Concert News

VR SEX announce European tour

• 21st Apr 2022

Following the release of his recent LP ‘Rough Dimension‘, which is out now via DAIS, VR SEX (the alias of Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty) has announced a full European tour with UK shows in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Bristol throughout  September. 

VR SEX takes its title from an architectural phrase but more importantly refers to the warped, wicked underworld the songs both chronicle and condemn.  Skum vents his scorn for and fascination with the seedy, surreal margins of low-life Los Angeles, doomed to dead ends of vanity, lust, and technology. Although initially launched as an outlet for “heavier sounds” beyond Clinco’s duties in new wave fantasists Drab Majesty, VR SEX has ripened into a compelling exercise in world building, weaving themes of gritty city neo-futurist sleaze within a framework of driving, distorted guitars and cathode-blasted synths. Echoes of Chrome, Wire, Minimal Man, and Sisters Of Mercy ripple through the collection but ultimately Rough Dimension charts its own twisted vision of “our unforgiving reality.”

Written and demoed across two weeks alone in a Marseille flat using his prized 1980’s Gibson “Invader” and a laptop, Clinco then took the tracks to Strange Weather studios in Brooklyn to record with Ben Greenberg (Uniform, The Men) who helmed 2019’s debut, Human Traffic Jam. The results are notably ripping, refined, and riveting. Riffs in alternate tunings chug and churn over mid-tempo drums punctuated by spikes of sci-fi electronics while the vocals swagger and spit venom. Rough Dimension is a bristling mix of the melodic and the macabre, absurdist observations of fast living and desperate measures, the clock of youth ticking towards midnight as dreams unravel in Babylon.

VR SEX’s specialty is making these cautionary tales of psychic decay and tainted love a thrill rather than a drag. There’s a sunglasses at night glamor to Clinco’s choruses and solos, a wit to his black leather judgements. The music’s milieu tends towards parasites and predators but its mood skews refreshingly accelerated and amused, cruising the strip with a cigarette, watching goths and limousines crawl in gridlock beneath digital billboards. The Rough Dimension may be a cesspool, but it’s home.

See VR Sex live:
13/09/2022 PL Poznan Pod Minogą 
14/09/2022 PL Warsaw Poglos 
15/09/2022 DE Berlin Urban Spree (Tickets)
16/09/2022 DE Hamburg Hafenklang (Tickets)
17/09/2022 NL Utrecht DB’s (Tickets)
18/09/2022 BE Antwerp Het Bos (Tickets)
20/09/2022 UK London The Shacklewell Arms 
21/09/2022 UK Manchester YES Basement (Tickets)
22/09/2022 UK Glasgow Audio (Tickets)
23/09/2022 UK Liverpool Quarry (Tickets)
24/09/2022 UK Bristol Crofters (Tickets)
26/09/2022 FRA Paris L’International (Tickets)
27/09/2022 FRA Lille L’aeronef 
28/09/2022 DE Cologne Buman & Sohn (Tickets)
29/09/2022 DE Munich Rote Sonne (Tickets)
30/09/2022 HUN Budapest Robot 
01/10/2022 CZ Prague Underdogs 
02/10/2022 DE Leipzig Soltmann (Tickets)