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Welcome to the website for Isn'tses.
(if you were looking for isntses.co.uk we have changed our domain to isntses.com) |
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ISN'TSES - AUDIO VISUAL, HARSH FUN PERFORMERS
Isn’tses are harsh fun duo Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage. Using a vast array of hardware, their DAWless setup is made up of their own self-designed synths and modules together with Game Boys, Octatrack and 8-bit modified visuals. They create a semi-improvised set of electronic beats and light saber mayhem and generate a live sonic eruption of music and noise.
Drawing on Mexican heritage, Isn’tses wear authentic Mexican-made masks on stage as a way to a way to transcend the ordinary. By wearing the Luchador masks Fenix, Pentagon, and Astaroth, we bypass the everyday to reach a more raw, sonic experience on stage. They are not a persona but a way to channel some of the energy and power associated with these masks. Each mask makes the experience different and lends into our ethos of keeping every performance distinct in some way. By incorporating improvisation and responding to each space that we play in, we create a very rare, jagged power-struggle energy that most bands are too "polite" to achieve. The sounds we achieve are born from a chaotic process; it’s a miracle the music exists at all, emerging from the specific kind of hardware-hell reserved for a duo like us.
At the core of our music is noise, but as rule-breakers looking to antagonise the status quo, we also use melody and drum patterns programmed to capture the chaos note-by-note. Our harsh fun sound is built from meticulous drum programming, dismantled synth recordings, live vocals, and raw sonic fragments creating a jagged energy. The music is a collision between meticulous structure and unbridled friction. It is a live survival of the sound—where the rhythm has to be strong enough to withstand the chaos around it, surviving whatever equipment failure or unpredictability that happens on stage.
Isn'tses are the creators of noise synths Chernobylizer, Chernobyletta, Fort Processor and most recently Dark Harvestator.
Isn’tses are harsh fun duo Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage. Using a vast array of hardware, their DAWless setup is made up of their own self-designed synths and modules together with Game Boys, Octatrack and 8-bit modified visuals. They create a semi-improvised set of electronic beats and light saber mayhem and generate a live sonic eruption of music and noise.
Drawing on Mexican heritage, Isn’tses wear authentic Mexican-made masks on stage as a way to a way to transcend the ordinary. By wearing the Luchador masks Fenix, Pentagon, and Astaroth, we bypass the everyday to reach a more raw, sonic experience on stage. They are not a persona but a way to channel some of the energy and power associated with these masks. Each mask makes the experience different and lends into our ethos of keeping every performance distinct in some way. By incorporating improvisation and responding to each space that we play in, we create a very rare, jagged power-struggle energy that most bands are too "polite" to achieve. The sounds we achieve are born from a chaotic process; it’s a miracle the music exists at all, emerging from the specific kind of hardware-hell reserved for a duo like us.
At the core of our music is noise, but as rule-breakers looking to antagonise the status quo, we also use melody and drum patterns programmed to capture the chaos note-by-note. Our harsh fun sound is built from meticulous drum programming, dismantled synth recordings, live vocals, and raw sonic fragments creating a jagged energy. The music is a collision between meticulous structure and unbridled friction. It is a live survival of the sound—where the rhythm has to be strong enough to withstand the chaos around it, surviving whatever equipment failure or unpredictability that happens on stage.
Isn'tses are the creators of noise synths Chernobylizer, Chernobyletta, Fort Processor and most recently Dark Harvestator.
Booking Enquiries: [email protected]
Isn’tses in Action :
Isn’tses have performed recently at Noisemas IKLECTIK, Noise Club Copenhagen, Kiyasu Fest Bristol, Farsight Gallery London, ClubGlob Brighton, Alphabet Brighton, Renaissance Alternative Music Festival, Circuit Control Dresden, Gate Festival UK, C.Rockefeller Centre for the Contemporary Arts Dresden, Mayhem Night Black Heart, Spanners London, Electropixel Festival France, Baba Yaga's Hut Raw Power Festival, Sonic Electronics Festival, Hackoustic Presents, coding in GE> , Fort Process Festival Newhaven, Liminality (Cacophony, Gallery 46), Festival Bergerie #3 France, Modern Panic VIII, Dronica, Woodland Gathering, SOTU Festival Amsterdam.
They played live on Resonance FM (Bad Punk, The Wrong Show, Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission), Cashmere Radio Berlin and were played on Graham Dunning’s NTS Radio show “Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone” Isn'tses have released recordings as hand-crafted cassette editions including “Punctum” and “Ultimate Problem of Documentation”. They were featured in catalogue and cd compilation for 3 Years of Dronica and artist compilation for Sonic Electronics Festival.
"London-based duo of Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage, have a wicked sense of humour and a unique visual aesthetic, dressing in bespoke sequinned costumes which make them look like displaced grapplers from an obscure Japanese indy wrestling division. Mere eye candy they ain’t, mind: Punctum, their third self-released cassette, is an epic 90 minutes of obscurely crafted analogue machine gurgle – “an album of mysterious origin”, the sole description on the Bandcamp page, may not specifically refer to its methodology but certainly could." - Noel Gardner, The Quietus
“you can’t replicate that signature sound you have....so dense and full of detail and movement....a different use of space...really tight and immediate and close” - Bermuda Triangle Test Transmissions, Resonance FM
Contact: [email protected]
Instagram @lisa_mckendrick
Isn’tses have performed recently at Noisemas IKLECTIK, Noise Club Copenhagen, Kiyasu Fest Bristol, Farsight Gallery London, ClubGlob Brighton, Alphabet Brighton, Renaissance Alternative Music Festival, Circuit Control Dresden, Gate Festival UK, C.Rockefeller Centre for the Contemporary Arts Dresden, Mayhem Night Black Heart, Spanners London, Electropixel Festival France, Baba Yaga's Hut Raw Power Festival, Sonic Electronics Festival, Hackoustic Presents, coding in GE> , Fort Process Festival Newhaven, Liminality (Cacophony, Gallery 46), Festival Bergerie #3 France, Modern Panic VIII, Dronica, Woodland Gathering, SOTU Festival Amsterdam.
They played live on Resonance FM (Bad Punk, The Wrong Show, Bermuda Triangle Test Transmission), Cashmere Radio Berlin and were played on Graham Dunning’s NTS Radio show “Fractal Meat on a Spongy Bone” Isn'tses have released recordings as hand-crafted cassette editions including “Punctum” and “Ultimate Problem of Documentation”. They were featured in catalogue and cd compilation for 3 Years of Dronica and artist compilation for Sonic Electronics Festival.
"London-based duo of Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage, have a wicked sense of humour and a unique visual aesthetic, dressing in bespoke sequinned costumes which make them look like displaced grapplers from an obscure Japanese indy wrestling division. Mere eye candy they ain’t, mind: Punctum, their third self-released cassette, is an epic 90 minutes of obscurely crafted analogue machine gurgle – “an album of mysterious origin”, the sole description on the Bandcamp page, may not specifically refer to its methodology but certainly could." - Noel Gardner, The Quietus
“you can’t replicate that signature sound you have....so dense and full of detail and movement....a different use of space...really tight and immediate and close” - Bermuda Triangle Test Transmissions, Resonance FM
Contact: [email protected]
Instagram @lisa_mckendrick
Live at IKLECTIK
