Forced Into Femininity – Heterochromea
8.7.17 by Ryan Masteller

Harsh noise or the harshest noise? Forced Into Femininity is neither, but Jill Lloyd Flanagan wants us to believe both. A splatter fetishist’s rereading of punk or industrial or post punk or whatever, “Heterochromea” is a gut-punch of synthetic rhythm sickeningly warbling out of control, like me after half an hour on the Tilt-a-Whirl at that pop-up carnival in Central Pennsylvania a million years ago (or so it seems with so much time passing through the rear-view). The belted vocals from atop a soapbox emblazoned with “[redacted]” mesmerize passersby into the seedy club Jill has created out of cardboard and duct tape and magic marker on her front lawn. Do you dare enter the dilapidated structure to discern the source of this music? It’s a sunny day, Jill seems nice enough – why not.

Like Atari Teenage Riot at half speed smeared with the pastel snot of Punks on Mars’ first record, “Heterochromea” is both belligerent and silly, in your face but with a smiley camaraderie that contains the understanding that you and Jill are both going to puke any second from motion sickness. The primitive rhythms barely stay together, especially on “Vengeance,” while on “Held” they take on a sinister Gary Glitter vibe (although isn’t Gary Glitter fairly sinister anyway? In real life he sure is). Everything Jill does shifts almost all the time, adding to the sense of imbalance – what were songs become snippets of radio-dial flippage, coherence be damned. And that’s the best part of “Heterochromea” – you never know where it’s going to end up, and it’s only fourteen minutes long! To pack that much surprise and breakneck inventiveness into such a short amount of time is pretty impressive. And I’m not easily impressed.

Buy “Heterochromea” and other fine products from the good folks at Hausu Mountain. The pro-dubbed chrome plus red cassette looks nifty on my shelf.