For three decades, Kevin Martin has detonated the British music scene with various apocalyptically noisy projects – all as a way to ‘get over the crushing tyranny of existence’
Kevin Martin’s industrial dancehall project the Bug started 20 years ago, in chaotic circumstances. As part of electronic duo Techno Animal, the producer was playing a show in Bern, Switzerland, and had just started his soundcheck when the ramshackle wood-framed arts complex was attacked by football hooligans, some brandishing incendiary devices.
Speaking to me from his home in Brussels, the permanently baseball-capped Martin says: “It was like warfare. There were people barricading doors. Glass was shattering as concrete went through windows. We were shitting our pants: ‘Hold on, this is a wooden building – if one of those molotovs goes off, we’re chargrilled!’”
