Name: Hard Copy
Brand: VR Sex

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

DAIS224LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2024-03-22

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

0683950557086

Total Cap

Black LP

DAIS224LPC2

Grey

Black ice

Extended format: Yes

0683950557093

Grey LP

DAIS224CD

0683950557048

Artist

VR Sex

Genre GB

Electronic

Label GB

Dais

VR Sex is an audio/visual band that specializes in a diverse range of genres including deathrock, synth punk, post-punk, ambient, and ethereal soundscapes. The band consists of Noel Skum (Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty) on guitar, Z. Oro (Aaron Montaigne of Antioch Arrow/Heroin/DBC) on vocals and drums, and Mico Frost (Brian Tarney of Guardian) on synths and electric bass.

With their unique blend of musical styles, VR Sex creates a captivating sonic experience that takes listeners on a journey through dark and atmospheric landscapes. Their music is characterized by haunting melodies, pulsating rhythms, and introspective lyrics.

Formed by seasoned musicians with impressive backgrounds in the underground music scene, VR Sex brings a wealth of talent and expertise to their performances. Their live shows are known for their intense energy and mesmerizing visuals that enhance the overall immersive experience.

Dais Records is an independent American record label founded by Gibby Miller and Ryan Martin in 2007. Based in Los Angeles, California and New York, New York, Dais Records operates as a genre-agnostic label with a focus on experimental and avant-garde music. The label represents both emerging and established active artists while also curating rare and out of print material for reissue projects. Dais Records exclusively distributes its releases through Secretly Distribution.

Following 2022's Rough Dimension LP, Noel Skum - aka Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty - made the radical leap of expanding his psychedelic post-punk vehicle VR Sex into a fully collaborative five-piece band. To christen the new group's camaraderie, they booked a block of studio time in Glassell Park, swapped skeletal iPhone demos, and "did that classic thing of a band making the exact record they want without any interference." Working 12-hour days, they banged out the basics in a week, then tracked the rest over a month, fine-tuning it with flourishes, FX, and amplifier experiments. Hard Copy is the result - 10 tracks of sneering psychedelic punk streaked with Chrome-damaged freak-outs and snotty power pop harmonies chronicling sex doll love affairs and glue-sniffing fatales.

Mixed by guitarist Mike Kriebel - an accomplished engineer with dozens of credits across the punk, goth, and garage underground - the album is dense, rich, and spatial, spurred by Clinco's muse of "reckless abandon." Shadows of Chrome, Stickmen With Rayguns, Japanese psych, and loud- quiet-loud grunge anthems flicker here and there, but ultimately VR Sex's mode is more sardonic and saturated, oscillating between ripped leather riffing and space echo meltdowns. Banning plug-ins was a mission statement, with most instruments tracked direct into the board, then guitars added via a daisy chain of amplifiers, panned and mixed and matched for maximum intoxication: "My goal is always to load up every take with as much sound as possible in one pass."

Lyrically, the record revisits the project's perennial fascinations: twisted lust, cheap thrills, dirty money, doomed delinquents, and ruined romance amid the creeps and cracked dreamers of gritty city voids. The title refers to the uncanny valley between "facsimile and the real thing, and the illusion that one is better than the other - when both come with their own menu of delights and demonic pleasures." Hard Copy embraces extremes and outliers, delusion and perversion, the conflicted dimensional depths lurking in every exploded heart: "I can be ugly / I can be strong / I can be proper / I can be wrong / I can be lovely / or I can be gone / the thing that will haunt you is still hanging on."

Hard Copy

Music GB

Discover Hard Copy by VR Sex - 10 tracks of sneering psychedelic punk on Dais. Explore the twisted lust and cheap thrills in this sardonic and saturated album.