Interview With Moscow Youth Cult
GLITCHNOST AND HORRORSTROIKA
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Jon Dix and Daniel O’Donnell-Smith formed Moscow Youth Cult in 2010 over a shared interest in video games and vintage horror, and the promise of making electronic music together. They revel in the oblique, disfigured and obsolete, and their debut EP (Iris) was accompanied by a beautifully-realised animated music video by up-and-coming talent Jake Hutchinson (see below).
Inspired by the title of an Adam Curtis documentary, Dan and Jon set about creating an album that would include their love of analogue equipment and experimental electronic production, shot through a lens of dark pop with glitchy, digital processing. Happiness Machines is Moscow Youth Cult’s first full-length entry into the cannon of their self-styled VHS-pop genre and is a lush showcase of the band’s songwriting and production talents featuring soundscapes that flit effortlessly from lo-fi lamentations and malfunctioning string quartets to sweaty dance floor workouts with machine samples rumbling under layers of synths, beats and tape hiss.
Check out the aforementioned video for Iris below and download Phase IV here for nowt. Like a borsch stain on a comrade’s t-shirt, it’s completely free.
