Part leather-club rave, part sad-girl saga, Irish industrial EDM artist Molly Noise focuses the venom tip of her attack at the hinge point of sanctity and scandal on her debut LP Profane Feminine.
The Dublin-based producer has been dropping weird and confrontationally adaptive musical mutation since at least 2018, with the earliest of her EP’s BlackNoiseMachine occupying a space of dissonant noise somewhere between ’90s beat experiment and horror film soundtrack that tipped precariously into the red. She’s since discovered a perverse fascination with the portraits of divinity and the pitiful state in which humankind finds themselves when gazing up at the almighty.
Ironically, this experience has not inspired a sense of awe so much as a will to power. No content to receive god’s wrath or glory, Profane Feminine see the producer tipping the old gods out of their thrones and onto their asses, bringing the patriarchs down to her level so that she can properly instruct them in sensual methods of anointing and cleansing her feet (the secret is saliva, and lots of it!).
Molly’s skills have matured in some important ways since her early recording—the most easily identifiable difference is that she is actually singing on Profane Feminine, or rather whispering at a distance to lure you in and then screaming in your ear once you close. The more subtle, but still important changes are to her sense of melody, which is not afraid to get twisted and tied up, and is confident enough to let you catch it in a half-frocked and vulnerable position.
Her lexicon of beats and rhythms has expanded as well, incorporating diverse elements of wet and flavorful jungle, gothy R ‘n’ B, darkwave, deviant strands of new age, and threat-level raising techno. You can hear shades of BackxWash on the bloody and exposed confessional “Into the Landscape of Thorns” and the cold heartthrob of Ministry mixed with some low-key, PC Music-esque electro babble on opener “In This, Through This, I Will Emerge Stronger.”
However, the capstones of the record are the devilishly theatrical statement of sadistic intent “Profane Feminine” where Molly compares herself to an Old Testament angle with a way to many wings and eyes, that is still somehow cute, and bitter and drastic, gothic-disco chisel of “Forced Into a Shape Not Mine.” Molly Noise is the one creature going bump in the night who you might actually want to be a little concerned about, because if she catches you, she’ll either seduce you, or make a crown for herself out of your ribcage, and you won’t know which it will be until she starts to crack your sternum with her thumbs.
Buy or stream Molly Noise’s Profane Feminine below via Bandcamp.
