Sterile Hand - Sterile Hand

• Hypnotic EBM techno project between L.A.’s Silent Servant & Ori Ofir (Lower Tar)

• Reworked, beefed-up and spooked out from live tour recordings

• RIYL Nitzer Ebb, DAF, Boy Harsher, Phase Fatale

• Master + lacquer cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy

Juan Mendez a.k.a Silent Servant finds his ideal EBM vocal foil in Ori Ofir under their Sterile Hand moniker. The duo’s first vinyl round for Not Waving’s Ecstatic label is a dark and sleazy run of deviant industrial techno and pugilistic EBM cuts reworked from documents of their 2017 live shows, which were previously found on an eponymous début tape issued by Ofir’s steadily expanding Night Gaunt Recordings - a home to tapes by Alexandra Atnif and Ofir’s Lower Tar alias. 

Following Silent Servant’s killer split 12” with Not Waving and Pye Corner Audio in 2017, and two fierce 12”s with Marcel Dettmann and Phase Fatale in 2018, the L.A.-based artist behind Sandwell District and Jealous God is at the apex of his game right now, combining EBM and techno in faithful but inventive new ways. But, if there was anything previously missing from Silent Servant’s music, it’s only become apparent thru the seamless and natural incorporation of Ori Ofir’s classic-styled but unique vocals. 

The two L.A.-based goths push each other down tightening alleys of EBM and industrial techno, with Ofir’s stark, blunted declamations haunting and highlighting the most fetid corners of Mendez’s rolled-steel grooves in a mixture of Hebrew and American English vocals. It’s a style that works to cryptic, head-turning effect in the Voigt Kampff-like probe of Personality Test, then with increasing dancefloor force in the Nitzer Ebb-esquer flow of The Hunter and the punishing, gnashing bite of Security, whereas Listen For Water and the creeping figures of Untitled explore the esoteric powers and parameters of Sterile Hands in mesmerising psychoactive detail.