Chomp the chumps

>> AIDS Wolf bring new bite
to their chaotic noise rock

SINISTER: AIDS Wolf

With their maelstrom of noise, punk and improv, AIDS Wolf has managed to cut a clear, divisive line in the Montreal music scene sandbox—you’re certain to either love ’em or hate ’em. Nothing half-baked and vanilla here, just teeth-gnashing ferocity guaranteed to leave a mark. The guitars are as gentle as a poke in the eye with a salty finger, while the drums bludgeon the ears, and then there’s Chloe Lum’s vocals soaring over the sheets of spastic noise. Try imagining Yoko Ono receiving a root canal, or Lydia Lunch with a stubbed toe—actually, scratch that. Just imagine the sounds of a cat in heat fucking a fax machine.

AIDS Wolf have quickly earned as many enemies—the tastemakers Pitchfork among them, good on ya!—as they have fans, and after two successful tours of Europe, many tours of the U.S. and numerous releases (including their newly released split EP with Providence’s Athletic Automaton, on Skin Graft Records), they promise that, love ’em or hate ’em, they won’t be going anywhere soon.
 

“We just want to get a reaction from the crowd,” says Lum. “It’s always better to get a good reaction, but if people are just going to sit there and do nothing, then I am going to go up and fuck with them.”
 

Lum matter-of factly recounts a recent show in Holland where people were—well, they were just being Dutch. Lum picked out the most rambunctious member of the stupefied audience, someone who actually had the audacity to bob his head, and proceeded to climb on him and bite his head while wailing like a banshee. “Sometimes, when you’ve been touring for a month and you get an audience like that, you feel like you’re just up there punching a time card. Do these people actually think that we’re going to pack up our gear and go home? You have to get people involved.”

The last time the Mirror chatted with AIDS Wolf just over a year ago, they had the prestigious honour of being Noisemakers. Not ones to let us down, AIDS Wolf have trumpeted their manifest destiny, playing shows with bigwig noiseniks like Daughters and An Albatross while building up quite a following south of the border. It’s worth noting that the band have crammed a couple more nickels into their fists recently, adding more finesse to their ballast, and more method to their madness. “I think we consciously do have a little bit more precision to our chaos. It just seems to have more impact and, to me, the music just seems more sinister.”
 

Given the quote above, and all this business of biting heads across Europe , Lum insists the band’s true credo is quite simple. “We do this because we think it’s fun, and as long as people keep booking us, we’ll keep doing it. It’s not like we think of this as a career. It’s just how we get our kicks.”

Record launch with Panopticon
Eyelids and Ghost Limbs at Freindship Cove tonight,

Thursday, Jan. 25, 8:30 p.m., $ 8