Brooklyn/LA synthwave duo Collasping Scenery have shared Angkar (Black Bananas Remixes). The reworked versions of Angkar is derived from the original version from Collapsing Scenery’s album ‘Stress Positions’. Collapsing Scenery’s Reggie Debris says, “We were honoured to have this song reworked by Black Bananas, the most recent project of longtime CS hero Jennifer Herrema. She’s unquestionably one of the realest to ever do it. They worked out two edits of the tune, and found an insane world of R and B freak-outs hiding in the tracks.”
On the song Reggie Debris adds: “The term ‘Angkar’ was one of the many names of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, better known in the west by the name of their vanguard militia the Khmer Rouge. Still one of the most inscrutable totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, they ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 under shrouds of mystery, their leadership and power structure unknown to even their subjects. The phrase ‘Angkar kills but does not explain’, which arose under their rule, embodies the sheer terror and confusion that the CPK engendered in its enslaved populace. In this lyric, we take that notion of senselessness, so extreme and explicit under Pol Pot, and expand it to include any individual who is far away from the centers of power but bears the brunt of the violence of war, from the urban Cambodian middle class, to villagers in Pakistan or Afghanistan devastated by drone strikes, to any poor soldier who carries out the will of generals and leaders who sit miles away from the consequences of their choices. In the old binary, the Communist states were enacting violence in the name of justice, and those in the U.S. sphere were doing so in the name of liberty; to those who die for these abstractions, the distinction is meaningless.”
Listen to the Angkar remixes via Spotify below.
Earlier this month, Collapsing Scenery shared the official video for The Grey Cardinal. The band’s latest video was directed by Mads Jensen and stars Ashley Cahill, Z Berg, Nick Hinman, Leila Spilman, Charlotte Ritchie and more. Director Mads Jensen says, “The video was a great excuse to road trip with friends to some of my favorite places and to also make a video of all my favorite things: men with rosy cheeks and over-glossed lips, blemmyes, mermaids, strippers, and, of course, Carrington the Clown.”
Collapsing Scenery is the meeting of two fertile and febrile minds, Don De Vore (Ink & Dagger, Lilys, The Icarus Line, Amazing Baby) and Reggie Debris. Collapsing Scenery straddles the gap between music, art, film and politics, seamlessly moving between each with the same ease at which they traverse the globe, soaking up experiences and immersing themselves in different cultures.
Since they formed in 2013 “under a pall of paranoia and disgust” they haven’t stopped moving. Recent collaborations include Jamaican dancehall legend Ninjaman, Beastie Boys producer/collaborator Money Mark, and no-wave pioneer James Chance. The band also has remixes out or on the way from Genesis P-Orridge (Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle), Jennifer Herrema (Royal Trux), Uniform, Youth Code, Brian DeGraw (Gang Gang Dance), and more.
A conversation with them recalls stories of recently recording a ‘goth-dancehall’ track in Jamaica, sailing their sound system into Britain for a series of shows, visiting occupied territories in Palestine on fact-finding missions, recording their debut album on a remote ranch in Texas and soaking up rays in Corsica – and that’s in the first five minutes.
The band’s debut album ‘Stress Positions’ is a glorious collision of futurist electro, glacial goth tones, techno, post-punk and chillwave recorded using analogue electronics: samplers, step sequencers, synths and drum machines. Aesthetically it initially recalls the early pioneering synth-punk of bands such as Human League, Screamers and The Normal, when the most forwarding thinking punks looked to the twenty-first century. Dig deeper however and it reveals an articulate and highly politicised collection that’s far from mired being in nostalgia for the recent past. Quite the opposite: Stress Positions is a forward-looking album with strong state-of-the-world lyrical content. In the tradition of so many defining electro duos – whether Suicide, Pet Shop Boys or Underworld – Collapsing Scenery’s architecture is entirely of their own creation. They’ve built their own world and live in it. The album also features contributions from UK grime artist Jammz, award wining Palestinian hip hop group DAM, LA shoegazer Tamaryn and several other likeminded collaborators.
Collapsing Scenery offer a new vision for how a modern band can be. They’re not even a band – they’re curators of a series of planet-planning events, expressions, exhibitions, albums, installations, journeys, adventures and parties, all operating outside of the confines of the tired traditional industry.
Collapsing Scenery are artistic explorers pushing into bold new futures, then. Join them.
‘Stress Positions’ track list
1. I Never Knew
2. New World Borders (feat. DAM)
3. All The Way Alive
4. Years Of Lead (Are Back Again)
5. Sisyphus Of The Negev
6. The Grey Cardinal
7. Queen Of Proofs (feat. Jammz)
8. Forbidding Forbidding
9. Angkar
10. Of Two Minds
11. Bush Mama Blues
12. St. Seraphim Redux
13. The Blue And The Black
14. Kill The Indian Save The Man (feat. Tamaryn)
