EVIL NINE at the Social (1100 Queen West), tonight (Thursday, January 29), 10 pm. $15. wantickets.com.
Ask Pat Pardy, half of British DJ duo Evil Nine, how to handle any unpleasant instances of zombies turning up at his gigs and he responds like a stone-cold, seasoned hunter of the undead.
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“Shots to the head – always shots to the head,” he says.
Enter Evil Nine like a Mack truck busting out of the mall loading dock in Dawn Of The Dead. Beatmaking buddies Tom Beaufoy and Pardy are obsessed with flicks about flesh eaters, and, more importantly, with their soundtracks, most notably John Carpenter’s propulsive scores from the 80s.
Carpenter influenced their breakthrough breakbeat joint, 2004’s You Can Be Special Too, but they’ve taken their reanimation obsession to a new level on the recently unleashed They Live! (Marine Parade), whose title is an obvious tribute to Carpenter’s 1988 allegorical alien thriller.
“The influences are pretty much the same as before it’s just that some of them are more prominent this time around,” says Pardy. “Zombie movies and John Carpenter soundtracks were a big influence on our first album, but this time we wanted to take it a bit further and use them as a loose theme.”
Although zombie flicks feel creatively exhausted these days, the genre continues to be resurrected at least once a year. Why this insatiable appetite? Will the concept ever be put to death?
“Zombie films are part of culture’s fascination with the afterlife and rebirth,” explains Pardy, “and they’re just plain gory and horrible. I suppose we like them for the same reasons – and a lot of the movies have awesome soundtracks.”
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