Orphx Makes Found Footage Feel Brutal In The “Excruciate” Video
The techno legends recently shared Archive 1993/1994, a collection of rarities.
Archive 1993/1994 is a collection of unreleased and rare recordings from the early days of Orphx, the dark techno pioneers from Hamilton, Ontario. It speaks to the staying power of the group that tracks like "Excruciate" still feel like transmissions from some terrible future. The song's music video, premiering today on The FADER, is directed by Lissa Benno, and matches the militaristic, industrial noise with vintage images that obsess over the obvious and unseen geometries surrounding us, like a heart valve, a fence, and some cells. Rather than unifying, it's immensely unsettling.
"'Excruciate' was one of the first tracks that we created as Orphx," the group told The FADER over email. "SPK and Skinny Puppy were major influences for us at that time and I think you can hear both on this one. All of the major elements of the early recordings are here: overdriven drones, strings and percussion from a Yamaha synth, buried vocals and film samples, and metal percussion recorded at a local foundry and manipulated on a reel to reel tape machine."
Archive 1993/1994 is out now on vinyl via Mannequin Records, with a CD release on the way through Hospital Productions. Read our interview with Orphx here.
Thumbnail photo via label.