Galileo's head was on the block; the crime was looking up for truth

I want to step away from the normal (though sadly delayed due to silly controversy) task of documenting steampunk music and origins, to talk about Redzone.

I admit, I was a bit confused at first--the URL I was given led to a wildly inappropriate place, so I tried searching more distinctly. I came up with this, but--though very cool--that is not the redzone intended.

This is the Redzone Miss Fauve intended when she mentioned this to me, they're out of London.

From the blurb on their album, Abstract Revolution:

Rock, hip-hop, dub and dance beats are spiked with highly-charged electric strings and Ami's seductive vocals. This album will hijack your psyche, providing exhilaration and reflection in equal measure. The lyrics face death, criticize culture, challenge taboo and mourn the future. Euthanasia, suicide, eroticism, insanity, addiction:L enter the Abstract Revolution and explore the darkest recesses of the human mind.

That is rather a lot to pack into twelve to fifteen songs.

They just might live up to their hype, though--their song Lucid made my skin crawl in an extraordinarily calm fashion, which was disturbing in itself; while what is me, another song from the [digitalflesh] album, struck me as the best of house dub--music to move by, not necessarily dance, but rock, experience, just...feel...on a very basic level.

Their performance of "cigdub" live in Caledon starts off their video page, and there's something...rearranging about them. I don't know if it's the insistence on overdub and playback in their music, but...

Look. I don't know if it's a recommendation or not. But I'm listening, and I'm finding myself wanting to pull away and crawl closer at the same time. It's fascinating stuph, it really is.

From their "about" page:

Redzone have been compared to Collide, Bjork and Recoil among others, but defy categorisation. The music has been called ‘far away from cliché’ (Sideline music magazine) and ‘great music and almost heavenly voices’ (Peter-Jean van Damme, DJ).

They find the idea of creative autonomy and liberation appealing and were one of the first UK bands to utilise the web to exclusively promote and distribute music and video, releasing the web-only MP3 singles Torrid/Crime of Passion and Layer6/Body Craves in 1998, followed by the album Modified in 1999.

Redzone create an entire integrated sensory experience, and 2005 saw the release of [digitalflesh] complete with a unique, interactive video component.

Redzone, assisted by classically-trained third-member Tim (synths/samples/doublebass), are experienced live performers, often utilising bespoke video projections, and have also been credited as the first band to tour Second Life by Wired and Reuters.

Redzone is performing in world this weekend. I've missed their first appearance, "Blood", at the Rusting Hulk in Bloodmoss Swamp, but you can still catch their "Steam" performance tomorrow at 5 pm SLT at Condensor in Fauve, and their "Silicon" show at the reaktor in Insilico, with DJ Gomi Mfune, on Sunday at 6 pm SLT.

Do catch them. I plan to, if possible. They definitely have their own angle on music, and what it means, and how it touches us...and I'm fascinated to see where they go next.