foot off the ground. The stage at Cake Shop is a pretense. It elevates the band only slightly, to designate them as performers, but really they're on the same level as the audience, and it's common practice for bands to urge people to come closer to the stage, to close any gap that has been formed between them, so that musicians and audience are at kissing distance from one another. 

This sadly did not happen for Huntronik when they played Cake Shop this past Friday, January 4th, in the year of our lord 2013. I stood leaning against the speakers at stage right and nodded my head as they played their rockin' electronic music, and it seemed that I was the only one actually watching them play (though every time they finished a song, there was applause, so people were listening even if they were sitting lethargically at the bar or off to the side on those fucking cubes). Huntronik is comprised of 3 men, who I learned from their blog (http://www.blog.huntronik.com/) are named Greg Hunt, John Taggart, and Stephen Harms. Greg plays the guitar, sampler, and keyboard. He has long hair and a pronounced chin. John plays drums and percussion. He is burly, with a graying beard, and glasses. Stephen plays bass and keyboard. He has short blondish hair, he also wears glasses, he's taller than the others, and appears to wear a wedding ring. Both Stephen and Greg sing, but the majority of Huntronik's songs do not have vocals. 

Huntronik sound like they have been influenced heavily by video game music. I imagine that after playing hours upon hours of Nintendo 64 as adolescents they decided that the problem with video game music was that you couldn't dance to it. Or maybe they spent a lot of time listening to electronic dance music, and they decided that the problem with it was that it didn't rock. Huntronik makes electronic dance music that rocks, electronic rock music that you can dance to. They are an excellent infusion of indie rock and electronica, what more could you want in our current musical landscape?