Cock E.S.P.

[ Full Discography ] [ Performance History ] [ Menasha, WI ]Cock E.S.P. was formed in Minneapolis in 1993, and is currently comprised of Emil Hagstrom (electronics), Matt Bacon (electronics) and Paige Flash (performance/vocals). Drawing on the more extreme, subversive and absurdist elements of both popular and experimental Twentieth Century music and performance art, the ensemble creates an abstract and entertaining form of high-energy electronic music influenced by such styles as Japanese Noise, improvised free-jazz, punk rock, hardcore industrial and modern classical. Unusual among experimental music ensembles, Cock E.S.P.'s primary focus in satirical, commenting on both their underground music peers and on any element of world events or popular culture they feel the need to comment upon. Past projects demonstrating the group's technique include compositions assembled entirely from equipment and instrument malfunctions, as well as a performance piece suggesting that fetishistic sexual motives underlay American patriotism.

"Somewhere between repellent, hilarious and just plain ridiculously stupid."
San Francisco Bay Guardian
"Det kunstneriske understrekes også med kyllingdrakter, blod, toppløse maskerte damer og annet performancetull. Så får du heller låne hørselsvernet til naermeste baby imens."
Dagbladet Fretag (Oslo, Norway)
"Musik die wie ein Faustschlag voll in den Magen geht."
Dresdner Kulturmagazin (Dresden, Germany)
"Is this guerrilla performance art? Am I on a hidden-camera TV show? Am I just stupid for not 'getting it'? Are you fucking kidding me? These are all normal reactions and seemingly a part of the grand concept that the E.S.P.-ers have been pimping for a decade."
Cincinnati CityBeat
"These longtime Minneapolis noise merchants dress up in ridiculous costumes, make sounds that will automatically loosen your stool and throw household appliances at each other."
Go-Go Magazine (Denver)
"Confrontational and potentially dangerous, not only to an unsuspecting audience, but to themselves."
The Scene (London, Ontario)

"Minneapolis' Cock E.S.P. sound a bit like Radiohead - if Radiohead played an amplified cement mixer and forced Thom Yorke to shriek indecipherable obscenities in a donkey outfit while attacking his bandmates."
Nashville Scene

"As Cock E.S.P. has eloquently proved throughout their career, it's hard to take anything too seriously when it includes someone in a donkey mask humping an amplifier."
Columbus Alive
"Splattering digital distortion and synapse-cauterizing electrospasms across your frontal lobe like some psychotic Jackson Pollock, Cock E.S.P. isn't the kind of band your mom wants you to like."
Willamette Week (Portland OR)
"Every genre of music needs their court jesters, those brave enough to step up and question the prevailing wisdom. In the loosely defined underground genre of 'noise,' Cock E.S.P. has assumed this mantle of responsibility."
The Scene (London, Ontario)
"There are folks spending a lot of money to convince us that the logical endpoint of indie rock is a market glut of plodding, vaguely tormented riff rockers. But in small dumpy rooms everywhere, the idiom is getting a real Viking funeral from noise artists chewing up the music and joyfully spitting back the debris. Cock E.S.P. crams smutty, snotty manifestos into nasty, brutish, short sets. I recommend safety goggles, ear plugs and punctuality."
Chicago Reader
"Minneapolis' Cock E.S.P.might be called underground or performance art, but is more likely a joke."
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
"Minneapolis' Cock E.S.P. haven't quite become footnotes in the subcultural encyclopedia a la Merzbow or Whitehouse, but not for lack of effort or notoriety."
City Paper (Baltimore)
"A borderline-beautiful display of human wreckage."
Rochester City Newspaper
"Fairly enjoyable audio pain."
LA Weekly

"I did not feel safe as these costumed crusaders began hurling large chunks of metal at the audience. The effect they had upon people was comparable to a natural-disaster."
Icon Weekly (Iowa City)
"The Twin Cities' only 'pure noise' band that anyone outside Minnesota would know."
City Pages (Minneapolis/St. Paul)
"Like a tornado."
Miami New Times
"If Extreme Championship Wrestling were a noise band, it would be Cock E.S.P."
Time Out New York
"Self-destructs in as little as 30 seconds."
Village Voice
"Cock E.S.P. spurts harsh, lacerating shards of white noise with a torture-artist's malevolent sense of humor."
Willemette Week (Portland OR)

"På dét punkt er Cock E.S.P. sandelig grænseoverskridende: En hysterisk eksplosion af dårlig smag og dårligere manerer, der ikke kan undgå at få én til at reagere!"
Geiger (Denmark)
"Almost dumb enough to be Falco."
CMJ
"May not fit into most people's idea of 'music' and you sure as hell can't fuck to it."
Oui
"Horridly obnoxious sounding."
Flipside
"An interesting listen."
Industrial Nation

"Semen-encrusted fun for the whole family."
Torso

"A two-man noise comedy performed at ground zero during a bombing run."
Alternative Press
"Harsh electronics, grating noises, and spookily inhabited wastelands of sonic detritus."
Dusted
"Sonic hurricanes."
Artforum
"If brevity is the soul of wit, then the 99 remixes of Cock E.S.P. on 'Hurts So Good' must be the wittiest music ever produced."
Brainwashed Brain
"There is never a boring moment."
Vital Weekly
"Just as confrontational and extreme and aggressive as anyone else who grew up preening to Godbullies records."
Bananafish
"Unbearable and tedious."
Muckraker
"Cock E.S.P. kick up a racket that never sticks around long enough to irritate and after the first few tracks shows the kind of irreverent illogic that only a man in a donkey suit could really deliver."
Brainwashed Brain
"Sure to annoy parent and neighbor alike."
Devin's Noise Corner
"Funny enough the first couple times, but tends to get boring rather quickly."
Sinkhole
"Cock E.S.P. sounds like these guys want to be like Masonna but can't make it.."
Inferno
"A sad bunch of twats."
Infinite Monkey
"Cock E.S.P. is a force in music that is hard to describe and even harder to tolerate."
Generation
"Squirming ugliness."
The Wire