VOSTOK LAKE is an exponent of "portable techno-folk for the 21st century" hailing from Auckland, New Zealand. VOSTOK LAKE is a culturally revolutionary organisation aiming to supersede and replace guitar-based rock music altogether. VOSTOK LAKE's musical style is a careful balance of 80's-style beats, prog-rock inspired keyboard pyrotechnics and carefully crafted lyrical hand-grenades. Some songs deal with contemporary politics. Others tell stories of angst, comedy and high weirdness. Kelkaj estas en la internacia lingvo Esperanto.
VOSTOK LAKE’s sole permanent human member is songwriter, singer, keyboardist, home-producer and cultural militant Daphne Lawless. For the first part of the story, see www.daphnelawless.com/about/index.html
Other permanent members of Vostok Lake are:
Hardware synths: Lilian, Mitzi and Raewyn (the Three Incestuous Sisters)
Sequencing, software synths and recording: Ubuntu Studio
was a mini-album written and recorded from scratch in February 2008 as part of the RPM challenge (www.rpmchallenge.org), and credited to the Vostok Lake Auxiliary Choir. The first "official" Vostok Lake album, , has been worked on on and off for six years, and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2008. It is subtitled “Grim Tales of lust, longing and revenge”, so you know it’ll be fun, and will contain thirteen tracks, most of which (but not all) have been played live.
Vostok Lake plays live anywhere and any time, for money, love, or just for lulz. We can get to anywhere in Greater Auckland at short notice if you want us to play somewhere else, let’s negotiate.
Our two great influences are the darker fringe of 70's prog rock (King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator in particular) and and the colder fringe of 80's drum-machine rock (Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, the Sisters of Mercy in particular). The two towering musical figures who connect the two are Kate Bush and Peter Hammill, so that would probably be your closest attempt at a parallel.
Lilian and Mitzi are not "equipment". They are organs of the VL cyborg entity.