Tusk

1. Avant, progged out, psych, helicopter grind -- Tusk's aural barrage has been categorized with some random appellations. Truth of the matter is, the more out-there the genre description, the more obvious this fact: It's fucking out there. Amidst surgically precise blasts, frenzied vocals and fret board savagery to make devout fans of all matters of harshness raise a horned-hand salute, youll find a willingness to experiment: sitar, slide guitar, mandolin, swirling keyboard passages. Basically, they're to bedrooms in Chicago suburbs what Lightning Bolt and Arab on Radar are to Providence, R.I. Get it? No? Try this on for size: It's Discordance Axis by way of Yes "Close to the Edge" or a German-schooled Acme maelstrom played by fans of This Heat and Don Caballero. And a singer who professes his lyrical "chaos bordering on collapse" owes a debt of gratitude to Tom Waits, though he sounds more like a strangled banshee or the Germs' Darby Crash. Current members are in Pelican (Hydra Head Records) and previously did time in Hinckley, Disembodied and Long Live Nothing. 2. TUSK is the synthwave/future pop alter-ego of singer/producer Benjamin Teicher [formerly Aurora Kiss, collaborator with Mary Ocher, V et al, remixer for Tigerbeat6]. TUSK is matched onstage by Swedish dancer and choreographer ELLINOR LJUNKVIST, his alter-ego, rival, lover, torturer. The tracks: Heart breaking, bleak, sine-waves, phat bass, the 90s kill the 80s. TUSK is a transdimensional synthwave assassin. TUSK travels across time and space to hunt his targets. TUSK also plays synthwave in Berlin in the early 21st century, in the twilight years before that city’s complete annihilation. TUSK is a killer who cannot be killed, the lover who always gets his target, but something is wrong.