I think 4 months has been quite enough. While Ellis had already starting throwing his thoughts into the digital vacuum with some really good tunes, I’m just now bursting with songs and albums that I can’t wait to share with anyone who would listen. And there’s really no better way to start my first Colorful Monsters article of the year than with a heavy, noisy, absolutely-catastrophic, loud electronic beast of a song, “This World Is Sick,” by IC3PEAK.

In the last year or two, I’ve discovered a duo, Nick Kostylev and Nastya Kreslina, with whom I felt a distinct connection, for they base themselves out of Moscow, have a dynamite sound, and fight for queer rights. I was born in Ukraine and was desperately seeking out artists from Russian territories who produced electronic music and had, at least, a few positive things to say about the queer folk. It’s almost impossible to find something close. I don’t understand why. Luckily, IC3PEAK came along. And while I wasn’t impressed by every song in their catalog, I did appreciate the brash lyrics and Sleigh Bells/Crystal Castles-esk production. There’s even an article in THUMP detailing a video they made “with talented and beautiful [members] of the queer communities from Brazil and Russia, as [their] personal way to say ‘fuck you’ to [the Russian and Brazilian] government, and to those parts of society which still consider queer culture ‘unhealthy’.” Bravo!

It’s only taken me this long to finally feature a track from IC3PEAK, and thank goodness it’s a good one, even so a simple one. “This World Is Sick” has all the inner workings and tools borrowed from an IC3PEAK supply store. It goes ba-rrrr-boom when necessary over nagging bass. It contains a breathy “ughhhhhhhhh” for possible hearing restoration. It instills disquietude by shouting “This world is sick | My heart feels it | This world is dark | My heart lights up” repeatedly. It’s just something you need to help break down walls and quench frustrations, and really that’s all I’m looking for at this particular time.

There’s no word or social media anything announcing a new album on the way. Knowing how prolific these guys have shown themselves to be, there probably is something coming that’ll house this and one previously-released track, “Monster.”

At this point in the article, Ellis would recommend a different song to enjoy from the same artist that’s more or less different. While I prefer IC3PEAK at their rambunctious state, they did release a bass-heavy, Russian sung, sleepy hip-hop album last year called Сладкая Жизнь (translated to Sweet Life). And let me make this clear. It is still a rowdy album and there are things to like. It’s just not my favorite kind of noise if that makes any sense. I’ll just leave this here,  “Грустная Сука” (translated to “Sad Bitch”), and fall asleep to another song.