Emerging with a loud and exciting first impression, new act Night City aims to restore the immense heftiness of past industrial metal, citing musical influence from Godflesh, Throbbing Gristle, Swans, Ministry, Author & Punisher and Killing Joke, and lifting from the sci-fi/cyberpunk dystopia of literary greats like William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Phillip K. Dick.
Night City is the creation of multi-instrumentalist Collyn McCoy (Circle of Sighs, Aboleth), who comes with an anarchist, anti-authoritarian, and anti-capitalist philosophy as well as a very powerful sound.
"I wanted to write music that was political," Collyn McCoy comments. "I also wanted to recreate that feeling I got when I heard Godflesh for the first time and couldn’t believe how unrelentingly goddamn heavy it was. So Night City sits at the cross-section of those two impulses."
McCoy continues: "Inspiration: Dystopian science fiction (Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson). Late 19th/early 20th century anarchists (Stephen Pearl Andrews, Robert Owen, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman). The Fluxus art movement. Jaron Lanier."
Kuang XI, the title of Night City's debut four-song EP, refers to both the Mandarin term for "crazy happy" and the computer virus featured in Gibson's brilliant Neuromancer. Both thematically and musically, the EP excites, not just because it fulfills its purpose of reintroducing the gravity of industrial metal, but also due to the distinction clearly found in McCoy's writing and production means.
Kuang XI is out through Dune Altar.
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