Shy Tone

Hey, loser!...imagine five unassuming cabaret musician-types, unfolding a collapsible stage in your living room. Backs turned, they plug their semi-acoustic instruments into a tinny little amp...and, then - suddenly - twist around & begin to wring them through a pile of distortion pedals. They strip rock’n’roll back to its bare skeleton...and then, re-construct its carcass with layers of excruciating sheet-metal noise.

Half of the invisible empire eyes me suspiciously across a table at the Story Bridge Hotel. Their name - according to Simon [slide mandolin/vocals] & John [bass/organ] - comes from a Tav Falco’s Panther Burns’ song...which - I confess - I’ve never heard. They frown, finish their Strongbows, and continue... The invisible empire began its primitive rumblings early in 1990, with David (guitar) Simon (mandolin & vocals) and...later, Dina (drums), thrashing about in/on David’s loungeroom & Simon’s grandma’s porch. Vicki subsequently joined as second drummer...and John became the fifth member, in mid-1991.

So...whose idea was it to squeeze a MANDOLIN through distortion pedals?

“That was me, I must admit!” laughs Simon.

The mandolin, guitar & organ are ground through two or three fuzzboxes, fed into a neolithic 50s amp...and then, unleashed through the PA. The invisible empire are self-confessed losers in the race for faulty technology...

As John admits, “The use of fuzzboxes do tend to add an extra dimension to other sounds.”

The band recently released a cassette, entitled an unnatural act... which ventures far beyond the aural destruction of their live performances...

“Yeah...live, we’re much more of a rock’n’roll band, Simon says...[ha! ha!]. “If you go to a pub, then you have people who’ve drunk half a carton of XXXX and go... ‘Earghh...play Louie Louie’. So, we play Louie Louie.”

The tape, on the other hand, sees the band in full experimental mode. They plug their instruments directly into a 3-in-1 stereo for the ultimate lo-fi experience: guitars scream out fuzz, electronic pulses throb endlessly, and vocals are screeched into guitar pickups for a “dinosaur effect”.

The result: a hideously jarring wall of sound that - surprisingly - makes good drunk music...

The band are now returning to a more experimental live performance later this month, at Metro Arts, providing a sound backdrop for poetry readings...as well as playing their own material...

Abandoning their no-tech beginnings, they are also set to record their second cassette on a four-track! They still insist, however, that they’ll be playing “loser music”...or, in Simon’s words: “lounge metal” - a nice satin suit-type situation...or a casual BEIGE, perhaps?