This post is about D. Thrussell of Snog / Black Lung
fame, the new Snog album: Babes In
Consumerland, and the new album's cover artwork...
I consider myself very fortunate to have caught various gigs
over the last decade or so that have in one way or another been linked to Snog front-person
Dee Thrussell.
The fact that I live in Melbourne certainly made it easy,
what with it being the capital of Snog’s home state of Victoria. I will confess
that I didn’t pay much attention on the very first occasion that I caught them
live — it was almost the first time I’d been in a club and I barely knew my
arse from my elbow, let alone good music — but otherwise, seeing the word
“Snog” on a flyer was always more than enough incentive to leave the house.
The mind of Thrussell (and Thrussell’s co-conspirators) is a
fertile one that in over 20 years has been responsible for almost two dozen
full-length albums, plus dozens of EPs and singles across a mind-boggling array
of mostly (but not always) electronic projects. The best known are obviously Snog,
along with Soma and Black Lung, but there are a
plethora of others.
And yet, despite the benefit of geographic proximity, until a
few months ago I’d never managed to catch Thrussell at a non-Snog gig. That
changed when I finally got to catch
Black Lung along with Forces and headliner Atom™ at a small gig
in inner city Melbourne.
So this is how I found myself talking to Thrussell — and despite
it being a Black Lung event I couldn’t resist asking about the
then-upcoming new Snog album, Babes In
Consumerland.
Dee Thrussell, as shown on the cover of the new Snog album Babes In Consumerland.
Pick up a copy of Babes
In Consumerland and you’ll probably do a double-take when you see the cover
artwork.
Yes, that image. It
depicts Thrussell — Dee Thrussell.
“What you see on the cover of Babes In Consumerland, all this time, that’s actually been a part
of me,” says Thrussell.
“Through Black Lung and Snog I’ve ended up doing things over
the years that, let’s be frank here, just wouldn’t be considered normal. For
example, I was commissioned by the US government to create a soundtrack for DARPA back in 2008 and 2009 for the recording of the Black
Lung album Full Spectrum Dominance.
That is, the US military. That’s not something that happens every day. I have
to say I’ve never actively gone out of my way to go there but as I’ve said many
times over the years how, I’ve been contacted by people in the most unexpected of
places. There are people who listen to this music in government, on oil rigs, in
prison, even in the military. There’s even a monastery somewhere in NSW I
believe where they play this music. The truth is, I look back at all those
crazy moments, and revisiting it all again I see myself subconsciously trying
to find myself.”
Thrussell is indirectly referring to the new album cover. His record label put it as follows: “Though not mentioned
explicitly lyrically, band mastermind Dee Thrussell’s long journey as a transgender woman informs every musical gesture and plaintive
lyric.”
Babes In Consumerland takes on some confronting themes not usually found in industrial music.
According to Thrussell, this is the key to understanding the
new Snog album. On one hand, it touches on so many of the staples that you
would find on previous Snog albums. Consumerism. Oppression. Rebellion.
Conspiracy theories. Anti-capitalism. Fighting the system. Culture-jamming…
they’re all there, as they have been for more than 20 years. But questions and
themes of gender have always been absent. At least in the lyrics anyway.
“Retrospectively, knowing what I know now, you might say I
was somewhat lost. All that subconscious anger came out as bad feelings. The
lyrics to Hey Christian God and Born To Be Mild, for example, and all
the cynicism and sarcasm. That was all an outlet.
So I’m glad I’ve finally been able to take a big step and
get closer to it all, even if I’m not yet ready to explore these deeply
personal ideas in a lyrical form.”
Holy shit, DARPA?!
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