Beth: vocals / fx / abuse / stares / glares.

Milk: voice / guitars / beats / excuses / smirks / glares.



Also featuring / featured the beautiful sounds of a number of 'guest muso types':

Patrick Psi: live bass.

Nodule: guitar / synth / recorder / live samples.

The Steam Age: guitar / synth / harmonica / backing vox.

Jo Stapleton: cello / megaphone.

D.J. Splinter / Rafeatus: location recordings / found sounds.

Ade B: bass / fx / decks.

Jennie Howell: live drums.



Following in the footsteps of adventurous but still tuneful music such as Massive Attack, PiL, Curve, Tom Waits, Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Joy Division, NIN, Scott Walker, etc. NoisePop. Ironica. Dirt + groove + tune + fx. Subvert not Overt.


"Polarizing opinions since 2004", it's The Mekano Set, a band based, but not from Brighton, usually a duo, usually drunk, amused, occasionally confounded by their own buffoonishnes, perhaps unconsciously dumbing down on their ability to shine.

If they took themselves more seriously you could accuse them of being pretentious, or of taking themselves too seriously. But in this day and age people who aren't pretentious, or at least angry enough about their own lack of self-awareness enough to appear pedantic, aren't taken seriously any way.

Hopefully not doomed forever to be misunderstood.

S.V. Hood

Beth 'Garfield' Rettig: ‘Most Likely to Do a Sophie’ {i.e. ‘go solo / do a pop album’} A power-angst Afro-Celtic Toni Halliday for the Zero’s… She has effects and she is not afraid to use them. A clause in Beth's contract states that if she succumbs to the temptation of 'lucrative 5 album solo deal with major label', Milk is allowed to employ a Beth tribute singer. Inexplicably modest. Kate Bush, Garbage, Curve.

Milk 'Milk' McKenzie: ‘Most Likely to Do a Richie’ {i.e. ‘disappear’} As a producer he's more Mel Brookes than Martin Hannett. As a singer he is more John Hegley than John Lydon. As a guitarist he is determined to make the guitar sound nothing like a guitar. The token ‘Northern.’ Moody. Why have one roll in a band when you can have eight? Is he the band's tyrannical control freak, or is he just a chancer? Percecptively stupid. Ivor Cutler, Curve, The Cocteau Twins.


Gone but occasionally reocurring:

The Steam Age: ‘Most Likely to Do a Sid’ {i.e. ‘Tragic Overdose’ / rehab} More John Cale than John Squires… the token ‘Chilled Out One’. Doesn’t sleep much, and you can never have too many delay pedals. Most likely to be in at least eight bands at once. Smug to a fault. Not a Goth. Tom Waits, Swans.

John Table: ‘Most Likely to Do an Eno’ {i.e. ‘go all avant-garde’} A lo-fi Aphex Twin… on guitar… the token ‘Nice Guy’ with a slightly troubled undercoating... Equally at home on guitar or recorder... Most likely to produce Beth's solo album and shave his head. Painfully modest. Mike Oldfield, Robert Fripp. Currently appearing in Brighton's own prog grunge outfit: Shrinking Sixpence.

Dr. Jo: 'Most Likely to Work Herself to Death'. A Doctor of Musicology, Jo conceals a stubborn, driven soul, beneath a stubborn, driven exterior. Entirely responsible for introducing the group to the joys of megapgones, fake moustaches, punk cellos, and the Casio VL Tone.

DJ Splinter: 'Most Likely to Quit the group to become a porn-star.' DJ Splinter quit the group in 2003. He now works as a gay porn star.

M.C. Noize: 'Most Likely to never give up despite himself'. A key-figure in what would eventually become The Set. Saved Milk from himself. Milk and Noize's Stray Dog City had a hand in dismantling the disgracefully retro-tribute-band clique mentality that had already destroyed any hope the Birmingham scene had of getting off the ground. Spent the end of the 20th Century exploring dub / new wave experimentation, improvisational noise and whatever kit he got his hands on. Electro, Sabbath, PiL, you name it. Never stop.

The Mekano Set: a dark-roasted blend of rock, dance, industrial, improv, and electronic music.

Having worked as a field operative for the mysterious Scholtz Vitrine Group in Liverpool, Manchester, London and central England, Milk moved to Brighton in the hope of overcoming his allergy to Biros, armed with an increasing collection of skewed beats, a C.B. mic and fake Vox Phantom 12 string guitar.

Africa-born Beth fled the dress-restrictions, lyric writing guitarists and other confines of Southampton, London and 'rock singer in band', armed only with a tiny suitcase filled with her lucky clocks and a man named Lewis.

Lewis, a gifted psychic and conjuror, had been earning a living hand-crafting 'piano-typewriters' for Southampton tourists. Following an incident involving discordant ink cartridges, he fled the scene of the crime armed only with a singer called Beth.

Following a difficult birth in a corporate monastery in the south of England, Nice Guy Nigel studied toy piano at Brighton University. Frustrated by the limitations of his beloved instrument, Nigel turned to guitar, an Argos Catalogue keyboard, and some fishing weights. His real name is Nigel.

The four protagonists met in 1994 at an electro-acoustic seance hosted by dandy-medium-musicologist Guillermo Testi.

Nigel and Milk found themselves inexplicably drawn to the young woman with the inexplicably small suitcase, and the young man performing card tricks for a group of white-haired children.

United in their love of danger, sleep, Kate Bush, Tom Waits, guitars, distortion and delay, the four vowed never to meet again.

However, following a chance encounter ten years later in a crop-circle inexplicably etched into a piece of pavement, The Mekano Set was birthed...

Judging by the group's rapid development over the last six months, the band's fourth album will be completed by the end of summer; Lewis will die of a drug overdose during the completion of his third and final solo album sometime in the next few weeks; Beth will have a crisis of faith while working on her 'pop' album on the south coast of France with Nigel and his many children; Milk will be piling on the pounds in a Martin Hannett stylee and doing Ivor Cutler style spoken word recitals in his 'retirement months'.

See also: News, MP3's, Images, and CD's.

And that nice picture of Beth and Milk was taken by Ridder.