Frank Alpine

FRANK ALPINE is the alias of Rich Moreno, a veteran of LA’s punk and darkened Indie Underground scenes, as well as a former member of NEW COLLAPSE and THE BOY SCOUTS OF ANNIHILATION. FRANK ALPINE uses only consumer Casio synths to create a sound that’s so thick and so harsh at times, to call it lo-fi would be to suggest something far weaker than the sounds themselves express. And while the atmosphere and gritty electronics might hearken to certain strains of industrial music or power electronics, the decided pep of the songs, and their almost blues-like simplicity situate Alpine’s music much more squarely in the realms of punk and even old-fashioned rock and roll.

While many contemporary electronic artists’ sound hints, however heavily or slightly, towards a European sensibility, FRANK ALPINE lives more in the realm of DAVID LYNCH’s disturbed Americana, or the sinister aggression of No Wave. Somewhere between the warped intensity of the former and the acidic straightforwardness of the latter, Alpine has carved out his distinctive space: an eccentric loner squealing from inside the decay, making noise with a pulse that’s paranoid and mechanical, yet unmistakably human.