PRESS
Flux Information Sciences | Private/Public | Review
Flagpole Magazine | Emerson Dameron
...the aural equivalent to spending your first acid trip getting your spleen ruptured...
New York City: skyscrapers, subways and epidemic claustrophobia. The birthplace of hip hop and the headquarters of Flux Information Sciences, a ruthless noise/burlesque outfit whose latest platter Private/Public (Young God), is the aural equivalent to spending your first acid trip getting your spleen ruptured by an arcade full of recently anthropomorphized Centipede machines out for revenge. Word has it that FIS recorded Public/Private mostly live in the studio, allowing a select few friends and fans to attend the sessions on condition that they do so "naked, blindfolded, like lawn furniture made of flesh and not move." In this environment, the band laid down its frantically rhythmic and addictively disorienting brand of musical shadenfreude. The result deserves a dignified space on the spectrum between Swans' Greed and Naked City's Torture Garden. In the city so nice they named it twice, Keyboardist Sebastien Brault, drummer Derek Etheridge and Tristan Bechet (singer, guitarist, bassist and all-around go-to guy) are already famous for their theatrical, destructive live act. Here, where it's this easy to get catatonically bored with polite, head-nodding indie rock, it's all the more important that we all go witness this band, brothers and sisters. Maybe Young God will send a few more members of its roster calling. FIS is playing, appropriately enough, on a bill with cupcake-scarfing noise conductors Melted Men (who I think are/is a single Melted Man these days).