It is the treacherous and dark atmosphere associated with the word that inspired Melbourne singer/composer Jess Koch to use it as the title of her dark electronic project. Koch is well known both locally and internationally in the goth/industrial/rock scene as the lead singer of the act Voltera and she opens up the interview by explaining why she decided to create music for a solo project and not use these songs for Voltera.
“I just wanted to write something on my own because I have been writing with either Michael [Rizo, multi-instrumentalist from Voltera] or other members of Voltera so I really wanted to write something on my own, something electronic,” explains Koch. “I played the first track [Hex] I had written to my friends and they dug it so I decided to keep going and that has escalated to my debut performance as Mensrea.”
Mensrea has three songs available on Soundcloud – Iducium, Wa$te, Hex – with the production quality of each song belying the fact that even though this is a debut project, the mind behind the music has years of song writing and production experience.
“Voltera is an industrial-esque band but with Mensrea I was trying to do something electronic. I was going for dark electronic and not really trying to put a label on it, just see what came out.
“I have learnt a lot from Michael from mixing and mastering Voltera’s last album so I was able to apply those skills to Mensrea songs from day one,” contends Koch.
Koch’s many years playing industrial music has resulted in a N.I.N sheen to the Mensrea sounds however the music also alludes to the playfulness and bounce of UK artists Grimes. “In this stuff I was more inspired by Grimes. Seeing her doing it all on machines – the looping etc – inspired me and of course I dragged along a bit of the dark sound from Voltera and other industrial acts like N.I.N – Reznor is the master of drum machine programming.”
The implied guilt of the title, as well as making reference to the thematic darkness of Mensrea, also alludes to a time in a situation in 2011 when Jessica was deemed guilty of inciting terrorism by the United States border protection officers under the oppressive Patriot Act.
“We had been in America and then went up to Canada for a few shows and then coming back in we had some issues at the border when we were trying to get back in to the States.” The ‘issues’ Koch is talking about resulted from ‘evidence of inciting terrorism’ the border security had discovered. “They do internet searches of bands now and they came in with content issue because our street team are called Volterorists they accused us of inciting violence and terrorism. We were locked in a room for five hours and at the end of that we were given the options to stay in Canada or to be deported from America. We had to cancel a lot of shows including Whiskey Au Go Go and other showcase gigs,” explains a still audibly devastated Koch.
However, she has bounced back from this almost career ending blow with Mensrea and the acts debut performance this Friday at goth/industrial night Requiem is sure to be a triumphant arrival of an exciting new live act on Melbourne’s musical landscape.
BY DARK DENVER RISES
