MiG-21 profile
Formed in June 2001, this four-piece (David Khan - voice, samples, programming, Mikel Goodwin - bass, Ed Wilson - guitar & J-mz Robinson - guitar) arose, more than anything, from the relocation of Strap Ons founders Don Gone & Nova Technova to Wellington. This freed up J-mz & Mikel to participate in new kRkRkRk collaborative projects.
MiG-21 was David's brainchild - essentially a new kRkRkRk pop-rock group intended to explore the creative collisions arising between the four personalities involved. In this regard MiG-21 differed from earlier label projects, such as leonard Nimoy or DiS, which had pursued fairly well defined objectives. If MiG-21 had any objective at all it was, simply, to have fun making music! Well, perhaps that's overstating things a little - MiG-21 was not intended to be entirely frivolous. But, certainly, toning down the deep seriousness & aesthetically crusading aspects of some earlier kRkRkRk projects helped to foster a creative environment free of preconceptions about how music should sound & what statements it should make.
Not surprisingly, considering its membership, MiG-21 has emerged as a kind of a synthesis of kRkRkRk projects past & present. There are punk rock & electro-pop elements reminiscent of TMA-1 as well as some Nimoy-era industrial dirge & brutality. These tendencies towards noise & chaos are complemented by a more atmospheric quality that recalls the Drawing Room, DiS or BOCCTAHNE. There's no need to be complicated about our definitions though. Essentially, MiG-21 is a pop/rock group with some industrial noise & art underpinnings.
At the root of the MiG-21 sound is Mikel's bass playing - melodic, trance-inducing & with an undeniably pop quality. Many of the group's songs grew from a Goodwin bass-line. Mikel's bass is combined with David's rhythm programmes. Created on an Ensoniq ASR-10 workstation, these comprise custom-made samples woven into simple loops. Aiming for a more esoteric feel than your run-of-the-mill drumbox, MiG-21's sample-loops flourish a wide variety of stone, wood, glass & metal textures - all processed to oblivion!
Over this solid rhythm section Ed & J-mz contribute what might be described as free-form textural guitar. Propelling the group's sound beyond the normal confines of conventional rock music, dissonance, detuning & distortion are indulged with gleeful abandon. J-mz often opts for detuned, nasel drones created with extemely short delay effects. Ed experiments with percussive guitar - brutal, crunchy sounds created by severely detuning selected strings & plenty of pick-up abuse.
The finishing element is MiG-21's use of voice (mainly David's, in this regard - although the other members make contributions). The philosophy here is to treat the voice as much like another instrument as possible. Hence, since the guitar & rhythm sounds are coloured by electronic effects - then so should be the vocals. In practice, chorus, delay & distortion effects (courtesy of David's Ensoniq & an Ibanez SM-9 Super Metal pedal on extended loan from Kate Wilks) are combined to create vocals which are, alternatively, harsh & biting or meltingly smooth. In fact, throughout the group's music, there are many intriguing textural contrasts between the lush & the abrasive.
Due to the ephemeral nature of kRkRkRk collaborative ventures, it was imperative that MiG-21 produce some recordings fairly smartly in the event that enthusiasm for the project waned. Therefore, the resulting album, MF KRK118, was created with despatch to Fostex VF16 digital 16-track between June & September 2001. This was the first kRkRkRk group release to use digital technology.
The smooth, lush, layered vocals on the album certainly sound distinctly better than a portastudio recording. They also had the benefit of a decent vocal mic - in this case David's recently acquired RODE NT2 capacitor microphone. Yet there's also a real garage sound to MF as well. This is probably due to cheap & nasty practice amps used by Ed & J-mz - not to mention their anarchic guitar playing style. The contrast between Mikel's smooth & melodic bass & David's layered, heavily effected vocals & the harsh, boxy, nails-on-chalk-board sound generated by J-mz & Ed is startling. Despite being one of kRkRkRk's more elaborate releases, MiG-21's debut brandishes a noisy, spontaneous, garage-rock primitivism.
Although MiG-21 is not intended to be taken too seriously, it's fair to say that, beneath the affectionate (& rather trashy) appropriation of vanished Iron Curtain imagery & paraphenalia, there are some serious undercurrents in the music. Many of the songs exhibit political overtones which are decidedly punk - albeit corrupted by a Generation X nihilism & disenchantment. Pop music this may be - & fun too - but there are barbs & hooks to snare the unwary.
MF
KRK118
Hot To Trotsky KRK129
MiG-21
intro
David
Khan profile
Ed
Wilson profile
J-mz
Robinson profile
Mikel
Goodwin profile
Listen to MiG-21
kRkRkRk recordings
krkrkrk@hotmail.com
Text by David
Khan. Web-building by Ed Wilson. No apologies for disinformation.
August 2004