Curse Mackey is currently touring his solo album, Imaginary Enemies, in the US and Canada. An established face on the industrial electronics scene, the Texas-based musician is also known for his work with Pigface, My Life with the Thrill Kill Cult, and Sine.
The album is a tour of the sounds and styles favoured by North American acts. The opener, “Doomed for Monday,” easily could be mistaken for a Skinny Puppy track with syncopated beats, samples of evangelical preachers, and processed vocals. The lyrics subvert something Shalamar once said, but the material sounds fresh and dynamic.
“Time Comes Clean” pierces a similar vein; injecting the feeling of mid-career Front Line Assembly. It crosses the blood-brain barrier with ease and easily becones a habit.
“Discoccult” inverts Luke 1:28 while channeling the feel of 1990s Wax Trax records. “Blood Like Love” continues the theme of inversions; undermining the title and narrative of Killing Joke’s best-known single.
On “Six Ghosts of Fear,” Mackey dials in the influences of Clock DVA and FLA. A pulsing bass underpins more samples and arpeggios to develop a layered dancefloor filler. Why couldn’t Tom Ellard have done more of this?
Imaginary Enemies is a love letter to the Atari- sequenced songs of the late 80s and early 1990s, before they gave birth to acid house and techno. It is also a fresh take on that hard electronica that is sorely needed in the time of Sabrina Carpenter.