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Psyclon Nine

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Psyclon Nine

Psyclon Nine is a musical group formed in 2000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. While their early efforts are generally categorized as aggrotech, their more recent material has incorporated a disparate set of influences, notably black metal, creating a more accessible and inventive output but remaining reasonably under the umbrella of industrial music.

Band members

  • Nero (aka Marshall Carnage)
    • Vocals, songwriting, programming
  • Josef Heresy
    • Live guitar and keyboards, lyrics, samples
  • Rotny Ford
    • Live guitar and keyboards
  • Filip Abbey
    • Drums
  • Sevin
    • Live synth

History

Early days

Psyclon Nine began in 2000 when Nero (then using the name Marshall Carnage) and Josef Heresy began working on a guitar-oriented industrial project called "Defkon Sodomy", influenced by bands like KMFDM and Ministry. As the project became more cohesive, it veered strongly in to the realm of aggrotech, influenced heavily by albums like Suicide Commando's Mindstrip. They played two small but successful local shows. The first was opening for Castro Valley act CompostFilter, the second was opening for another San Francisco area act, See Colin Slash, as a duo, and changed the name of the project to "Psyclon Nine". Shortly thereafter, Nero recruited See Colin Slash's frontman, Eric Gottesman, as a second live keyboardist.

Divine Infekt

After building up a strong reputation locally with a home-recorded three-song demo and a number of notoriously violent concerts, Nero met Noitekk head Marco Gruhn at a San Francisco Grendel show, and persuaded him to sign the band. The band's first album, Divine Infekt was recorded shortly thereafter, produced and engineered by Da5id Din of Informatik, another EBM band on the local scene. The title track was remixed by the popular European aggrotech act Tactical Sekt. The album was released in 2003 and was well received by clubgoers and aggrotech enthusiasts, although many critics considered it derivative.[citation needed]

The band toured lightly in the U.S. and Europe in support of the album, playing with bands including Dismantled, Nocturne, Feindflug, Aslan Faction, Grendel, and American industrial rock figurehead Martin Atkins on his spoken word tour.

Ner0 personally hated Divine Infekt.[citation needed] When Nero and Josef started writing the album, they learned from bands like Suicide Commando and Rudy of Wumpscut. From there Nero and Josef bought equipment and started recording. The lyrics for the title track (and most of the album with the excpetion of what Josef wrote) was very meaningless.[citation needed] The lyrics for the track "Divine Infekt" were just random words written down and said in the exact order of how they were written.

INRI

Several tracks for the follow-up album had already been in the band's live rotation for some time when writing began in earnest. Those tracks were "Lamb of God", "Nothing Left", "Rape this World", "Faith:Disease", and an early, very different version of "Feeble Mind". By the time the album began to take shape, the band had signed in the United States with Metropolis Records.

After several months writing at home, the band had produced a complete album's worth of demo material. Most of the songs focused on Christianity, some actively hostile towards it, others discussing its history and influence, and the title track became "INRI". The demo version of "Lamb of God" appears on the Noitekk compilation United I. Psyclon returned to Da5id Din's studio for mixing, and the completed album was released in April 2005 on Metropolis in the U.S. and Noitekk in Europe.

The new album was far more diverse than Divine Infekt, and includes several songs with heavy emphasis on metal-infused guitar. "Hymn to the Angels' Descent" is perhaps the most distinctive song on the album;[citation needed] fast and heavy guitars, dramatic orchestral breaks, and hard electronic sounds are all prominent. Other tracks range from dancey "Terror EBM" to a slow, dirge-like rendition "B'rosh Hashana" of a traditional Jewish prayer.

Psyclon made several major appearances following the album release, including several dates opening for alternative act Mindless Self Indulgence and a headlining slot at the German Wave Gotik Treffen festival. The MSI shows especially helped solidify the band's younger fanbase, which has been expanding from the traditional industrial music crowd and out in to the larger alternative music population.

Crwn Thy Frnicatr

In 2006, Psyclon Nine released their third full-length album, entitled Crwn Thy Frnicatr. Taking another step away from their terror EBM roots, the album features black metal-styled guitars prominently, and frequently compliments them with blast beat kick drums and low, growling vocals typical of death metal. Most tracks on the album feature extremely dense electronic atmospheres and textures, largely inspired by the techniques of Gary Zon on the first two albums by Dismantled. While predictably alienating some longtime fans, the album (and associated U.S. touring in late 2006) has been well-received by the so-called "crossover" audience, and the first U.S. pressing sold out within three months of its release.

The music on Crwn Thy Frnicatr was written almost exclusively by Nero, with only occasional contributions by Eric Gottesman, who departed from the band's official lineup during the writing of the album to focus on other projects. The lyrics, however, were largely written in conjunction with founding member Josef Heresy.

The band has alluded to the possibility of a large-scale European tour in 2007.[citation needed]

Controversy

In interviews, the band has stated that they are frequently accused of Nazism, partly because their name is derived from Zyklon B, an insecticide best known for its use by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.[1][2] In response to the accusations, Nero stated that "people who think we're nazis [sic] are fucking idiots and I don't want them listening to my music".[1] The band also pointed out that former member Eric Gottesman is Jewish and that their song "Requiem for the Christian Era" features lyrics from a Hebrew prayer.[2]

Discography

  • Divine Infekt (2003)
  • INRI (2005)
  • Crwn Thy Frnicatr (2006)

References

  1. ^ a b "Psyclon Nine". VampireFreaks.com. September 14, 2006. Retrieved January 9, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Tater, Mark. "Chain D.L.K. presents an interview with: Psyclon Nine". Chain D.L.K. December 2, 2005. Retrieved January 9, 2007.
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