Release Date: Sep 3, 2013
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Dais
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In recent years, electronic musicians have invested a good deal of energy into excavating lesser known sub-genres and revitalizing them in contemporary ways. But while you could easily tag dozens of different acts under everything from darkwave to acid house to trip-hop, real-life couple Sara Taylor and Ryan George, aka Los Angeles' Youth Code, are one of only a precious few reviving industrial-thrashed electronic body music. Though they're not shy about their influences-- everything from Skinny Puppy to Wax Trax! Records are evident touchstones of inspiration for the confrontational music the pair make-- it doesn't make them genre purists.
Heavily previewed, teased and streamed in the weeks before its release, Youth Code has shaped up to be one of the most talked-about debuts of 2013. It's also one of the most divisive. Of the critical feedback it has received so far, a significant portion can be placed in one of two camps: one hailing the LA duo of Sara Taylor and Ryan William George as young leaders of an EBM revival, the other dismissing them as an over-hyped recyclable.
As a genre, industrial has gone a little long in the tooth. Stuck in a creative rut and populated by-and-large by a motley lot of cringeworthy characters, there’s little reason to check in on it unless disappointment gets you off. Yet somehow, there’s been an unusual sort of clamor around the retro-gazing rivetheads known as Youth Code. Indeed, the Los Angeles duo have managed early on to capture the notoriously myopic attention of serious music types than myriad like-sounding acts currently bottom-feeding for something resembling survival.