Rough Dimension

Description

Rough Dimension, the second album by VR SEX, the acid punk alias of Andrew Clinco, takes its title from an architectural term, but mainly refers to the perverse and malevolent underground world that the songs describe and condemn. Under the name Noel Skum - a biting anagram of Elon Musk - Andrew expresses his disdain and fascination for the shabby and surreal margins of immoral Los Angeles, condemned to the dead ends of vanity, lust, and technology. Initially launched as an outlet for heavier sounds beyond his role in the new wave band Drab Majesty, the project has matured into a compelling world-building exercise, weaving themes of neo-futuristic urban immorality and realism into a framework of distorted, pounding guitars and cathodic synths. Echoes of Chrome, Wire, Minimal Man, and Sisters Of Mercy run through the collection, but in the end, Rough Dimension carves out its own twisted vision of our relentless reality. Andrew wrote and demoed for two weeks, alone in an apartment in Marseille, with his 1980s Gibson "Invader" and a laptop. He then went to Strange Weather Studios in Brooklyn to record with Ben Greenberg (Uniform, The Men), who produced the first album in 2019, Human Traffic Jam. The results are remarkably refined and captivating. Riffs in alternate tunings clash and bubble over a mid-tempo drumbeat punctuated by sci-fi electro spikes, while the vocals strut and spit their venom. It’s a bristling mix of melodies and the macabre, absurd observations on fast life and desperate measures, the clock of youth ticking towards midnight as dreams unravel in Babylon.