sonic mook is the name of a very hip clubnight in london.
and who says hip london clubnight these days, says also club compilations.
tons of them, most of them total shite!
not so the sonic mook compilations.
2 years ago, with the ground-breaking sonic mook experiment, they released their first compilation. last year’s follow-up was called future rock & roll. and their latest release, number 3 mind you, just came out and was released under the name hot shit. and let’s just clarify the following first – nomen est omen here – very hot it is! truely hot shit!
whereas the musical selection of sonic mook experiment could have been paraphrased with something like “techno with a punk attitude”, and future rock & roll had shifted to maybe “punk with a techno attitude”, on hot shit things are yet again slightly different, more art rock? much more geared towards the dancefloor? how about “danceable art-punk with an attitude”? hmmm?
great stuff, we have to wait till number 4 to find a track, that does not start with a dirty, out-of-tune guitar-riff. 24 songs, most of them short, hard and quirky, jammed onto a cd. great artwork, and oh of course the british mastery of irony: each track comes with one very cheesy motivational quote: “the race for quality has no finishing line”, “this is the day, live it now,” “keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows” etc. prolly the most well-known track on the cd radio 4: dance to the underground (“nothing happens unless first a dream”) sort of sums it all up nicely. hot shit is an excellent choice of danceable punk in the line of gang of four and popgroup.
so perpare yourself to be pleasantly irritated, to get charged up to go out to pogo or to join a bloody riot.
for me, old punk, it’s cool to see how things finally came full circle: from punk to synthpop / electro to acidhouse / rave to techno / breakbeats and now back to punk. slightly different – but all from the same mold. irritational inspiration.
we are everywhere! (and not the fucking deadheads!)