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VOSTOK LAKE IN THE 23RD CENTURY, ALL MUSIC WILL SOUND LIKE THIS

VOSTOK LAKE is an all-woman electronic music experience that defies genre and gender boundaries. Combining aspects of synth-pop, art-rock, and satirical cabaret, VOSTOK LAKE's unpredictable performances have become legendary in the most discerning underground circles in Auckland, New Zealand.

Patricia Hall (L) and Daphne Lawless (R) are Vostok Lake

Daphne Lawless (electronics, vocals, ukulele) started the Vostok Lake musical project in 2007, and Patricia Hall (vocals, percussion, random factor) joined in 2015. Following a successful crowdfunder, their new album Comics and Stories will be available on Random Static Music in September 2021.

What does it sound like?

Vostok Lake's style is so unique as to consistently defy categorisation. It integrates prog-rock, synth-pop, space age folk music, satire, and the Kiwi oddball aesthetic. Partially successful attempts include:

  • "Bonnie Tyler meets Keith Emerson"
  • "Peaches meets David Bowie"
  • "Depeche Mode meets Flight of the Conchords, only queerer than that"
  • "the love child of angry sex between Tori Amos and Gary Numan"
  • "Yazoo meets The Skeptics meets Raw Sex... on speed."

... but wouldn't you rather just listen for yourself?!

Daphne Lawless powers the Vostok Lake sound through a Frankenstein-like array of obsolete keyboards and cheap computers running open-source musical software. Nothing is pre-recorded; it's all controlled in real time. Her interactive solos, where she walks into the audience wearing a wireless keyboard and invites audience members to play, are a regular highlight. Patricia Hall adds soaring soprano vocals, additional live beats, a touch of performance poetry and an "element of surprise".

The new album

Comics and Stories album art

Comics and Stories takes its title from old-school Donald Duck magazines, and Daphne says "it's just what Vostok Lake music is all about - many of our songs tell stories, and quite often they're funny, though sometimes not intentionally."

Subject matter for songs ranges from the rise of the far-right ("Cut and Run"), to techno-sexuality ("Silicon(e)") to sci-fi opera ("The Ballad of Ghost Point Five".) It also includes the live favourite "Office Work is Fucking Boring", which Daphne describes as "based on a true incident, called my life."

Produced by Auckland techno-glam seductress Jess Haugh (Scarlett Lashes), recording had to take extended breaks for Tricia to start a family and "various unpleasant incidents called Real Life", as Daphne puts it.

"This is the first VL record which is a truly a band effort", says Daphne, "and we're very proud that it's been put together high quality, on a shoestring budget, by an all-women team of the best Aotearoa weird creatives."

A family affair

Vostok Lake is an electronic powerhouse but also a family affair. Daphne and Patricia are married and live in Auckland, New Zealand, with their young children.

"It's taken more than 10 years to follow up from the first Vostok Lake album, Small Group Psychosis," explains Daphne. "Recording was delayed for the birth and early years of our first child; and I had to insist on finishing Comics and Stories before we started trying for a second.

"But Patricia's input has transformed Vostok Lake to a cramped and slightly paranoid solo project, to an unpredictable and hilarious collective musical adventure," says Daphne. "This might not be how musical careers are supposed to be built; but we like to think that the music is better for having emerged from a natural life cycle. We intend to get the kids in the band as soon as they can operate a MIDI controller. It'll be the queer electro Osmonds."

What the reviewers said...

Praise for Vostok Lake's 2010 album Small Group Psychosis

"The keyboards and percussion might suggest the Human League, but the layers of melody and the mathematically ornate compositions betray a Jethro Tull influence, all adding up to something that is maybe a bit Dresden Dolls, a bit Sisters of Mercy, a bit... sigh - no, it doesn't exactly sound like any of those things. It's easier to just acknowledge who Vostok Lake don't sound like - which is just about everybody else out there...

"The melodies do that thing with the hairs on the back of the neck in all the right places, the synthetic bass lines remain warm and seductive, and the occasional vocal histrionics never fall flat - 'Yonder Lies The Sea', 'a dead thing' and the title track are in particular just beyond words, the sort of music that makes realise what you've been missing with just about every other CD you bought over the last decade. If you've ever totally lost it over Jethro Tull, Kate Bush, Split Enz (!), or any of those other names referenced above, then you seriously need to get a copy of this, though be warned that you shouldn't expect it to sound like any of them." - Lawrence Burton, Ce Acatl blog

"Vostok Lake's jangly synths, electric drums and theatrical vocals are a fine nod to the electro pop and punk of the '80s." - Hannah Jennings-Vojkovic, express

"It brings angsty visions of Alastair Riddell and Bowie, Kate Bush on downers, a not-quite-so-histrionic Roger Waters on The Final Cut." - Bing Turkby, NZ Musician

Video sample

Contact

Email: daphne@randomstatic.net

Phone: 027 220 9552

Vostok Lake @ Facebook

Vostok Lake @ Twitter

More information at

Vostok Lake website

Random Static Music website