Photo: Paule Jarrot

Art Rock project HTRK, pronounced ‘Hate Rock’ and also known as Hate Rock Trio, began performing in Melbourne 2003. After their former group, Portraits of Hugo Perez, disbanded, bassist Sean Stewart and guitarist Nigel Yang recruited vocalist Jonnine D with aims to create a project like The Birthday Party with slow mechanical repetition (courtesy of sparse primitive drum machine loops and Jonnine playing percussion), ghostly cold wave electronics and deafening guitar feedback. The bands aesthetic of excessively slow tempos, androgynous vocals, insistent repetition and extremely high-volume performance drastically clashed with the ’80s garage-rock revival scene that was reaching peak popularity in Melbourne. This prompted a mass exodus of bands from Melbourne relocating in Europe.

The trio followed their love of all things noise-rock, shoegaze and experimental electronica to Berlin, where they recorded an EP. A single live take captured on borrowed equipment is the closest document of the bands uncompromising live shows. ‘Nostalgia’ was self-released in a limited run of 500 but the band attracted critical attention and British Label Fire Records re-released the EP in 2007.

Two years later and having signed for Blast First Petite (Suicide, Pansonic, Alan Vega, The Slits) the trio were invited to record their debut full-length, ‘Marry Me Tonight,’ by the ubiquitous Melbourne producer Lindsay Gravina. The late, great Rowland S Howard (The Birthday Party & The Bad Seeds) shared the production duties and also occasionally contributed on guitar. ‘Marry Me Tonight‘ stands as a more refined, streamlined piece of work without sacrificing the harsh industrial repetition which previously defined the band.

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HTRK took time out of their busy touring schedule supporting The Horrors to answer a few questions.

Production duties on ‘Marry Me Tonight’ were handed over to former The Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S Howard. What were the main reasons behind this collaboration and how have TBF influenced your sound?

We’ve always been big fans of Rowland… admiring him only from afar until he approached us with the idea of producing… When we sat down together and listened to our demos for the album he talked about making the album quite pop so that younger people (or the young at heart) could easily fall in love with it. There is a particular type of romance that Rowland embodies…The Birthday Party has this romance too, beneath the violence and delirium and oblivion.

What are the 5 albums that have most influenced you?

NY – Toshimaru Nakamura and Keith Rowe – Weather Sky, Hungry Ghosts – s/t, Thela – Argentina, Blixa Bargeld – Commissioned Music and Vladislav Delay – Multila

SS – Sonic Youth ‘Evol’, Pita ‘Get Out’, Oval ‘94 Diskont’, Suicide ‘The First Album’, Ø – Oleva

What was the reason behind leaving Melbourne and heading to London (via an extended stopover in Berlin) and how have these cities influenced your sound?

We had only discussed moving cities as a vague possibility but then Jonn turned up to rehearsal with three flights to Berlin put on her credit card. We were quite bored with the music scene in Melbourne and wanted to find a stranger atmosphere to live. Living in Berlin galvanised our sound rather than changed it, though when thinking back it is a bit of a black hole…. London’s influence is as yet unknown but new stuff is definitely more languid or luxuriant.

What was the first record you ever bought? And where did you buy it?

SS – Ice-T ‘Home Invasion’ on cassette, purchased at Brash’s in Chadstsone Shopping Centre

JS – Bon Jovi ‘Slippery When Wet’ at a record shop in East Bentleigh, Melbourne

What’s the best book you’ve read and film you’ve seen in the last 6 months?

NY – ‘Try’ by Dennis Cooper and best films are ‘Slow Slidings of Pleasure’ by Robbe-Grillet, ‘In the city of Sylvia’ by José Luis Guerín and ‘Blissfully Yours’ by Apichatpong ‘Joe’ Weerasethakul.

SS – ‘The Coming Insurrection’ by The Invisible Committee and ‘Synecdoche’

JS – ‘Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy’ by Theodore Dalrymple and the film ‘Lizard in a woman’s skin’ by Lucio Fulci

Do you have an appreciation – a love, even – of other acts on the Blast First Records (Suicide, Sonic Youth, Liars, Dinosaur Jr) and did their history with the label lead to you to signing with Blast First Petite?

We love all that stuff, especially Pan Sonic and Fushitsusha.

What bands have you seen and wanted to be a part of?

None

Do you read your own press?

Sometimes, as market research

Can you explain how you became involved in the Fire Records ‘James Joyce – Chamber Music’ compilation?

Fire asked us as a last-minute favour to contribute a musical verse…we knew nothing about the poem beforehand and still don’t.

Can you explain your interpretation and in what way has Joyce influenced your song writing?

We recorded it swiftly and there’s no influence there, it’s all just silent intuition

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In conjunction with HTRK’s headline show at Cargo, the band are kindly giving away this exclusive mixtape of influences and favourite tracks.

Listen + Download here

Download here

Tracklisting

1. Nacht – R. Strauss (Berlin Philharmonic)
2. Blume (French Version) – Einsturzende Neubauten
3. Dark River – Coil
4. Wait for Me – Vangelis
5. Epsilon in Malaysian Pale – Edgar Froese
6. Workuta – Blixa Bargeld
7. Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart – Julee Cruise
8. October Love Song – Chris and Cosey
9. Johnny and Mary – Robert Palmer