(Full Of Hell, Trumpeting ecstasy 2017)
A bending guitar, jerking out a buzzing squeal followed by a warm humming drone, Dylan Walker is rocking back and forth, weight on heels, then on toes, gently twisting the knob of a pedal. He’s holding a microphone in hand with the wire wrapped around his fist like he’s getting ready to box an opponent. The floor is quivering from the sub. A gentle nod to the drummer (Dave Bland) then a discharge of blast beats, shrieking, jumping, sweating, grabbing arms and shoulders, throwing beer and bodies – the butterfly feeling in my stomach began to feel satisfied, I love these moments and I love where the music and the people take me.
I thought a lot about this energy the few days following, I thought about how it could be captured and used in the most justifying way possible for a gallery piece. The latex maid is an amalgamation of my closest friends, people I don’t like, people in passing, capturing whatever I found affective no matter how unenduring, insufferable or moving. The piece has deep roots in social perception and the anxiety surrounding it, creating a very real person with all their worried, brash charisma in tow.
I found myself plucking small pieces of personality from the people at the Full of Hell show. Sharing beer and nips of vodka smuggled into Electric Brixton with strangers, listening to their political worries and wobbly opinions – I felt trusted for no reason other than our shared love for grindcore and powerviolence tethering us together. I feel so inspired by these small, some would say, insignificant interactions. I felt belonging and trust.
After the show, I started to feel a lot of emotional attachment to the Latex Maid. Originally, I planned for her to be teeming with irony – a salty inside joke I could play on my friends but after I begun to hyper focus on these interactions, the people around me and the people included, I feel like it is becoming more connective. The emotions of the people recorded are delicate, regardless of their sincerity or my own opinion.
Although the humour isn’t lost with the Latex Maid, I have begun to abandon the fearlessness of its old sinister irony for creating a person more living and complex.