1977 > Elvis dies, Sneaky is born.

1996-1997 > Sneaky Bat Machine Pre-History: Sneaky starts making crap-fi electro-goth ditties using a tracker program on a battered old Mac. After a lot of grinning and rubbing of hands, decides to inflict the tunes on other people. Demo tapes such as “Sneak Preview”, “lollipop” and “dEVILbAT” are forced into the hands of unwitting Goths across the United Kingdom.

1998 > Approx July, Sneaky hires demented Shrewburunian MAXISLAG and alarming Bristolian EVIL C, with the terrifying concept of taking Sneaky Bat Machine to the stage. August 12th 1998, Sneaky Bat Machine play their first gig – and something wicked is born.

1999 > After a year of throwing bats at people and losing equipment, Sneaky Bat Machine release a less appalling demo CD-R, “Moth_Eaten”, featuring some rather pleasant hand-scanned dead moths on the cover. More gigs insue, more throwing of bats, more playing of toy trumpets – but now with a terrifying breed of fan emerging. Around summertime, SBM release their first proper CD, the ‘Boneshaker’ CD Single. Followed by the full album, in the winter. The 9 track death-coster that is “Disco 4 the Dead” hits the stores.

2000 > SBM play their first foreign gig: Aalborg, in Denmark – just. They landed in the wrong country, less than 24 hours before the gig. Well done gentlemen. Early in 2000, MAXI resigns and runs off with the circus, well, Katscan. A hunt for a new SBM synth-er turns up the completely terrifying Doktor A – Toy-Maker and Dark Art studio owner. EVIL C becomes CRASH 303, same person, new name. A month or so later, the band name issue comes to a head... Sneaky Bat Machine no longer really suit their name, and Sneaky was concerned about the limitations that the name enforces (since he didn’t plan to be releasing ‘Disco 4 the Dead’ Volume 23 in 10 years time). The band definitely decide to change the name to Barbarella, then definitely Space Invaders, then definitely Syntax Error, then definitely Goteki. Goteki stays. On an interesting side-note, the band were in a dramatic car crash later in the year, on the way back from a gig at Sheffield University. Nobody is hurt, besides the car, which died, and a doll called Frankenslag, who got beheaded.

2001 > A year of hibernation mostly. The band decide it might be nice to learn how to make, play and produce music. Around Summertime, they release their ‘FIGHT THE SAUCERMEN’ EP on Wasp Factory records. FTS was a mutant cross-breed of Sneaky Bat Machine and Goteki – designed mostly to showcase the changes that were occurring.

2002 > So far the band have been working like mentalists on their first full length Goteki album “GOTEKI O/S’, which looks to clock in at over 70 minutes of material. The year also features several high profile live outings, including festivals, headline slots and DJ outings around Europe & Japan.

PRESS QUOTES FOR GOTEKI O/S

"If Pete Burns were still making music now, this is what he'd be doing... and you wouldn't beleive the results. A kind of industrial happy hardcore synth-pop mélange, which somehow works on a certain level. Big in Japan? Most probably!" FUTURE MUSIC Magazine

“Bowel-loosening basslines and shrooming melodies combine with icy, androgynous vocals to transport the listener into the alternate realities of The Matrix, eXistenZ and Blade Runner. Though the familial line encompasses Electroclash, J-Pop and Digital Hardcore, Goteki aren’t so much siblings as the oddly behaved second cousin that no-one talks about, but everyone wants to meet. If Gary Numan had been captured by The Borg and assimilated with Alec Empire this, we suspect, would be the result.” LOGO Magazine

"These guys are awesomely cool. Full of energy, great noises and note sequences, some cool vocal patterns and just generally everything is so marvellously put together I just can't help but to smile like a fool!! This is for techno heads, cyber goths, electronica freaks. I think what we have here is one of the best synth albums written in a long time." RAW NERVE Magazine

"This is music for the Cyberdog generation" ROCK SOUND Magazine

"Much of the album sounds like a 80s computer game soundtrack and, as it is claimed that parts of it were constructed using a Commodore 64, this is hardly surprising. The sound is beefed up a bit with some modern technology but remains distinctly lo-fi. The vocals placed on top of all this by Sneaky fall somewhere between Marc Almond, Marilyn Manson and Rico and the whole thing is tied together with a fairly unhealthy obsession with Japan.
So basically, it shouldn't work. Putting on this album should be in a par with drilling a hole in your head. But it isn't. Strangely, halfway through I'm already looking forward to listening to it again. Tracks like the break beat of Ninjagrrl, the europop of Surveillance, the Boards of Canada style ambient of pn55 and the downright weirdness of Do Not Listen To Goteki ("Do not listen to Goteki, they will destroy your stereo") make it worth listening to." IF Magazine

"It all works so well, there's not a bad track on the album – if you met this album in a bar, you’d take it home to meet your parents" HARD WIRED Magazine

THE PHUTURE > you'll see....

DISCOGRAPHY (as SNEAKY BAT MACHINE)

SNEAK PREVIEW (cassette demo, 1997)

SNEAKING WITH THE ENEMY (cassette demo, 1997)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - ALAMOGORDO (contains More or Less)

KISS THE BATS (cassette demo, 1998)

DEVILBAT (cassette demo, 1998)

LOLLIPOP 1 (cassette demo, 1998)

LOLLIPOP 2 (cassette demo, 1998)

CLUB MIXES OF DEMOS FOR GROOVY DJS (CD-R demo, 1998)

MOTH_EATEN (CD-R demo, 1998)

MOTH_EATEN V.2 (CD-R demo, 1998)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - BEST OF VAMPIRE GUILD (contains demo of Boneshaker)

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN' (CD-R promo, 1999)

BONESHAKER (single, 1999)

DISCO 4 THE DEAD (1999)

DISCOGRAPHY (as GOTEKI)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - CARNIVAL OF SOULS (contains Disco 4 the Dead)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - WORKING WITH CHILDREN & ANIMALS VOL.1 (contains Disco 4 the Dead and We Can Rebuild You - Dead Air Mix)

THE CHAOS ENGINE - MORE SONGS ABOUT SEX AND ANGELS EP (contains Goteki's Happy Robot Mix of Protein)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - RECOVERED IN NAILS: A TRIBUTE TO NINE INCH NAILS (contains Suck)

FIGHT THE SAUCERMAN EP (2001)

MAN(I)KIN - SACRAMENT EP (contains Goteki remix of Skin)

VARIOUS ARTISTS - POPAGANDA: FUTURE OF POP (contains Fight the Saucerman - Graybashing V2 Remix)

VOID CONSTRUCT - Anodyne Impulse (Goteki Shadow Moses Remix)

CAROL MASTERS - KALEIDASCOPE (contains Goteki's Love Interruptus Remix of Connect)

TIMESPLITTERS 2 (this game by Free Radical Design contains Credits Theme - Goteki Remix)

GOTEKI O/S LP (2002)

GOTEKI O/S - CORRUPTED FILES LP (2004)

[BACK]