I-C-K
Франция
Founded in 1993 by Arnaud Babut, the project ICK is one of the oldest French industrial formations still active today. Citing inspirations from medicine, particularly psychiatry, as well as mechanisms of mass manipulation and human interactions, with authors such as Pierre Driö La Rochel, Choran, Bataille, and Céline being significant influences, this collective of misanthropes from the Paris suburbs has earned a reputation as the enfant terrible among this generation of the French non-conformist noise scene, which also includes Derniere Volonte and PPF. Their first cassette, titled 'Intrinsic Violence,' later reissued on vinyl by the cult label of the blutharsch creator Albin Julius Hau Ruck!, was released in 1997. At that time, the project was named I-C-Kaos, and its fierce noise constructions resonated with contemporary innovators of the mid-90s like Genocide Organ or Deutsch Nepal; however, the protest and sarcasm were distinctly French in their elegance, wit, and precision. Guided by the motto 'The nature of your oppression is the aesthetics of your anger,' the Parisians recorded several vinyl releases on both Hau Ruck! and their own label La Nouvelle Alliance, which rightfully place their name among the heroes of power electronics in the late 90s. However, at the beginning of the current decade, as the potential of this style waned, they, like their former associates from LNA, began to seek new forms. While Derniere Volonte delved into martial and orchestral realms, ICK, like PPF, turned their attention towards the so-called 'third wave,' the radical revival of analog electronic sounds from the early 80s. Unlike celluloid electrocash or glamorous synth-pop, the 'third wave' is internally as non-conformist a movement as 90s industrial. Conspiracy concepts, perversions, mind manipulations, and irrational brutality—these themes found new life here, becoming in contemporary industrial a set of clichés. Of course, ICK is not purely 'third wave' electronics, like Le Syndicat Electronique and other projects from the Invasion Planet label, but it is all the more interesting to hear how the industrial techniques they add to the classic analog synthetic sound of the 80s create a strikingly unsettling atmosphere, fused with the eternally youthful protest drive of that era. At our festival, ICK will primarily perform tracks from their latest album 'Les Actions Retro-Activistes,' which is the most vivid and complete expression of the project's new creative face.
