December 22, 2005Madame Chao and Better Propaganda
Mme Chao is one of my favorites around the web as far as crazed audio and visual insanity go. I tried to solicit a track from her for my noise comp, but alas, she never wrote back (those New York types are notoriously difficult to pin down, you know). It seems she has a couple of new projects going, and I found a couple of great tracks you can listen to at the Better Propaganda site, which, if you haven't discovered it already, is a delectable smorgasbord of audio yum (free tracks plus stuff for sale-- support indy artists, wheeee.)
One visit to Madame Chao's place and you'll never quite be the same (volume levels up, please...)
If the main page doesn't load after her weirdass animation sequence and a bunch of mouse-clicking, just use this URL. It took me a few tries, but it's worth getting in to have the big fun at her audio, video and games section.
Here's what Better Propaganda has to say about Madame Chao:
Madame Chao is a multimedia artist in Brooklyn, NY, known for seizure-inducing bursts of audio/ visual chaos, applying the term 'Chaorin Kombat' to live head-to-head video and noise battles and online equivalents with video-game styled interfaces. Her body of work is extremely dense- lushly saturated- richer than one's ability to actually experience what's happening. Chao is not scared of any subject matter or sampling, gleefully romping through video edits of porn, snuff films, scatology and so on, in stop frame assaults on the viewer's consciousness. Musically, it's breakcore, speedbass, cut and paste; borrowing from: breaks, industrial, turntablism, video games, hardcore techno and more. Expect a constant rinse of Asian motifs through out their work, including Beijing B-movie samples and lo-fi Kung Fu film references. Also be prepared for full grain digital distortion; Chao puts out some of the loudest and most compressed square wave tones possible with today's available audio formats. Personal appearances are very rare and the actual identity of Madame Chao remains a mystery. It is purported that she uses doubles or imposters for some shows.
One visit to Madame Chao's place and you'll never quite be the same (volume levels up, please...)
If the main page doesn't load after her weirdass animation sequence and a bunch of mouse-clicking, just use this URL. It took me a few tries, but it's worth getting in to have the big fun at her audio, video and games section.
Here's what Better Propaganda has to say about Madame Chao:
Madame Chao is a multimedia artist in Brooklyn, NY, known for seizure-inducing bursts of audio/ visual chaos, applying the term 'Chaorin Kombat' to live head-to-head video and noise battles and online equivalents with video-game styled interfaces. Her body of work is extremely dense- lushly saturated- richer than one's ability to actually experience what's happening. Chao is not scared of any subject matter or sampling, gleefully romping through video edits of porn, snuff films, scatology and so on, in stop frame assaults on the viewer's consciousness. Musically, it's breakcore, speedbass, cut and paste; borrowing from: breaks, industrial, turntablism, video games, hardcore techno and more. Expect a constant rinse of Asian motifs through out their work, including Beijing B-movie samples and lo-fi Kung Fu film references. Also be prepared for full grain digital distortion; Chao puts out some of the loudest and most compressed square wave tones possible with today's available audio formats. Personal appearances are very rare and the actual identity of Madame Chao remains a mystery. It is purported that she uses doubles or imposters for some shows.
