Which modern masked band has the best masks?
In 1979, the band Punishment of Luxury stepped out to perform on Alright Now, a new music television series, produced locally by Tyne Tees for ITV.
It had been pivotal in launching fellow Newcastle bands Dire Straits and The Police to international acclaim, with both acts now firmly among the best-selling groups of all time, but Punishment of Luxury presented a more peculiar disposition. They emerged onto the stage sporting comically adapted ski masks. Then, they pranced garishly, in ill-fitting clothes, all over their potential big break. Imagine The Beatles doing that on The Ed Sullivan Show a mere 15 years earlier?
Somehow, the cultural landscape had changed so drastically, despite the relatively short span of time, that the proposition of the Fab Four being masked is unfathomable. The strident pursuit of fame and fortune that The Beatles seemed to embody, with their crisp suits and smiling faces, was emboldening and inspiring. They existed in an age of rock and roll heroes, and everyone wanted to be one.
But 15 years later, Punishment of Luxury existed in an age of post-punk, and the paragon of artistic embodiment was that of the anti-hero. These lanky Geordie layabouts were arthouse in the extreme. Their music was anti-hit by intent. Their clothes were anti-tribal by design. And their name was inspired by a Giovanni Segantini painting of a woman suspended, presumably for eternity, alone in the mountains, for favouring a life of lust and luxury over more conventional womanhood.
So, if their inspiration was symbolism, then what were they symbolising? And why do we live in an age of bands who have picked up on the modus operandi Punilux, as they were abbreviated to, and run with it? Now, there’s a plethora of great bands also playing angular music beneath anti-hero masks. If the Beatles’ success was, in part, down to relatability – to the screaming young girls, they looked and seemed like the teenage brothers that they had lost in Vietnam – then these masks were in some ways a rejection of that.
The painting Punilux got its name from was, after all, a comment on female expectations in 1891. So, as a band, they stepped out on Alright Now, and their masks alone made an interesting comment about roles and systems in 1979. The most obvious explanation is anonymity. But that’s far too obvious. You don’t play the music they played and think, ‘Christ, we might become as famous as Sting’. And while simply looking cool had something to do with it, they also seemed to withhold compliance. In other words, our art does not make us part of the ‘industry’.
If The Beatles represented upward mobility, collective hope, and the promise of fame, then Punilux made it clear that ‘hero arc’ was defunct in an age where hippie idealism had been rapidly eroded by unemployment, decay, and capitalist realism. Now, that hero arc has been even further embarrassed as a fallacy. Mild fame might exist for face-bearing bands, but ‘fortune’ is a pipedream for all but 0.001%. So, why not wear a mask and have a bit of fun with it instead?
By no means is it the case that these modern bands copied Punilux, there were even plenty of groups and art troupes that wore masks long before these catchy mentalists from the North East made things thrillingly awkward on Alright Now, but it is the case that the conditions that inspired them to don ghoulish garb and make a mockery of what a band was once meant to be have metastisised and inspired plenty of others to follow suit.
So, we asked suitably flippantly, which of the bastards has the best masks?
Snapped Ankles
The snarky techno-punks behind Snapped Ankles must sometimes regret their garb under hot lights. Like pagan members of the Royal Marines, they wear a form of rural camoflauge touched up with the odd item from the drawer where you keep your batteries and cellotape. What does it represent? I don’t know. But it’s provocative. And somewhat scary when they frequently leap out into the crowd with a bongo.
However, they must lose points for the fact that elder members of the crowd do, indeed, worry about their hydration levels in their cumberstone suits. With their music as frantic as it is, it’s only a matter of time before one of these poor fellows passes out, and it’s thought of as just a part of the show. Yet, that would make a fantastic point about how if you want to be private these days, it will cause you discomfort.
Lynks
Simple and gimpy, these masks are usually the most muted part of Lynks’ outifts. In a form of disidentification, they’ve even explained that the masks allow them to be more themselves. “Having my face covered allows me to really play into a deep queerness. I started to play up a hyper-feminine side to my character, and people liked what I was doing a lot more,” they explained.
Their sound follows suit. It is an equally vibrant expression drawing upon synth-punk, pop, house, noise, and what some might call a ‘chaotic racket’.
Goat
One of the pioneers of the new trend, these Swedish oddballs are simply obeying the whims of their distinct local heritage. Or at least that’s the case if you believe what Goat told us a year ago. Legend has it that one evening, when the snow was falling as thick as a vicar’s dandruff, and the wind roared in an angry language of its own, a strange man arrived in Korpilombolo.
The weird fellow, as would become immediately apparent, was a witch doctor. Little is known of this man, where he came from – a mystery unto itself given that many of the practices handed down seem to originate from 12,000kms away in Tanzania – or what his intentions in the village were, but his legacy still looms large, in the small village of 529 inhabitants from whence Goat apparently hail…
Or they might’ve just made it all up and they’re from Stockholm. Who knows? Nobody knows them?
Glass Beams
The most sexy masks for the most sexy music on the list. Well, perhaps sexy isn’t the right word unless you have a fetish for gold, but they’re certainly less like something that you’d pick up at a serial killer’s jumble sale than the rest of the oddities on this list. Looking vaguely like Princess Leia if she was heading to a party in Dubai, Glass Beams exhibit a coolness to a sci-fi degree.
With their repetative intoxication, they conjure up everyone from Charanjit Singh to Tinariwen. It’s music without place, so their face seems barely important. In fact, they don’t look to impose on you in any way, reclaiming the inverse glory of passive listening from the usual dogged mire of its implication.
Angine de Poitrine
Inherently the funniest masks on this list, this duo must take flipping ages getting their costumes correct. Their purpose is as obfuscated as their peculiar obsessions, as they self-describe themselves, “Disciples of planet Earth’s rock deities, space-time voyagers Klek and Khn de Poitrine gaze in wonder at hot dogs, pyramids, and rock music in all its glorious excess.”
It’s hard to say what’s more mesmeric when you watch them: the asymmetrical looping of double-neck microtonal guitar or the flop py swings that the drummer gets on his Prosbiscus monkey-like nose. Magical and manic, you simply have to applaud the effort and silly subversion of these musical wizzards. Modern masks might mean a new age of anti-relateability, but you sense on some other planet someone is proud to see these French-speakers doing their thing.
