Cobra Killer

In EC8OR and Shizuo respectively, Gina V. D’Orio and Annika Trost made music that fit the standard pattern of Alec Empire‘s Digital Hardcore label — ultra distorted punk-rave heavily borrowing from gabber and UK jungle. But in a duo as Cobra Killer they were more interesting still. Making trash garage rock with badly looped drums nd random samples slathered across it and sounding like it was recording on a child’s tape recorder, they pushed “lo fi” as an aesthetic beyond its limits and reached a point of still-startling delirium. The project would be surprisingly durable, maturing musically to the point they would bring in collaborators from the likes of Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr on later records, but it’s in its purest form on their debut album that their music is at its most ludicrously fantastic.