Screamer of the Day: Motormark

Motormark- We Are The Public
This is music for the hyper-caffeinated.

[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/screamers/motormark/Motormark.mp3]

SRSLY, when words like “draining” and “exhausting” are used in connection with music, the artist is usually playing something heavy and extreme like death metal, metalcore, or really dense free jazz — not poppy boy/girl music with synthesizers. But Motormark’s poppy boy/girl music with synthesizers has so much nervous energy that this Chrome Tape CD can, in fact, be draining — not draining in the ferocious, suffocating way that Slayer and post-1965 John Coltrane are draining, but draining in the “I’ve just driven from DC to Boston on ten cans of Red Bull, Six shots of espresso from the all night Dunkin Donuts and inhaled gasoline fumes” way. Deal.

Scottish electro punk duo Jane Motoro (lead vocals, bass, keyboards) and Marko Poloroid (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, and best goddamn punk rock pseudonym ever) turn synths into a destructive machine, so much so that it will leave the honest hard working electro funk artists like Ladytron crying onto their latest carefully ironed uniform. Motormark are a breath of fresh air in the anger and passion they combine to liven up a genre that sorely needed it. The erratic and frantic electronica coupled with distorted drum beats, sit in well with Jane’s uncompromising in your face vocals that could best be described as Mira Aroyo (Ladytron) mixed with Bjork and flickers of Tori Amos, having a Sunday afternoon drive in a formula one race car.

On Chrome Tape, Motormark an alternative pop/rock/electroclash approach that is often spastic, hyper, and downright frantic. They bring a long list of direct or indirect influences to this 43-minute CD (which was released in the U.K. in 2004 and the U.S. in 2005), and they include Ladytron, the B-52’s, Atari Teenage Riot, and Sonic Youth, and yes, that completely hidden but increasingly more important genre of German Neue Welle that I keep namedropping. It’s gotten so important, in fact, that I may just do an entire Jukebox Heart on the genre. We’ll see. Whatever, Motormark clearly gets a lot of inspiration from the infectious pop quirkiness of late-’70s/early-’80s new wave — especially the B-52’s. But Chrome Tape is much more abrasive and noisy than anything the B-52’s ever did, minus the surfy cheesy sci-fi rub, and ultra-nervous tracks like “We Are the Public” (click above to hear the CD track, and see them perform it Live down below) and “That’s What You Say When You Want Me to Kill You” confirm my impression that Motoro and Poloroid have been consuming way too much caffeine. Occasionally, Motormark slows things down and provides material that is moody and shadowy rather than manic; when that happens, the duo detours into somewhat Garbage-like territory. But more often than not, Chrome Tape thrives on highly caffeinated intensity. For all its anger and in-your-face punkiness, this is a fabulously fun album.

They have several other releases and a wealth of other youtube videos. Check them out!