STRIDULATORS
'The word stridulate means "to produce a shrill, grating sound, as a cricket does, by rubbing together certain parts of the body", which makes this one of the most aptly-chosen band names ever. Obscure, unsettling, mysterious, one of those unique artefacts with no apparent dotted lines to anything that came before. Sounds something like a cicada drone to a reptilian tom-tom beat, lyrics muttered in a bad dream. "Shrill" and "grating" it may be but not without a glorious pop heart that ascends through the humming insect drone'. - Source unknown "This haunting, surging creation of layered drums, synthesizers, guitars and vocals seems to be pushing forward for something new.” - Russell Brown, Hard News
MASSIVE STEREO SELLOUT
"Hope, their 'hit', sounds like what Jack Nance might've danced to in an Eraserhead nightclub." - Jon A Seed. Releasing an EP through Flying Nun Records the two-piece of Steve Roach and Ben Hayman brought together layers of analogue texture and early digital devices to create a Psych-Industrial sound. Mixing multiple sound sources directly to digital 2 track through a mixing desk from the 60’s, MSS created a sound that made performing live a challenge. One night however the planets did align and some recordings from that night along with an EP of unreleased work and new tracks from the 2020’s will soon be released on HoS.
ETHERSONIC
The solo project of Ben Hayman, Ethersonic is the result of a fusion between Hayman’s work in UK based expanded cinema troupe Loophole Cinema and his post punk origins. Samples from industrial and residential spaces across Europe, synthesis, guitar and voice feature in something between ambient and industrial soundscape work. In addition to triggered samples, loops, synthesis and processed bass guitar, Ethersonic events involve machines, mirrors, lights and projectors where the space allows and the sonic component evolves each night.
UNEXPECTED ITEM
Almost but not quite a band and featuring drummers and bass players in towns where it performs live UI is a post punk project of Ben Hayman’s formation. Bass lines triggered by drums and pedals merge with guitar layered as textures alongside voice. The central energy is that there is unfinished business with post punk and that the time is as right as it ever was for this angular approach to sound. "Sounds like something brand new that I've already got some distant memories of" - An artist in the countryside.