Narc. Magazine Online
Reliably informed
We find out all we can about the Pawthorn Dene- based dark techno and “barncore” artist ahead of their show at Lubber Fiend on the 15th October
Who are you and where are you from?
My name is Agitated HODGEheg, we’ve never met. I’m from Pawthorn Dene, a sleepy forest overpopulated with HODGEhegs.
What is it you do?
I make dark techno and barncore (a genre I pioneered). It’s based on lived experience as a HODGEheg, in the current socio-economic environment.
How long have you been doing it?
I’ve been making this music in private for a while, my first public appearance was after moving to a pile of sticks in the Ouseburn last year, at the 151 co-op fundraiser in Star & Shadow.
Tell us about your music.
My work involves finding large piles of sticks to hide in, then making frightening noises to put off would be predators, or make new friends who like frightening noises too. I use hardware samplers, with a vocoder and effects, for live electronic sets.
What inspires you?
I was inspired to create Barncore (the genre) by a personally distressing experience in the woods; a rutting stag kept jumping around me screaming and barking, while I was trying to sleep on the forest floor. It was very scary, but the treeverb sounded cool in the forest so I thought I should do something with that.
What have you got coming up in the future?
For my next show at Lubber Fiend on the 15th October I will be playing live techno. Earlier in the night a debut with a DJ set too, I’ll be playing back to back on the decks with Grandpaw Donk. We’ve decided to call that act “International Dumpster Dive,” as Grandpaw collects music from all over the world and I quite like visiting communal bins, so it’s an exciting collaboration for us both.
Where can people find out more about you?
In future I’m planning a party for coming out of hibernation next Spring. After that my dream is to make the annual pre-hibernation symposium a venue takeover festival, across multiple sites. As part of researching the acts for this, I’ll be playing various festivals next summer.
I regularly release material independently on Bandcamp, including “creature collabs,” with my fellow artists in the North East and further afield, including most recently with Rye. Keep an eye on the Bandcamp and give me a follow on Insta, if you’d like to hear more.. I have a Facebook, mostly because it seems to be the only way to apply for Bangface (fingers crossed they like HODGEhegs, I’ve always wanted to go to Butlins).
