Lowered Expectations

Benny (@rattegg) and I have been rehearsing and recording for our Wet Face project for some time now and — provided that the venue staff don't get cold feet — our first performance is imminent.

Having 'mastered' (for 'mastered' read 'bathed in distortion and given a perfunctory mid-range spike') a few tracks in the last week, I thought I'd put one up here. Please feel free to download it, retag it as a Madonna track and seed it with your favourite file sharing software.

Wet Face

Wet Face are a duo much like The Ting Tings, except entirely dissimilar in both form and content and obnoxious by intent rather than misfortune. Benny plays the drums (backwards, with the snare next to his right knee) and I sing (well, howl) and play guitar.

The writing and overall ideology are indebted to punk blues acts such as The Oblivians and Bantam Rooster (another duo), but the low tuning (dropped A) and the misanthropic theme are borrowed from Sludge Metal and Noise Rock bands like EyeHateGod, Unsane and Todd.

Production

Producing a band like Wet Face is maddeningly paradoxical: It wants to sound unhinged, unbalanced and unnecessary in just the right way. For the sake of balance, I've tried to make it unhinged, unbalanced and unnecessary in equal measure. In one channel is a guitar which buzzes too loudly and in the other channel is a guitar which crunches too loudly. In the middle are some drums that have been compressed to buggery and the vocals are overgained just enough to compete with the guitars. That's it.

Lowered Expectations will be is the openning track on our EP. This will be made available soon so 'watch this space' (or subscribe to the damned RSS so you don't have to bother) Check the EP out on Spotify.