Biography
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Born
19 October 1967 (age 56)
"goths never die - they just get older .. fortunately - porl king [ex-rosetta stone] instead - got wiser .. forget dumb gothic cliches of 'darkness' and 'nocturnal skies' - this is the brightest post-punk we've heard from liverpools darkest light - so bright in fact - he's moved to leeds .. a self-proclaimed 'medicated follower of fashion' - miserylab smash the narcotic mirror against mindless consumerism and insipid vanity" —wound magazine
From Wikipedia — Miserylab is the main music project of Porl King, formed in the late nineties after the disbanding of Rosetta Stone in 1998. The project was originally conceived as a moniker for remix and production purposes, such as work done for My Vitriol and the Mercury Music Award winning Elbow. The name was originally spelt “misery:lab” – but King chose to remove the colon in order to make it easier to find in Internet search engines. The name can be seen as both a serious comment on animal experimentation, and a self-deprecating comment on himself and his musical output. A number of tracks were written in 2000, but were not released whilst production work remained the priority.
In 2005 King created a profile on MySpace, reworking and uploading some of his early miserylab material. In 2007 four of these tracks were made available as a free download, complete with downloadable artwork, known as the Vaporware EP.
Enthused by a positive response, and the successful relocation of his home studio to Leeds, King began writing the full-length Function Creep in November 2007. Released in April 2008 as both a download and limited edition CD, it had a more guitar-driven, post-punk feel than the previous EP. King had a preference for download-only releases, only making Function Creep available as a CD following requests from fans for a “hard copy”. Function Creep was immediately followed by a downloadable single, an extended version of the track Be There Tomorrow.
A second album, A Death That We Can Cure, was released on 5 November 2008. (It was consciously released on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot). The unusual title is a Bushism. A graph on the back cover shows, somewhat bluntly, that many more people die of starvation than as a result of terrorism.
A third album, Freedom is Work, was released in May 2009. Around the same time King was approached by a Russian record label, which resulted in a compilation becoming available in Russia in August that year. Lab Samples compiled a selection of tracks from the first two albums, plus ‘No Cure For Life’ from the Vaporware EP.
From Which No Light Escapes, the fourth album, was released in February 2011. During its creation many of the lyrics were scrapped and replaced to better reflect the events of 2010. The album title also changed. The track Downplay was made available for preview via the miserylab Facebook page. An additional three tracks from the album's recording session – Futile, Machines and Heart – were posted two months later on the audio distribution site SoundCloud, under the name From Which No Light Out-Takes. The Terrorizer Magazine supplement Dominion gave the album a positive review, comparing the sound to Joy Division and early Killing Joke. Creative culture publication Glass Magazine described it as eloquent and dark, with a “defined maturity in the songs”. They also suggested a stronger New Wave influence than early miserylab albums, and discussed the social commentary of the album.
On May 18, 2011 miserylab's single Appeal To Fears was made available for preview via Soundcloud. The track includes Kathryn Woolley as back-up vocalist. It was officially released to the public via miserylab's official website on May 19, 2011.
June 7, 2011 saw the release Gods Amongst Your Friends, a track that Porl has decided to not include in the fifth album. The track also includes back-up vocals by Kathryn Woolley.
The first track Children Of The Poor from miserylab's fifth album was released on July 21, 2011 as a free digital download. The video for the track was released on the same date via Youtube. — From Wikipedia
Lyrically miserylab is sociopolitical. Subjects covered include capitalism and corporate greed, animal rights, and the control exerted by the mainstream media over the general public.
Discography
Vaporware EP, EP, CND, 2007-07
Function Creep, album / CD, CND, 2008-04
be there tomorrow , single, CND, 2008-05
Will We Ever Learn, single, CND, 2008-07
Up In Arms, single, CND, 2008-10
A Death That We Can Cure, album / CD, CND, 2008-11
Making a Bomb, single, CND, 2008-12
in the line of fire - extended remix, single, CND,, 2008-12
Freedom is Work, album / CD, CND, 2009-05
Lab Samples (Compilation), album / CD, Shadowplay Records, 2009-08
Dystopian / The Skin Thing, EP, single, CND, 2009-09
From Which No Light Escapes, album / CD, CND, 2011-02
Lab Samples (Compilation, re-release), album / CD, CND, 2011-03
From Which No Light Out-Takes (Futile, Machines & Heart), EP, CND, 2011-04-15
Appeal To Fears, single, CND, 2011-05-19
Gods Amongst Your Friends, single, CND, 2011-06-07
Cut To Bits , single, CND, 2011-07-07
children of the poor, single, CND, 2011-07-07
— Note: CND = Carbon Neutral Digital
Official Sites
http://www.miserylab.com
http://miserylab.wordpress.com
http://www.facebook.com/miserylab
http://www.twitter.com/miserylab
http://www.youtube.com/user/miserylab
From Wikipedia, Edited by Neferast on 22 July 2011
Leeds, UK
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