Boy Harsher

Stasis: The misremembered 1980s continues to be re-filtered, reformulated and re-prismed through tampered technicoloured technology and in the process implanting a false consciousness, an ersatz structure of feeling devoid of political antagonisms, bereft of societal tensions that flails throughout the sounds. From the dead-eyed puppets of pop incapable of obscuring their strings to the self-medicated Indian ink illustrated XXX-ecrable Soundcloud narcissists, the cultural view is a panoramic blandscape.

Dream: Here arrive Boy Harsher (tempestuous twosome Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller) to smudge the cosmetic façade of Western civilisation’s pompous preening. Here exist Boy Harsher to remind us of humankind’s awkward proximity to one another. At last Boy Harsher remind that the sounds that surround are designed to stimulate and provoke not somatically slumber us into passivity. They go down, they go deep into the psychic sub-terrain; relentlessly scratching the surface until it bleeds red and reads ‘BLED’.

Imagine: ‘Is he isn’t she’ Euro-siren Amanda Lear duetting with electroclash of the titans Fischerspooner (L.A).

Fear: cyber-punk future seers Sigue Sigue Sputnik up against Detroit’s dystopical adult. on ‘Come closer’s warped and winding redux of ‘I feel love’ for the (Donna) Summer of hate.

Feel: Passively aggressively tickling Soft Cell’s underbelly, (s)extracting their sordid realistic slant on the subject of human interrelations, the downsides, the pitfalls, the backlashes. There’s more to love than boy meets girl, ya know.

Real: ‘Careful’ say Boy Harsher, a double-edged warning, a keep your distance pat/push on the back, as a breathy ‘Come closer …’ is left hanging in the air, its meaning static and on the verge of collapse. ‘Face the fire’ updates Depeche Mode’s ‘See You’ as apposites retract, opposites attract in a magnetic tour de force.

See: The promo-photo for the inevitability-igniting ‘Fate’ has the duo encased in a polythene masque semiotically reflecting the asphyxiated articulation that emanates from Matthews’s larynx, her dispassionate mutterings typifying the de-sensualised mechanics of modern love.

Overall? Beware, you can run as fast and far as you like, but, destiny gets you in the end.