Hexas.

Gaya Donadio (AKA AntiChildLeague and owner of the Hagshadow label) has been pretty active over the past 12 - 15 months. With the ACL albums "Holy Ghost" on the Hagshadow label and "Holy Spirit", a tape released by German label Obsessive Fundamental Realism. Also this year ACL have released a limited CDR with Italian project Cronaca Nera on Old Europa Cafe. If that is not enough ... Hagshadow label has put out CD albums by Godlesstate and Sutcliffe Jugend as well as hosting live events in London.
And now there is Hexas. A project formed of Gaya and Sixth Comm member Patrick Leagas. Their first outing is the 6-track mini CD album "Liberty Nest" on the Hagshadow imprint.
At this point I must say that I like this mini CD album, I like it a lot, it features the voice of Gaya and that is an immediate attraction. In 2002 I asked Gaya to be part of a Dieter Müh performance at the 291 Gallery in London, I knew her voice and tones would fit our sound perfectly and she made the performance her own with a poem written for the evening. A pity no recording exists .. any way I am digressing ...
The album begins with the title track "Liberty Nest" and it drops you straight in to the maelstrom. No Mercy! It is machine driven industrial noise, pulsating and powerful with metallic percussion a la Test Department when they were beating a retreat and all with Gaya's sloganeering in beautiful distortion. "Reptillian Culture" follows. The only track that features Patrick on vocals. It's all in Nine Inch Nails territory, not that I have heard N.I.N. in 20 odd years and I am using "Head Like A Hole" as reference ... but that is what it sounds like to me. It doesn't quite catch the imagination and sounds a little retrogressive.
The next three pieces have Gaya back on vocals. "Art Demands War" is a great sample driven piece with the electronic sounds vibrating, pulsating and throbbing throughout. The mini album finishes with "Me And I" a marching time rhythm. militaristic and affirmative with Gaya stating;
"I'm Special / I'm Something / I'm Important". No argument there ...

I will continue to listen to the work of Gaya, I have been doing so for nearly 20 years now and her sound + art has never disappointed. I must admit that the genre that AntiChildLeague is placed in is a genre I don't listen to much this days. Heavy electronics, new industrial, power electronics, death industrial, it's something that doesn't hold my interest. (Recently I was mailed a CD by a project called END, I think they are Swedish but ... it's laughable in the way it is trying to sound "hard" and using loops and samples of screaming women and glorifying assault on women and asking "do you like little girls" .. obviously made by males for males. And that, to me, is where the genre of PE, Industrial call it what thou wilt etc has got to). I still like to listen to old releases and keep an eye out for new stuff by NON or Genocide Organ, but generally nowadays none of it cuts any mustard and that is where HEXAS shines and why it has rarely been out of the CD player for the past week or so.

Visit Gaya's site at : http://hagshadow.wixsite.com/antichildleague and get a copy.