There’s Nothing Like Wetware’s Ghostly Industrial Banger ‘Among the Like’

Back in January, I visited New York to hang with some friends, see the American premiere of Foma Jaremtschuk’s paintings, and catch a gig at the Park Church Co-Op in Brooklyn: Drew McDowall, Copley Medal, Wetware, Slow Tongued Beauty and Justin Lakes. And Wetware blew my fucking mind.

Roxy Farman prowled through the church pews, twirling her mic like a shamanic lion tamer, while Matthew Morandi created a sinister, gurgling foundation with his modular rig. Inside the Lutheran church, no human mind lay safe from the duo’s piercing performance. On “Among the Like,” track two on Wetware’s 12” — Salpinx, named after the Greek war instrument — Wetware continue the work they began on their self-titled debut (Primitive Languages). Farman’s voice has never been more haunting. It drips unease, managing to sound both ghostly and futuristic, as it rides Morandi’s dark, undulating synth sounds. “Among the Like” carries an immense tension — think Donald Trump helping out at a soup kitchen — and fits quite nicely in the lineage of anxious electronic punk from New York. And also the lineage of music that makes it so good to feel bad.

Salpinx is out June 1 on Bank Records.