Hope + Vx
Kilo Price For Dead Shapes
The Vert:X remix for Revbjelde's 'Swamp Gas' 7-inch was what first set the ball rolling. Hope had done one those twisted gravel throated blues vocals on it that people either love or hate; VX loved it. VRT:X's chief rhythm meister and bass mangler had the same idea as Hope did when he heard the remix and put his foot into their sonic vortex; they needed to do more work together. Thus was born the 'Disintegrate' album, released through Heavy Electricity in 2021; a feast of psyched out motorik gumbo given asymmetric form and peculiar imagery by grit and gravel vocalisaitions. Flip the calendar forward another year and Whitehead (VX) conjures another batch of trademark pulsing walls of disreputable bass squall with the intent of stripping things back to the bleached bone of a duo and thus bending the template through industrial faustianisms. Hope responded with stream of consciousness ragings and brooding critiques of a world gone askew. These were indeed songs but their shapes had become abstract, unsettling and excitingly contradictory. This time they were defying genre and paving the way towards yet more radical explorations. 'Kilo Price For Dead Shapes' is that debut album, it's patina of dank moss and melting solder claims no directly familiar territory but the shadows therein are rich with two lifetimes of alternative musical misdemeanours. Hope + VX step off the beaten path to carve and distort new routes with bare knuckles and malfunctioning tools and the results are darkly exhilarating.