Android Lust is a one-woman industrial music act, produced by Shikhee. It's been around since 1996 (the year of Shikhee's first demo), although it didn't receive much acclaim until the release of the album The Dividing in 2002 on the indie Dark Vision Media record label. Projekt Records noticed and signed Android Lust, which is really where most of its fame comes from.
Prior to signing with Projekt, Shikhee assembled a demo entitled Foreign Body in 1996, which was self-released. It, in turn, caught the attention of Tinman Records, who released the first AL album, Resolution, in 1998, and its follow-up remix disc, Evolution, in 1999. These releases lead to AL signing with Dark Vision Media to release the lead single, The Want, from a new album, The Dividing, in 2001. The success of The Dividing brought Projekt into the picture, and they re-released it (as an enhanced CD, which included a video and a photo gallery) to a wider audience. AL has been with Projekt since then. A follow-up to The Dividing came with the remix disc Stripped & Stitched (2004), the single Dragonfly (2005), and the newest AL release, Devour, Rise and Take Flight (2006).
I know no remedy
I know not how to cease
this feeling of hate in me
I just want to see you bleed
The success of the Projekt releases brought notice from MTV, of all things, when they started featuring the track "Stained" from The Dividing in 2005. "Stained" is a razor-sharp, musical death threat against a diseased, promiscuous, unnamed former lover; the chorus shouts "I just want to see you dead!" MTV featured the video for this song, directed by noted videographer Dan Ouellette (who has also worked with David Bowie and The Birthday Massacre), on its staple shows The Real World and Road Rules, and on its late-night 120 Minutes, and on the MTV Australia show Rage. This exposure lead the producers of CBS' prime-time drama NCIS to feature the song (even saying the band's name during one episode) that same year. This is to say nothing, of course, of the track's popularity in goth clubs around the world, which was considerable.
Shikhee produces her industrial apoplexies with Apple Power Macintosh G4s (one dual processor and one single) running MOTU Digital Performer, Reaktor and Access Virus, a Korg Z1, a series of Neumann TLM 103 microphones fed through a Great River preamp and an Empirical Labs Distressor.
I know what I want
I want to stop seeing red
I know what I want
I just want to see you dead
I don't want your explanation
I really couldn't care less
I've got my own reminder
this scar across my breast
you are a faker anyway
ever up for a quick release
infect everyone around you
cover up your own disease
Shikhee herself was born in Bangladesh sometime in the 1970s. Due to the political termoil there, her parents sent her to England for schooling. She moved to New York City in 1999 and lives there as of this writing.
Her live shows are accentuated by her extensive body art; not tattoos or piercings, but black tribal patterns painted on the whole of her body before each performance. The mood this effects is one of a swirling, ghostly mass at night, kind of like the phantom in the film The Grudge. You can see this artwork for yourself in the video for "Stained."
Though it's just Shikhee in the studio, she employs a couple of musicians for live shows: drummer/keyboardist Christopher Jon and bassist/guitarist Bret Calder. And thus far, her video output ("Stained" and "Dragonfly") have been directed by the aforementioned Dan Ouellette. Both videos and some live stuff can be found, iPod-formatted, on androidlust.com. If you've seen any of the early video output of the band Tool, you'll probably enjoy AL's video stylings.
Despite her image (big stompy boots, black everything, masks), she rejects the "goth" label (like many of those it's applied to), which is just as well because her music tends more toward industrial than goth, although her latest (2006) album, Devour, Rise and Take Flight, features more guitars and live drums than her previous output and you could, if you were so inclined, consider it goth.
Discography (album releases in bold text):
- Foreign Body — demo 1996
- Resolution — Tinman Records 1998
- Evolution (remix CD) — Tinman Records 1999
- The Want (CD single; out of print) — Dark Vision Media 2001
- The Dividing (out of print) — Dark Vision Media 2002
- The Dividing (enhanced CD) — Projekt Records 2003
- Stripped & Stitched (remix CD) — Projekt Records 2004
- Dragonfly (CD single) — Projekt Records 2005
- Devour, Rise and Take Flight — Projekt Records 2006
http://www.androidlust.com/
http://www.darkvisionmedia.com/
http://www.myspace.com/androidlust
http://www.myspace.com/shikhee
http://www.projekt.com/