Midnight Juggernauts
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Midnight Juggernauts

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Additionally, on the band’s second single, Memorium, from the newly released album, the band thematically and astutely tackle the themes of technological evolution and pareidolia. Pareidolia is the phenomena of man, subconsciously, needing to see their likeness in everything they create and control.

Vendetta discusses the broader themes of the album, specifically in reference to the closing visual from the film clip for Memorium that is a quote from American historian Arthur M Schlesinger that states, “Science and technology revolutionise our lives, but memory, tradition and myth frame our response.”

“Well I suppose with the idea of futurism and technology we’ll (mankind) always be drawn to this technological aspect and forward progression but within that you always want to find a human quality, an actual human feel.”

This concept of ‘man’ seeing himself in everything from constellations to faces in smoke is known as pareidolia. Notable examples in contemporary culture are shows about ghost hunting where people, who want so badly to believe, see human faces and hear human voices in vague and often random stimulus.

On this theme Vendetta takes it a step further by somewhat light-heartedly retelling his own personal experience with pareidolia. “Yeah, it’s the same with food. I’m a carnivore and I’m happy to eat meat but as soon as there’s anything related to the face I can’t help but humanise or personalise what I am going to eat. I remember ordering calamari and it was a full creature and I remember seeing a human face in what I was about to eat and it completely turned me off my meal,” explains the slightly grossed-out but upbeat vocalist and keyboard player for Midnight Juggernauts.

Musically, the song Memorium features Vendetta singing in a low and slightly affected manner giving the overall vibe of the track a dreamy veneer, keeping the music of the song minimal and analogue. The film clip itself is literally a history lesson in 3D imagery that starts with 1951 and the MIT Servomechanism Laboratory’s ‘Whirlwind Computer’ and finishes up in 1985 with the 3D pianist ‘Tony De Peltrie’ by Pierre Lachapelle, Phillipe Bergeron, Daniel Langlois and Pierre Robidoux. Despite the educative value of a clip that helps remind us where James Cameron got his groundwork for Avatar, Vendetta admits that he is still a little nervous about the use of the imagery.

“Well we had to [use someone else’s images]! It’s a difficult one because, well, there’s a few programmers that we contacted online, they sent me a higher [resolution] copy of their work but for some of them we couldn’t do that – we just couldn’t get on to them.”

However, due to the reportage and educative aspect of the film clip, as well as the full accreditation to the creators of the 3D images, it looks as though the copyright law concept of fair dealings will keep the film clip in play.

“We were looking into the background, and we’re hoping it’s successful, where under the fair dealings law, as well as using and crediting all the authors and their company,” explains an informed Vendetta.

Musically, there is an overall textural simplicity and vintage feel to Uncanny Valley and this ‘throwback’ to the early the days of synth rock is captured magnificently on the song Ballad Of The War Machine. In line with the previous discussion of the song, Memorium’s identity intertwined with its film clip Ballad Of The War Machine has a tremendously anachronistic film clip that has the band’s three members dressed as Soviet soldiers dancing in the lots that contain defunct jet planes and in front of Eastern Orthodox cathedrals.    

“We actually did go to Russia to film that video,” tells Vendetta before delving into why the song and clip were first release via YouTube under a Russian language non-de-plume. “It has been three years or so since our last album, we wanted to return with something a little bit different so we had the rough concept of creating a video anonymously and releasing it under the pretence of being a soviet pop band and seeing how long we could get away with that pretence.”

So how did the façade play-out? Were Midnight Juggernauts successful in creating a mythological Soviet era pop band? “A few Russian friends posted it on a lot of Russian blogs and different Russian websites and it did attract a lot of attention. People had no idea who this band were and were asking how to find more of their music online. But then there were a lot of Russians questioning why there was a band singing in English and not in Russian. There were a few people who thought maybe it was an English band who travelled there in the ‘80s.”

BY DAN WATT