M.RUTT are a wavey synth punk trio from Falmouth. Some of these guys are in bands you already know and love like Freak Genes, Holiday Ghosts, & The Spankees. The band is comprised of M.RUTT on Guitar/Synths and Vox, Ben Nightingale on Drums and Vox, and Sam Stacpoole on Bass and Vox. M.RUTT have just released their first EP entitled “Soft Device”. It is being released as part of a sprawling concept called Monitor Shocks.
“Monitor Shocks is a project involving various musical personas, comics and short fiction, depicting worlds not unlike our own. M.RUTT is, like many others, addicted to a portable device, unable to concentrate and needing an outlet, he found it in making quick songs. His phone absorbs so much of him that it starts to gain consciousness. The term “Soft Machine” has been used to describe how susceptible the human body is to manipulation, this phone becomes a Soft Device, both an extension of M.RUTT’S body and a separate entity. There will be others like him and others that are different, all populating the sprawl of Monitor Shocks.”
-M.RUTT BANDCAMP/MONITOR SHOCKS BIO
This project aims to pull together a big fully realized concept. It feels like the creative synapses are firing on all cylinders. Conceptually it’s got a dystopian future punk vibe like Tubeway Army. Sound wise it’s more in the vein of Devo. M.RUTT tells us they were inspired by “The Units, Fad Gadget, James Tiptree Jr’s short fiction, and Soft City by Hariton Pushwagner, as well as loads of other stuff.” We also gleaned a bit more about the comic component: “The first comics instalment, PINK BRICKS, will follow next month. Set in a world whose inhabitants take a daily memory suppressant that traps them rigidly in the present, protagonist Dab decides to stop taking them — and side effects ensue.”
M.RUTT plays in other bands like Red Cords and Freak Genes. This is the first I’ve heard him incorporating keyboards, and his writing seems really inspired as a result. I asked how the keyboard found its way to him and he says, “Sam Stacpoole lent me a Yamaha keyboard he found in a skip and I haven’t been able to stop playing it.” He goes on to mention, “I aim to release a new installment every month, with a website soon to follow.”
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M.RUTT – SOFT DEVICE E.P IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM MONITOR SHOCKS
