The Clockwork Man (Shinjuku Thief Remix)

BACKGROUND Snog are an industrial dance band that rose to prominence in the early 90's, releasing over 50 albums on various labels in Europe and the USA. Their material has a strongly anti-consumerist, anti-corporatist agenda, often drawing on conspiracy. Much of Snog's appeal can be traced to a balance between a cynical/sarcastic perspective on the blight of capitalist society and a playful musical frame. After 25 years however, their dance music runs the risk of seeing the genre minimizing the weight of the band's message. This research explored how a remix could re-inject some of the lost anger which characterized earlier material, whilst opening up a destabilising ambiguity as to whether the conspiratorial material was a critique or an endorsement. CONTRIBUTION Through noise, documentary recordings as well as conceptual disturbance, the remix runs an emotionally inverted valence alongside the enjoyable beat. It took principles of two-dimensional models of emotion (Russell 1980, Bradley & Lang 2007) and experimented with simultaneous overlays of enjoyment and terror as well as points of high contrastive valence maximized by dynamic range. It injects a musical weight through the momentum of a string orchestra, and complex breaktweaking beats for drive. Importantly, it uses text from James Corbert to unsettle with levels of conspiratorial disturbance, ultimately leading to layers of dramatic controversy. SIGNIFICANCE Beyond rebranding Snog, this was an opportunity to test the effect of fusing the Noise genre with other musical forms. It is a strong example of how the precise application of a sense of danger can be used to amplify arousal and increase the emotional intensity of the music - either exacerbating exhilaration, or counterpointing enjoyment with a confounding emotion leading to a more sophisticated listening experience. Esteem: released on the popular mTronic (France) and Metropolis (U.S.A) record labels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeaQlw3W95c