{"title":"VR Sex","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVR Sex is an audio\/visual band that specializes in a diverse range of genres including deathrock, synth punk, post-punk, ambient, and ethereal soundscapes. The band consists of Noel Skum (Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty) on guitar, Z. Oro (Aaron Montaigne of Antioch Arrow\/Heroin\/DBC) on vocals and drums, and Mico Frost (Brian Tarney of Guardian) on synths and electric bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith their unique blend of musical styles, VR Sex creates a captivating sonic experience that takes listeners on a journey through dark and atmospheric landscapes. Their music is characterized by haunting melodies, pulsating rhythms, and introspective lyrics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFormed by seasoned musicians with impressive backgrounds in the underground music scene, VR Sex brings a wealth of talent and expertise to their performances. Their live shows are known for their intense energy and mesmerizing visuals that enhance the overall immersive experience.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"hard-copy","title":"Hard Copy","description":"\u003cp\u003eFollowing 2022's \u003ci\u003eRough Dimension\u003c\/i\u003e LP, Noel Skum - aka Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty - made the radical leap of expanding his psychedelic post-punk vehicle VR Sex into a fully collaborative five-piece band. To christen the new group's camaraderie, they booked a block of studio time in Glassell Park, swapped skeletal iPhone demos, and \"did that classic thing of a band making the exact record they want without any interference.\" Working 12-hour days, they banged out the basics in a week, then tracked the rest over a month, fine-tuning it with flourishes, FX, and amplifier experiments. \u003ci\u003eHard Copy\u003c\/i\u003e is the result - 10 tracks of sneering psychedelic punk streaked with Chrome-damaged freak-outs and snotty power pop harmonies chronicling sex doll love affairs and glue-sniffing fatales.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMixed by guitarist Mike Kriebel - an accomplished engineer with dozens of credits across the punk, goth, and garage underground - the album is dense, rich, and spatial, spurred by Clinco's muse of \"reckless abandon.\" Shadows of Chrome, Stickmen With Rayguns, Japanese psych, and loud- quiet-loud grunge anthems flicker here and there, but ultimately VR Sex's mode is more sardonic and saturated, oscillating between ripped leather riffing and space echo meltdowns. Banning plug-ins was a mission statement, with most instruments tracked direct into the board, then guitars added via a daisy chain of amplifiers, panned and mixed and matched for maximum intoxication: \"My goal is always to load up every take with as much sound as possible in one pass.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLyrically, the record revisits the project's perennial fascinations: twisted lust, cheap thrills, dirty money, doomed delinquents, and ruined romance amid the creeps and cracked dreamers of gritty city voids. The title refers to the uncanny valley between \"facsimile and the real thing, and the illusion that one is better than the other - when both come with their own menu of delights and demonic pleasures.\" Hard Copy embraces extremes and outliers, delusion and perversion, the conflicted dimensional depths lurking in every exploded heart: \"I can be ugly \/ I can be strong \/ I can be proper \/ I can be wrong \/ I can be lovely \/ or I can be gone \/ the thing that will haunt you is still hanging on.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dais","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50396849373515,"sku":"2175027","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Grey LP","offer_id":50396849897803,"sku":"2175028","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50396848456011,"sku":"2175024","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/VR_SEX_-_HARD_COPY_-_PACKSHOT_efb88623_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726485985"},{"product_id":"rough-dimension","title":"Rough Dimension","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe latest by Andrew Clinco’s acid punk alias VR Sex takes its title from an architectural phrase but more importantly refers to the warped, wicked underworld the songs both chronicle and condemn. Donning the moniker Noel Skum – an acerbic anagram of Elon Musk – Clinco vents his scorn for and fascination with the seedy, surreal margins of low-life Los Angeles, doomed to dead ends of vanity, lust, and technology. Although initially launched as an outlet for “heavier sounds” beyond Clinco’s duties in new wave fantasists Drab Majesty, the project has ripened into a compelling exercise in world building, weaving themes of gritty city neofuturist sleaze within a framework of driving, distorted guitars and cathode-blasted synths. Echoes of Chrome, Wire, Minimal Man, and Sisters Of Mercy ripple through the collection but ultimately \u003ci\u003eRough Dimension\u003c\/i\u003e charts its own twisted vision of “our unforgiving reality.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten and demoed across two weeks alone in a Marseille flat using his prized 1980’s Gibson “Invader” and a laptop, Clinco then took the tracks to Strange Weather studios in Brooklyn to record with Ben Greenberg (Uniform, The Men) who helmed 2019’s debut, \u003ci\u003eHuman Traffic Jam\u003c\/i\u003e. The results are notably ripping, refined, and riveting. Riffs in alternate tunings chug and churn over mid-tempo drums punctuated by spikes of sci-fi electronics while the vocals swagger and spit venom (“where we walk is also where we shit \/ but if we bark at our reflections are we hypocrites? \/ impulses bleed right into our seed \/ where hate culminates the apple rotted on the tree”). It’s a bristling mix of the melodic and the macabre, absurdist observations of fast living and desperate measures, the clock of youth ticking towards midnight as dreams unravel in Babylon. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eVR Sex’s specialty is making these cautionary tales of psychic decay and tainted love a thrill rather than a drag. There’s a sunglasses at night glamor to Clinco’s choruses and solos, a wit to his black leather judgements (“what is the answer \/ to cancerous people \/ walking in my line of sight?”). The music’s milieu tends towards parasites and predators but its mood skews refreshingly accelerated and amused, cruising the strip with a cigarette, watching goths and limousines crawl in gridlock beneath digital billboards. The\u003ci\u003e Rough Dimension \u003c\/i\u003emay be a cesspool, but it’s home.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Dais","offers":[{"title":"Yellow | LP","offer_id":50442192486731,"sku":"1142431","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Green | LP","offer_id":50442192978251,"sku":"1142429","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50442191569227,"sku":"1142428","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50442191929675,"sku":"1142426","price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a03181a2-0394-4a28-9abe-81d32e71d13b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726994072"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_5a860c0d_thumbnail_4096_3f63e4cc-7bc3-46d2-845c-89db4b3a0a9a.jpg?v=1726485939","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/vr-sex.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}