Since 2014, New York’s electronic pop oddballs Macula Dog have used the cassette label Haord Records to release the least classifiable offerings from members of their freaky family.
This month finds them welcoming WEATHER – the duo of Nicki Duval (EEL TANK) and Ricky Balmaseda (Old Maybe, featuring Palberta’s Nina Ryser) – into the Haord stable with their debut album, XTRA-PHYSICAL.
According to the group’s lore, Duval and Balmaseda initially came together to form a noise-rock band, but this iteration of WEATHER only lasted one rehearsal. Instead, they quickly morphed into a freeform update to the genre of digital hardcore, developed by artists such as Atari Teenage Riot and Mindless Self Indulgence in the early 1990s. The duo are not alone in drawing inspirations from this sound, with like-minded contemporary acts like Black Dresses, Pelada and Ghösh all fusing punk intensity with electronic productions in exciting new ways. On WEATHER’s first single “POSSESSION”, Duval’s hyperactive beats skitter from one head-bobbing passage to the next, while Balmaseda’s Chipmunk-pitched vocals slice through the relentless cacophony to create a strangely melodic point of entry.
“Possession was the first song we finished that struck the sensation of ‘what the fuck is going on?’ that we really zeroed in on over the rest of our album,” explained the band in an emailed statement to Ears to Feed. “Lyrically, it’s a collage about being haunted by the pressures of capitalism and trying to be your own exorcist.”
WEATHER’s XTRA-PHYSICAL is now available for pre-order from Haord.