The first seeds of Cape Town based TERMINATRYX (pronounced "terminaytrix") germinated around 2002 when lead vocalist Sonja Ruppersberg and friend Christina Storm sat around musing on how cool it would be if they had a band with two female vocalists packing more than just a punch or an edge. But, while it can hardly be faulted, two hot front-ladies can only get you that far. In stepped Paul Blom (extreme music veteran of V.O.D - Voice Of Destruction, F8, & K.O.B.U.S. fame), and created a tester track for them by programming a tune and adding bass guitar to it, turning into the song We Come In Peace. It all seemed rather promising, but a name had to be chosen. So, instead of a single concept, several layers were combined to include a range of movies, fetishes and mythical locations to encapsulate the specific mood. Movies like Tetsuo The Iron Man, The Terminator, The Matrix, and the Nexus replicants from Bladerunner / a strong female presence of the dominatrix / the river Styx - All of this fused to create the TERMINATRYX phenomenon. In the early stages, around 2003, Christina left for other commitments, Sonja flying solo as lead vocalist since then. First guitarist Tom Somers left for Scotland which led to songwriter Paul taking care of all the instruments (including guitars, bass, drums, programming, keyboards and backing vocals). The duo of Sonja and Paul is enhanced with additional personnel when it comes to live performances. The first of these came in 2003 when TERMINATRYX was chosen as support for German Darkwave legends Diary Of Dreams on their South African tour. The 8-song repertoire at that stage was expanded to include over an album's worth, with pre-production samplers making the rounds. The sound also took shape to create a unique Industrial-Metal blend with female lead-, and male backing vocals, which is quite rare in Southern Africa. 2004 they used TERMINATRYX and F8 music in their short film, imPERFECTION (set for a remix at the 2008 X FEST, late March). The debut album release was always on the horizon, but time simply seemed to dissolve with Paul & Sonja's other activities including the creation of film festivals like the annual South African HORRORFEST four years ago (for which Sonja is also the poster-girl) and the new X FEST. In between rare live performances which included appearing at the Popkomm festival in Berlin, Germany (2006), TERMINATRYX also performed two original live soundtracks to silent horror classics NOSFERATU, and THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI at the 2006 and 2007 S.A. HORRORFEST - together with collaborators like Simon Ratcliffe and Sean O'Tim of LARK fame (on upright bass, flute, theremin, percussion), as well as Matthijs Van Dijk (on electric violin). HÄXAN, another legendary silent film, will get a modern audio make-over performed to the screen by TERMINATRYX, Simon, Sean and maybe a few other collaborators at the 2008 HORRORFEST. (http://www.HORRORFEST.info / http://www.XFEST.org) In 2007 Simon showed interest in mixing the anticipated TERMINATRYX album with Simon at his Cape Town based Sound & Motion studios. The proposed timeframe passed and early 2008 they put their collective foot down and booked the studio for March. Paul produced (and executive produced together with Sonja) and recorded all the tracks at Flamedrop Productions. Mixing commenced with Simon at S&M early March with the album released mid-May 2008 thru ENT Entertainment, and followed with launches in both Cape Town, johannesburg and Pretoria (Zeplins). Live highlights of 2008 included the Cape Town album launch (4th July) where TERMINATRYX performed at the Labia Theatre in the 200-seater cinema with a huge synced-up video projection show accompanying the entire performance. The show was followed by a sneak preview of werewolf movie Skinwalkers - a new kind of double feature! Within a single week in August, TERMINATRYX performed as support for two international acts visiting South Africa independently - incl. Sheep On Drugs (16 Aug) and VNV Nation (22 Aug). With a natural aversion to cheap commercial sentiments and a blind consumer society, TERMINATRYX is truly a unique South African audio adventure, looking at the world with a satirical eye as they take the listener through a juxtaposed range of sonic intensity and calm, fusing technology with the organic in a David Cronenberg vs. H.R Giger trip. In a televised talent show, and mock reality drenched commercial media decline, TERMINATRYX is not merely a breath of fresh air, but a long awaited new direction out to rattle the cage just enough to make a saturated public stand still and think, "hey, there's more to it than this..." - even if for only a moment. But as we know, a moment can be a multitude of infinities - depending on the way you look at it.
(Source: MySpace Profile)
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South-Africa
2002
