Clock-Out Lounge Presents: Dazzling Killmen w/ Point Line Plane, Quid Quo

com/musicIn 1994, Dazzling Killmen, a quartet from the St. Louis area named after a line inanobscure, grotesque 1963 short story by Lucas Samaras, put out a record called Face of Collapse,their second and final full-length. By the following year, they had broken up.

In fact, there would be no Converge, Today is the Day or Dillinger Escape plan without this essential blueprint. As former Rolling Stone senior editor Hank Shteamer wrote ,No other music that I know of candeliver what this [music] delivers, either emotionallyits specific combination of creeping dread, frantic anxiety and seething rageor sonically: The grand, gothic power chords at the outset, sounding like some horror-movie overture. broken up by racing, scampering full-band interludes and giving way to a deranged, writhing climaxwith the guitars stabbing at oblique angles over the rhythm sections lockstep convulsionsthat feels at once vise-tight and completely unhinged.

When the whole band kicks into the next break neck triplet riff, the effect is one of complete information overload. com/album/smoke-signalsBetween 2002 and 2005 Portland synth/punk duo Point Line Plane played 150 shows across the US. Vocalist/keyboardist Joshua Blanchard (Major Hex) and drummer Nathan Carson (Witch Mountain) initially honed their near-telepathic live skills in destructively short 20-minute concert performances.

The band made its name by creating noise music with pop hooks. As electro continued to fizzle out and screamy dance-punk/neo-no wave enjoyed a brief spike of popularity, kids and college radio DJs took note of PLPs eclectic and original style, often contrasting the sound to other innovators like Liars, Ex-Models, and Lightning Bolt. Actual comparisons were hard to draw, however; reviews in print and online found writers grasping for metaphors rather than listing influences.

Now, Point Line Plane is rebooting. com/music