Magali, A Cult Takes Us On an Android’s Pilgrimage to Reconnect With Family Memories on “Auntie Christ”

Magali, A Cult pushes us into an alternate dimension in the future in the song “Auntie Christ.” The frenetic beats and dynamics is like a breakcore mashup of Laurie Anderson, the Butthole Surfers and Atari Teenage Riot. The narrative is from the perspective of a woman who goes on an odd trip with a friend to a place she doesn’t know but where the friend has family memories of traveling to that place. But they meet a man who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on. All of this is told in a nearly deadpan voice with a twinge of the whimsical not unlike the aforementioned Anderson in her United States Live performance recordings while a propulsive and fragmented beat carries on at a frenzied yet precise clip of tones and percussive sounds. When the voice of the friend enters the song it’s a cartoonishly robotic tenor and barely decipherable except you can sometimes hear the wonderful play on words that is the title of the song “Auntie Christ.” It makes one wonder if the friend is actually an android or if the narrator might be? Does it all take place in a strange simulation? Whatever the actual intention the imagery created in the narrative is strangely vivid and dreamlike and now brings to mind the title of that Philip K. Dick novel about androids dreaming of electric sheep except do androids dream of past family associations and go on a pilgrimage to reconnect with those memories the way K did in Blade Runner: 2049 except in this somewhat less bleak fashion? The song offers no pat answers but does provide a wonderfully strange story that has the haunted and otherworldly quality one finds in the more unusual works of Shirley Jackson. Listen to “Auntie Christ” on Spotify and follow Magali, A Cult at the links below.

Magali, A Cult on Instagram

ZoZo’s Relentless Video for “Blood-Brain Barrier” is Like an Expression of Cyberpunk Mysticism

ZoZo (Zoe Wardlaw and John Mannion) created something truly a manifestation of the their glitchcore pop sound in the video for “Blood-Brain Barrier.” It looks like something like a live action Junji Ito manga mixed with a science fiction horror MMO set to a frenetic pace but not one that ever seems overwhelming even as multiple streams of sound, rhythm and texture stream past you as you take a trip into the blood stream and into organs and interact with everyday life processes in the chemo-electrical system that we depend on and take for granted every day of our lives happening as it should reliably across a lifetime. ZoZo gives a voice and a mythical imagery to this process while telling a tale that seems part mystical, part self-affirmational and part menacing with a poetry worthy of the more elegant end of Atari Teenage Riot. Watch the ferocious video for “Blood-Brain Barrier” on YouTube and follow ZoZo at the links provided.

ZoZo website

ZoZo on Bandcamp

ZoZo on Instagram