Puce Mary

Puce Mary
Hoffmeier performing as Puce Mary in 2014
Background information
Birth nameFrederikke Hoffmeier
Also known asAmphetamine Logic[1]
Born1989 (age 34–35)
OriginCopenhagen, Denmark
Genres
Occupations
  • Musician
  • composer
  • sound artist
Labels
  • Posh Isolation
  • PAN
Websitepuce-mary.bandcamp.com

Frederikke Hoffmeier (born 1989), better known by her stage name Puce Mary, is a Danish experimental musician, composer and sound artist.

Biography

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Frederikke Hoffmeier was born in 1989 in Denmark.[2] She started her career in Copenhagen's underground music scene, performing with bands such as Timeless Reality.[2][3] Her debut release under the name Puce Mary, Piss Flowers, was issued in cassette format in 2010. During this time, Hoffmeier collaborated with Loke Rahbek, also known as Croatian Amor, on multiple cassette-only releases. Her debut full-length album, Success, was released in 2013 on Posh Isolation record label. The record was followed up by 2014's Persona.[2] Around this time, she obtained residency at EMS, a state-funded experimental music studio in Stockholm, Sweden.[4]

In 2015, Hoffmeier collaborated with Rahbek on the full-length release, The Female Form. The following year saw the release of her fourth solo studio album, The Spiral.[2] Her 2018 album, The Drought, was released on Berlin-based record label PAN and received positive reviews from publications such as Pitchfork, Resident Advisor[5] and The Quietus.[6] In the same year, she contributed to the track "Hope in Suffering (Escaping Oblivion & Overcoming Powerlessness)" by Yves Tumor, released on their album Safe in the Hands of Love.[7]

At live performances following the release of The Spiral, Hoffmeier has collaborated with Drew McDowall of Coil.[2] In 2020, she scored the film Kød & Blod, which was directed by Jeanette Nordahl.[8]

Hoffmeier resides in Los Angeles and Copenhagen.[9]

Musical style

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Puce Mary performing in 2014

Puce Mary's musical styles has been described as power electronics[2][3] and noise music.[3][10] According to Colin Joyce of Pitchfork, "grating percussive scraping and nail-on-chalkboard vocalizations dominate her [Hoffmeier's] creeping compositions, even as her instrumental work runs the gamut from deafening drones to clattering industrial drum beats."[10] Pitchfork contributor Louis Pattison has noted that The Female Form, her collaboration with Loke Rahbek, "lingers on the threshold between gritty basement industrial and the rarified field of electroacoustic composition," while operating on the themes of "intimacy, communication, sexuality and gender identity."[4] On her fourth record The Drought, Bob Cluness of The Quietus stated that: "Hoffmeier uses genre motifs of noise and industrial music here, not so much to bombard the listener with adolescent fantasies of power, transgression and provocation, but instead to look at such violence as possessing empathy based on action and transformation."[6]

Puce Mary's live performances often stray away from the prerecorded material. On her musical workflow, she has emphasised "having a controlled set of variables and a system that is able to bear reproducible results."[11] Likening her recording process to "a regenerated organ or an organ transplant," she states: "I want the chaos implied by this to be legible to the listener so when a rhythm is guiding their ears along a piece of music, they are not carried away and are very much aware that a single tone, a single beat, can stop that sound and time completely."[12]

Hoffmeier has cited ambient music and real-life soundscapes as influences outside the industrial sounds.[12]

Discography

[edit]
Full-length releases
Collaborative full-length releases
  • The Closed Room (2011; with Loke Rahbek)
  • An Exploitative Version of Surrogacy (2019; with Francesco Leali, Heith and Alessandro Branca)
EPs and cassette releases
  • Piss Flowers (2010)
  • Lucia (2011; with Loke Rahbek)
  • Rubber Therapy (2012)
  • Ultimate Hypocrisy (2013)
  • The Viewer (2014)
  • The Great Panic (2014)
  • Masks Are Aids (2014; with Sewer Election)
  • Fear and Pleasure (2014)
  • PM/RS (2014; with Rodger Stella)
  • Yours (2016)
  • Sleep (2018)
Singles
  • "Red Desert" (2018)
  • "Caressing the Sun" (2019)
As Frederikke Hoffmeier
  • Den blege grå tone (2012; with Sewer Election)
  • Aska (2013; with Sewer Election)
As Amphetamine Logic
  • Nostalgia Without Memory (2010)
  • The Echoes of the Gestapo Cellar (2013; with Jan Warnke, Michael Esposito and Fantom Auditory Operations)

References

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  1. ^ Georgiana, Alina (4 November 2016). "Puce Mary - Yours". The Attic. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Wilson, Rich. "Puce Mary". AllMusic. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Pelly, Jenn (27 November 2013). "Down Is Up 09: The Courtneys, Puce Mary, Hysterics". Pitchfork. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  4. ^ a b Pattison, Louis (30 April 2015). "Loke Rahbek and Puce Mary - The Female Form". Pitchfork. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  5. ^ Masters, Marc (24 October 2018). "Puce Mary - The Drought". Resident Advisor. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  6. ^ a b Cluness, Bob (29 October 2018). "Puce Mary - The Drought". The Quietus. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  7. ^ Murray, Eoin (6 September 2018). "Yves Tumor - Safe in the Hands of Love Review". The Quietus. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  8. ^ Panzer, Natalia (22 January 2020). "Puce Mary-scored film Kød & Blod to premiere at 2020 Berlinale". Fact. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  9. ^ "Puce Mary in the Flashed Shadows of Berlin". Borshch Magazine. Retrieved 25 June 2021.
  10. ^ a b Joyce, Colin (31 July 2014). "Puce Mary - Persona". Pitchfork. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  11. ^ Maleney, Ian (11 February 2015). "Everything Stays The Same: Puce Mary Interviewed". The Quietus. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  12. ^ a b "Puce Mary shares and discusses The Drought". The Wire. October 2018. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  13. ^ Joseph, Burnett. "The Spiral". The Quietus.
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