VHS samples of machine chains and horror screams mixed with analog synthesizers, noises and industrial beats. On February 16th, we bring you a really crazy dark-wave, post-punk, EBM night in the stomach of A38, where Belgian SKEMER and American MVTANT unite to present each of their fresh and crunchy new albums.
Skemer
Skemer is the cooperation between singer Kim Peers and guitarist Mathieu Vandekerckhove formed in 2019. They soon discovered that their individual strengths complemented each other perfectly. Two very different worlds collide and lead to minimalist dark wave deconstructions that are equal parts brutal and erotic. This duality is reflected in the name Skemer, which next to its obvious English meaning of 'intriguer' also stands for ‘dusk’ in Mathieu’s native tongue West-Flemish. The band recorded their debut album just months after meeting and this sense of urgency shines through in their effervescent live performances, where Peers seductive vocals coalesce with Vandekerckhove's austere beats to meld into a transcendent fury. Debut album Benevolence was released on the 25th of October 2019 on Avant! Records. In 2022 a remix of the song “Sunseeker by Dana Montana was released on He.She.They Records.
Mvtant
“This is low culture, this is forever. The weak are god fearing and sinning is living.”
MVTANT was conceived as a cassette tape industrial project: motorik lines pulse out of analog synthesizers, dreamy primitive digital workstations wash over the top, vhs samples of chains and screams are evoked from 12-bit machines, and then recorded to ree-to-reel and dumped to mono cassettes. In addition to classic post-punk, industrial and ebm artists, MVTANT is heavily influenced by horror and science fiction films, anime, literature, and graphic novels. The sound is both familiar and new, cacophonous and melodic, uncomfortable and pleasurable, like violent colors that a dingy vcr head spews in scanlines across a tube tv, painful to stare at, but astonishingly vivid and captivating.
Concert realized with the help of the LivEurope.