Videos

VIDEO: IROK – Earthy Girls

• 18th Oct 2012

I.R.O.K. stands for exploration, abandonment, music as a physical force to take you outside of yourself. To transcend time and space. This they do through the ferocious futurist synth-driven, psychotropic Afro-punk of their self titled debut album. It is by turns majestic, epic, unnerving, riotous and always nothing less than lysergically deranged and technicolour at all times.

Though I.R.O.K formed in London in 2010 it is Morocco that serves as their spiritual home – their life force. Because far from flirting with it’s imagery and sound from the safety of the city, much of I.R.O.K’s career to date has been spent journeying down the coastline, across the mountain ranges and into the Sahara. Singer Mike Title was born and raised in East London. His mother’s family are Berber, from the southern regions of North Africa.

“Morocco is so magical because it’s so Paganist,” says Mike Title. “You get to live in the moment – but in another time. Islam, Christianity and Judaism are only a few hundred or a few thousand years old but in Morocco you can go deep to traditions and cultures that go back to the dawn of our consciousness. There’s nothing like it. There’s a sense of purity that modern corporations are dying to extinguish from our minds. To be part of any ancient culture is a blessing, a source of comfort. To appreciate another culture is one thing but to be truly consumed by it is magical.”

When not in North Africa, I.R.O.K have also played a clutch of UK festivals and made in-roads to mainland Europe.They’ve shared stages with like-minded folk such as AzealiaBanks, Death Grips and Kavinsky and released the singles ‘OO AA OO’, ‘All My Children’ and ‘God’ – all accompanied by memorable videos available to watch online now – as well as a clutch of remixes and mix albums that give an insight into their world.

And now they drop twelve-track debut album The Intergalactic Republic Of Kongo, a musical document of their journeys into the external and internal hinterlands of the 21st century and which can comfortably sit amidst the work of Funkadelic, latter-day PiL, The Prodigy and the films ofJodorowsky, while the band themselves cite disparate influences such as Prince, Fela Kuti, Crass, Omar Souleyman,Sun Ra and Suicidal Tendencies as artists they love.

Album out January 14th on Acid Bath Records
Earthy Girls digital single out October 29th