Underground music often thrives on pressure, be it bodily, sonic or emotional, and Bound By Endogamy operate right at that breaking point. Based in Geneva, the duo deliver a bruising hybrid of rave propulsion, synth-punk abrasion, and industrial weight, drawing as much from sweat-soaked dance floors as they do from the grit of punk itself. Built on a foundation of razor-sharp analog rhythms, fortified by the rude growl of badass bass lines, their sound is direct, physical, and impossible to ignore.
Formed by Shlomo Balexert and Kleio Thomaïdes, both long-standing figures in Geneva’s squat and punk scenes, Bound By Endogamy bring a decade of underground involvement to a project that feels honed and uncompromising. Following a run of cassette releases and a striking debut 7” on Lux Records, their 2023 self-titled album sharpened every edge: minimal yet forceful, austere but charged with intent. The long-awaited follow-up, Steamy Highways Have No End, has just been released, and early listens reveal something quietly striking – a surprising current of human warmth flowing through the music’s mechanical coldness, closeness and distance clashing and intertwining beautifully.
On stage, their setup is stripped to essentials: drums, sampler, vocals. The impact, however, is anything but restrained. Shlomo drives the rhythms with surgical precision, while Kleio’s vocal delivery cuts with the force of a professional boxer. Fusing the cold insistence of DAF with the nervy bite of Kleenex and a hardcore undercurrent, Bound By Endogamy thrive in the space where repetition becomes pressure and pressure becomes release.
If their music often feels ritualistic, as if repetition, noise, and devotion are all part of the same gesture, the band themselves are more than happy to lean into that idea. On their upcoming Roadburn appearance, they offered us the following invocation:
“Dear Goddess of Rock, we will honour you to the best of our ability with our meagre means.
Our electronic instruments, out of tune, our innocent and derisory weapons that serve as our crutches, will be put to use for your sake to produce the most sincere noise.
Thank you for your trust. Forgive our doubts.
We travel through the world of dreams, protect us from reality. Guide us on the mysterious roads of Freedom.
Welcome us into your wild and invisible pack, your community of lonely souls who gather in the darkness, in the deserts, in the ruins, in the forests, on the abandoned margins of human society.”
A prayer, a manifesto, a noise-soaked spell – however you perceive them, Bound By Endogamy never ask for permission to be everything they are. At Roadburn, they promise to hit with the full force of their powers: confrontational, kinetic, and relentlessly alive.
– José Carlos Santos
