The Dirt Don’t Go Away
Rev. Chris Korda and the Church of Euthanasia strike again,
with a new 12” EP on Gigolo Records titled “When It Rains.” The EP is a
long-awaited follow-up to the Reverend’s 1999 Gigolo album “Six Billion Humans
Can’t Be Wrong,” which featured such inspirational tracks as “Victim of
Leisure,” “Buy,” “Buy More,” and the club classic “Save The Planet, Kill
Yourself.”
So what took so long? For one thing, the Reverend has been
busy testing the limits of the art world; the Church was featured prominently
in the “Trans Sexual Express” art show, which opened June 2001 at the Santa
Monica museum in Barcelona. Shortly after the opening, the Catholic-dominated
city officials pressured the Santa Monica into censoring portions of the
Church’s multi-media exhibit, until a firestorm of critical press forced the
embarrassed museum staff to re-hang the offending works, which included photos
of a fetus barbeque. The opening also attracted the attention of filmmakers
Ninon Liotet and Olivier Schulbaum, who included the Reverend in their
documentary “Neue Kraft Neues Werk,” which aired on Arte TV in April 2002.
Fetus barbeque? In case you’re not already familiar with the
Church of Euthanasia, a little background: Founded by Rev. Korda in 1992 in
Boston, the Church now boasts more than 300 official members worldwide, each of
whom has taken a lifetime vow to uphold the Church’s one commandment—Thou Shalt
Not Procreate—by never having children. The Church’s four “pillars”—Suicide,
Abortion, Cannibalism, and Sodomy—are all optional, though sodomy—defined as
any form of sex for pleasure, rather than procreation—is “strongly encouraged,”
according to the Reverend.
The Church is best known for its public “actions,” such as
attacking a sperm bank with a giant penis that squirted white foam, or the
“Blindfold Cannibal Taste Test,” in which supermarket customers were
blindfolded and asked to compare samples of pork and human meat, while a Church
member was turned on a specially constructed rotisserie. The Church frequently
interacts with other organizations, for example by attaching themselves to a
Catholic “pro-life” demonstration in front of an abortion clinic, and then
displaying “Brigitte”—an inflatable sex doll crucified on a cross—along with
banners such as “Eat Queer Fetus For Jesus” and “Pedophile Priests For Life.”
And of course no pro-life demonstration would be complete without a visit from
the gore-splattered “Doctors With Gunshot Wounds.”
More recently, the Church has been busy responding to the events of 9-11. On
the three-month anniversary of the attacks, the Church released “I Like To
Watch,” a music video that combines 9-11 news footage with hard-core
pornography and sports. Asked if this wasn’t going a bit too far, the Reverend
one-upped Karlheinz Stockhausen: “I doubt that I'm the only person in the world
who derived sexual gratification from watching two of America's tallest
buildings being destroyed…The endless replays of the plane penetrating the
tower were unmistakably pornographic, complete with flames and debris spurting
out in slow motion; even the Washington Post [12/31/2001, Page C1 for you
non-believers] referred to the footage as a ‘money shot’ and called it ‘our new
porn.’” If you’re not easily offended, you can view the video on the Church’s
infamous web site, www.churchofeuthanasia.org.
And what about the new music? The style is still unmistakably Chris Korda,
complete with catchy melodies, spooky harmonies, and maddening polyrythms, but
there are noticeable changes. The mid-eighties synths and bombastic verbal
assaults are gone, replaced by thick, edgy sounds, and sparse, ambiguous
vocals. Asked about these developments, the Reverend says, “On ‘When It Rains’
I’m getting back to my roots: more musical, more soulful, still political, but
in a more subtle way.” The thumping title track’s minimalist lyric (“When it
rains, the dirt don’t go away”) is a clear example of this understated
approach, while the break-beat track “Salt” gently suggests the anti-human
perspective (“There are many things in the world, and you are one of them”).
The jazzy instrumental “Gridlock”—the title refers to clogged urban
intersections—is a real riot track, full of surprises and crescendos, while
“May Queen” rounds out the record with monstrous bass and shimmering
orchestration.
The Reverend is currently living in Berlin, finishing up a new album, which
promises to continue in the direction of “When It Rains.” Many of the
unreleased tracks are already cropping up in the Reverend’s set list, so for a
taste of things to come, be sure to catch Chris Korda live in concert this
summer.
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