Putrefaction are definitely one of the more interesting bands in Ireland today. It’s been 5 years since their great demo ‘Destroyers’ (http://www.mediafire.com/?1zdwfutzoh2) which really gave them time to master their craft. May 2012 saw the release of their debut album ‘Blood Cult’ on vinyl. It’s been called ‘Mad Max’ crust, a great term. But to give and idea of the sound I hear SEPULTURA mixed with HELLSHOCK, but in saying that it’s obviously very much their own sound. So while the album is being pressed I spoke to Eric and Eoin from the band about the new album, life in Ireland, and the world we live in.
PE: I read recently that vinyl records are better environmentally than CD’s and DVD’s. That albums are usually never discarded into landfills due to their increasing value. And that unlike other plastics vinyl brakes down naturally in comparison. So the first album is vinyl only, is it because of environmental principles or are you all vinyl nerds? Do you think there is a future with download only releases?
ERIC: WOW. i didn’t actually know that! well its vinyl only mainly cuz vinyl is our favourite medium and I guess it’s the most common/loved format in the diy punk scene. Personally I have always hated cd’s and I’m just getting to grips with downloading stuff. We’re gonna make the lp available for download too. Tapes are great too. We released our demo on cassette. A lot of this argument comes down to privilege I guess. I mean if you can afford vinyl that’s great but that’s not the reality for a lot of punks all over the world. On the other hand, vinyl is the best way to get across art work, lyrics etc because of the size and to me it sounds best. I reckon a good compromise is to do vinyl and download. In previous bands I’ve been in we had our stuff re-released in Eastern Europe and Asia on cassette cuz at the time that format was more affordable for people. That’s also an option. Still for me you cant beat that big slab of wax with a shit load of inserts, posters etc. A lot of my politics were informed by bands putting that kind of effort in when I bought records as a teenager like CONFLICT, SUBHUMANS,OI POLLOI etc. The environmental side you’re talking about is definitely a plus. I always feel like a hypocrite slightly in relation to any project that involves mass production. Its so hard not to support some bunch of bastards or fund some form of ecological exploitation, whether it be tapes, vinyl, stickers, paper etc. We debated this quite a lot when it came to making t-shirts and decided on spending the extra money on non-sweat shop, organic, reliably sourced cotton t shirts, which Tom (KILLER SCREENPRINT) was thankfully able to sort out. You do what you can to escape the mega machine, but its fuckn difficult in this day and age..
EOIN: Well the first thing for me is that I just really dislike CDs, horrible things they are .I’ve never been a fan of any format apart from tapes but they aren’t really viable these days. Vinyl is still going strong. I think I only really like it because you can cram a load of extras stuff in there!!! To be honest, although I still buy vinyl releases from time to time I barely listen to records. I mostly listen to music on mp3 player while doing other things rather than actually sit down and give it my full attention. I’m easily distracted! Some pioneers are releasing music in new ways like a download code on t-shirt/poster/mug/whatever, it seems really tacky to me but in some ways it probably makes sense. At least you’ll end up using whatever the physical object happens to be!
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Profane Existence 