Antgrist

Helius Zhamiq (aka Edouard Perdriel), a French electronic musician and visual artist, actually started out in heavy-metal bands as a guitarist and keyboardist. In 1996 he co-founded the K-BAL Hardcore Sound System. He collaborated with La Peste on the mini-album Spanking Sounds Better With You! (Labitox, 1999). He moved into electronic speedcore and formed Malaria that released the mini-album Some Relations With Girls (Hangars Liquides, 2000). He released the solo EP Bushshit Bullshit (2004).

Antgrist was a duo with Air Frantz that released the four-disc box-set 0911 Illusion (Antgrist, 2007), which is basically just one long composition arbitrarily divided into tracks. The "music" flows uninterrupted. 7h01 Universal Propaganda (15:36) is a vortex of samples of dialogues that slowly disintegrates into a dust of noise. 7H30 2001 Apres J.C. (13:25) is limping distorted industrial-grade grindcore. Pilote Automatique (11:20) is demonic panzer-grade techno. Standout Massive Fire Ball (10:03) is a soup of vocal samples and terrifying machine-gun percussion. Mange Avec Les Loups (16:02) is abrasive musique concrete torn apart by a jackhammer. World Trade Party (14:01) unwinds a grotesque dance of short-circuiting flaming robots. Derniere Diahree Dans L'Ascenseur N� 4 (14:43) blends chaotic hissing distortion and another jackhammer epilpsy, evoking a factory floor full of creaking machines. A Genoux C Mieux (9:56) is a frenzied gallop of screaming electronic beasts. Several movements, like Timberland (11:08), feel like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music performed by an orchestra of jackhammers. Acier, Viol Et Poussieres (17:36) combines dadaistic synth and a war-like onslaught. Le Grand Saut "US Dream Jump" Essai Numero 1 (16:42) is another industrial monster dance. U Pay Cash (13:12) is more syncopated and warped. The smoking locomotive of Cool Et Pratique (13:55) offers another variation on the same archetype. Wildly self-indulgent, the album is a collection of great ideas that outlast their welcome. And of course after a couple of hours the project becomes repetitive. The second half (disc 3 and 4) is largely pointless. Nonetheless, several moments exude sheer panic. All buried under violent distorted noise, this is the soundtrack for the hell of machines.

Helius Zhamiq released the solo albums Ghosts Of Darkness In My Last Shinny Dream (Iskyz, 2011) and Lugubrious Secret Door (2012).