ANDROID LUST Stripped & Stitched CD 2004

Remixed and refashioned tracks from Projekt’s amazing Android Lust.

From a velvet-rich whisper to a flesh-ripping scream… Raw – Intense – Passionate music from the one-woman powerhouse, Shikhee….. This maxi-cd (which is as long as many full-lengths but at a special bargain price) features remixes from last year’s The Dividing CD, new tracks, as well as acoustic versions of several Android Lust favorites including “Refuse”. Also contains tracks from the now out of print single for The Want. Remixers include I, Parasite, Occultechnologies, and Monstrum Sepsis.

Excerpt from Beneath the icy floe Issue2:

As I write this, Shikhee’s spending her time at the “Icebox,” her studio and refuge, finishing up a new release, Stripped and Stitched, for Projekt. It features remixes from The Dividing as well as some acoustic tracks. People who’ve been to any recent Android Lust shows might’ve been surprised to see her, at the end of the set, strap on an acoustic guitar and perform one last song, “Sin,” sans synth. Android Lust unplugged. Because she is deftly able to lose herself in the song, and take the audience with her, she usually gets her loudest applause with this number.

The feelings are real, from the early wrathful cries of “Refuse”(from Resolution) to the battle-scarred but hopeful pronouncements of “Unbeliever”(from The Dividing) she relives these moments of pain, hurt and rage as if it were happening anew and you’re a witness to it all. Musically the Android Lust sound has expanded over the years to be virtually all-inclusive, often sacrificing the 16th note staples of EBM to embrace whatever works, be it guitar (from acoustic to thrash), viola, flute or more high tech options. Shikhee is a gearhead too, her “Icebox” studio runs on the latest MOTU system, soft and hardware synths and samplers (for a list go to androidlust.com). She utilizes the best of the old and the new. Her writing technique for instance: many electronic songwriters do not write linearly, sort of an adaptation to how the early sequencers ran in endless loops. As a result much electronic music lacks natural sense of progression to its arrangement, not so here. Shikhee writes her songs from start to finish, in that order. – Anthony Leone