An Experiment On A Bird In the Air Pump

Named after an 18th-century oil painting, the incendiary noise-rock trio An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump presents itself as a remarkably original musical project. Here, simmering aggression collides with an adventurous avant-garde spirit, so that every distorted bass note and every gloriously blunt groove feels at once like a tender slap in the face and a carefully composed artistic statement.

After shaking up London’s music scene in the late 2000s, the band disappeared from view for an extended period and are now making their return – fortunately without having lost even a trace of their power. The trio have always been defined by the way the three musicians constantly exchange roles: the one who was singing moments ago may suddenly be behind the drums. Their artist names reflect this fluidity perfectly: C-Bird, D-Bird, and X-Bird. Two of the British members are twins of Filipino heritage, while the third member has Nepali-Indian roots. As a democratically organised band, they perform without a fixed frontperson.

With hypnotic physicality, An Experiment On A Bird In The Air Pump create a singular raw punk atmosphere suspended somewhere between No Wave and Sixties girl groups.