WHITEHOUSE + RAMLEH + DISSENTION
Electrowerks, Torrens Street EC1
Saturday 5th April, 9:00pm

Whitehouse came to my attention through an arduous article awash with details like how for 28 years they have “crossed boundaries of morality and taste with their transgressive noise”. Heh, quite. When a group produces songs entitled ‘A Cunt Like You’ or ‘Bloodfucking’ you start to wonder about what this could sound like. What’s the worst that could happen? I soulseek ‘Dumping The Fucking Rubbish’. Click. Bang.

Bang bang bang bang. “Could you foster enough hate?” Could you render enough hate and portray it in such an uncompromising manner? The music rattles and stings like it was a ZX Spectrum tape loading 48K of apparent terror; the lyrics for some are nothing more than a string of expletives, ignoring the delights within. Genuinely unnerving tales of misogynistic violence, devious accusations of pretence… all demanding lashings of capslock. I download more. I listen to it on the tube and it makes me pull faces, looking at people’s faces while Best bellows at connoisseurs, perverts and enthusiasts, and not forgetting pretentious cunts like - I dunno, maybe someone on this carriage? I pore over the lyrics and hope that these aren’t culled from past experiences, instead finding blog posts and scrapbooks that warrant unease but also a smirk.

Over time, I get desensitised to most of the songs. When you trawl through the internet you end up desensitised to most things, what with belonging to a fapping and F5ing generation who’ll be looking at 2girls1cup in the same sentimental gaze that we’ll use to talk about Sonic The Comic. The rattling and crunching and snarling fails to clatter my head into submission. ‘Why You Never Became A Dancer’ becomes my alarm on my phone.

But it’s all flooding back! I’m standing in a warehouse and it’s all happening again. They’re splitting after 28 years (Bennett has been Whitehouse since he was 18, while Best has been like this since 14. When I was 14 my musical world was ‘Up The Bracket’ and free CD covermounts. At least some things change) and I feel lucky for grabbing onto an era as it runs into the distorted abyss. Support appears in the form Dissention (bottom photo) who improvise in a wholly kinetic fashion, Chris Corsano controlling your gaze with no more than a frantic flailing of his limbs. Ramleh also excite but they seem like the pre-watershed entertainment, the five minute freeview with the few seconds where you think you’re gonna see it all before the signal dissapates. Sure enough, the The visuals surrounding us splutter out Abu Ghraib abuse images and intertwine them with flags and popup windows and fluorescence and hentai and my senses start to feel like they’re being compromised. Bennett and Best appear. Laptops open. Beep. Click. BANG.

The crowd, before now sedate and scrutinising the talent before them, explode. To a song called ‘Ruthless Babysitting’. This is a new experience, that disbelief all over again. Middle fingers and insults are flying in both directions, but also a twisted euphoria. Bennett lurks behind twisting the screws while Best gives you the abuse. While everyone goes apeshit for this and I’m just standing there, not knowing what to think. Seventy minutes pass and my body feels like it’s been assaulted. I leave with a sore head but a head that whirrs on into the night, changed just slightly by exposure to absolute extremity, or at least the nearest that I could muster. At least I have something to throw into the hands of those who think Crystal Castles is ‘noise’. Goodness me, they’re in for a treat.

YouTube footage of Whitehouse’s performance »
YouTube of Dissention »
Whitehouse/Susan Lawly official MySpace »
roman david