HK119 is bark-grooving mad, with semi-operatic vocals, aggressive electro-punk tracks (she was there the first time round, giving her the edge over today’s ElectroKids), and striking, freakish imagery. And she has a powerful message tied in with anti-consumerism, modernism, Utopia, censorship, and Lord knows what else.
There are two levels to this album. First of all the music is ace – a healthy mix of Kraftwerk, Blondie, The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, and Goldfrapp. HK119’s vocals are jagged, powerful and angry – sounding very much like Blondie with a European accent. But a couple of tracks into the album, it becomes apparent that there is a lot more to HK119 than meets the eye, and suddenly her work becomes darker and more disturbing.
The best way to deal with this album is imagine that it is set far in the future, in an Orwellian world where people “sleep walk to their purses just to take some money out” and buy “shiny, pink Hi-techy things” [Buy Me]; a dark world controlled by excessive consumerism and sedated by the media [Last Nation], and constricted and suppressed by propaganda [Censor Me]. In fact, it paints a pretty bleak picture of the way things are heading. Any humanity in the music is distorted (something reflected in her stage name, performances, and imagery) disfigured, twisted and mechanised. But there are still flecks of beauty throughout – on the bonus track ‘Taysikuu’ HK119’s vocals really come into their own – passionate and silky, in stark contrast to her more serrated tracks.
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“Money can’t buy what I’d like, so I’ll have to steal, not a big deal,” [Candelabra] HK 119 laments – it is slightly more hopeful, but any lights at the end of the tunnel are immediately offset by fierce anger, articulating the pressure of living in a world where success is defined by growth [Neurotica], and the socially engineered desire to have it all.
The entire album is a gauntlet hurled on the floor in a frenzy. Telling it like it is, and as it probably will be, HK119 is on one helluva mission. You can’t help but sit up and take notice, and for that reason alone this is a magnificent achievement, given the current social and political climate, and the general mass apathy that seems to have been gripping the nation for decades.
HK119 dares the listener to jump on board. Literally. With ‘Pick Me Up’ we are given a phone number in the song, [07951676759] – and given the following instructions “Call immediately. A lot. For a long time. Let’s radiate baby, lets radiate” So, the obvious thing to do was to give it a bell. Bloody hell, it was too traumatic to talk about. You’ll have to give it a go yourself cause this W&H writer now needs a whole lot of therapy. But in a good way.
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