|
Aalfang mit Pferdekopf –
Im Schlachthaus Blühen die Blumen (Self-released) |
|
Aalfang mit Pferdekopf –
Mezethakla Mukabalatt (Self-released) |
|
From the name of the
project, to the titles of the albums, down to the music
included therein, this is a gruelling journey through some
of the least conventional forms of experimentation, drawing
on the ambient and noise industrial. Aalfang mit
Pferdekopf lets his sound sources spawn uncontrolled creating a
surreal, adimensional world that swings back and forth from
quiet and whispered to tumbling and cacophonic.
Improvisation must be one of the guiding muses of mastermind
Mirko Uhlig, as his pieces run
from 15 up to over 45 minutes. In fact, we have only five
tracks in the two albums, one of which is the exception: an
unexpected 4-minute guitar piece opens the 2nd
album, as to remind us that should he want to, there could
be place for structured music and sound in
Aalfgang…
What follows is a suggestive 46-minute collage of sounds and
fragmented sample manipulation that is as progressive and
unconventional as one can get, with ambient and psychedelic
touches thrown in for good measure. The first album is
slightly more “structured”, offering three tracks
around the 17-minute mark, kicking off with mental dark
ambient, moving to abstraction, getting the noise treatment,
and moving to razor sharp obsessive and repetitive
industrialism in the third act. Stuff for the right mood and
frame of mind and for chaotic experimental heads. www.aalfang.de |
|
Gianfri |
|
Alan
Replica - Clockworks, Juliet (9th Wave) |
|
Alan
Replica is not really a newcomer. He started back in the 80’s
with a band named Masq, then disappeared for a
while and now returns to studio work. Isolation is the first
of fourteen tracks and it immediately marks cold electronics
with clean, but special, vocals. For the title track you
have to wait til the end and just before that you will be
startled because Animas begins calm and you
tend to put up the volume. But suddenly a steady beat is
introduced. You are warned. The music similar to eighties
electro pop, but yet different. Light melodies, synth sounds
and electronic layers are the ingredients for recommended
tracks such as Dreams Inc., 20th Century
Rust and Soul Corruption. www.ninthwaverecords.com/replicahome |
PJVD
|
|
Artridge
- Finished Soundtrack for Unshot Films (Interlink
Audio) |
|
Originally known as Arsenal, Artridge was the brainchild of Robin Pleil and Christoph Mainz. At their origin there were other contributors but after internal bleeding, the duo decided to go on their own forming Artridge. Both members have not only experience as session players but Pleil himself is also a photographer and video maker. This project has all the elements to be called experimental. These young and talented artists possess an extensive knowledge in modern music technology and recording art. Their music is melodic, pleasant, symphonic, psychedelic and even jazzy such as on the closing track. Emotion is also to be included in the description since the mood could be calm most of the time, at other moments dark & ambient like on Exile and Omsk or playful. The vast experimentation with keyboards and electronics make this music simply a pleasant hearing experience whether you like your décor to be painted with string arrangements or a multitude of funny sounds. The production is excellent which helps keeping your attention on the cool scenery while not being taken off road with a bad recording. Three of the eight tracks last more than ten minutes. Delos, One Way, Slight Return and Disposition figure as amongst my favourites with their industrial and vox samplings, good beat, organ, acoustic guitar and nice symphonic passages. Need not looking any further, a pleasantly melodic / experimental work is there for your ears. www.interlink-audio.net |
|
Denis
Brunelle |
|
Blank +
Moonitor – Uturn 3: The Dark Side Of The Beat
(Artoffact) |
|
One half of this 10 track CD
is produced by Blank, the other part is the work
of Moonitor who is more known as Sebastian Komor from Icon Of Coil. The
content of this split album -as envisaged for this newly
created Uturn series- is club techno, mostly hard techno with groovy beats
and some chill out parts. Except for some distorted voice
inputs Blank + Moonitor renounce at singing. For my taste this kind of music should
stay in its sector, which is supposed to be the techno
scene. In the last few years the border between the techno,
EBM or industrial stuff has become for sure very thin, and I
feel this will eventually destroy soon some exceptional
music directions of the dark scene, which might have already
happened. In more and more so-called “dark-clubs”
one feels already now like at the Love Parade. At least
The Dark Side of The Beat is in a way varied and more acceptable than much other
senseless techno stuff thrown at the dark scene. www.artoffact.com |
|
Karin
Zenzinger |
|
Butterfly
Messiah – Eternal (The Fossil Dungeon) |
|
Florida
based Butterfly Messiah bring synth-pop dance tunes
and heavenly voices with references to wave, neo-classical,
medieval, trip-hop, ambient and EBM. For Today is the
opening track that will make many people curious. A floating
melody, a catchy tune and good vocals are noticed. After
this the next songs contain more electro influences and are
more dark and dance orientated. Still there is
Shannon’s voice to keep the warm element in the music. Their
sound reminds me of bands such as The Dust Of
Basement
and Fading Colours. Great compositions are
The Circle, Ascension, For Today, It’s Time, the calm
Aeon, the highly energetic Virtual
and With Roses (also featuring male vocals).
Counterstrike is a well chosen song to end the CD and leaves you wanting
for more. So just press that play button again. www.fossildungeon.com |
|
PJVD |
|
Children on Stun–
Rough Trade for A Cheap Promotion (M&A Musicart) |
|
Children on Stun got started back at the beginning of the nineties and tied
in with UK goth scene from the very beginning, although in
all truth their music style at the height of their
popularity had little to do with gothic, except for some
guitar influences, perhaps. At their best, they had
definitely more of a punk edge that goth. Their first
mini-album, Hollow could be considered quite goth rock influenced and its 4
tracks open this release. What comes next in this
interesting M&A Musicart release is stream of odd COS
tracks, like
remixes, alternate versions and a contribution by
Spares (project by COS songwriter
Simon) and Neil Ash (original frontman)
and live video footage of their famous Whiskey a Go
Go. The track sources are not documented, so if you’re
not a die hard fan, you’re on your own. As the tracks
progress, ties of sorts with gothic rock disappear, and what
we have is hard edged alternative rock with distinctive
vocals. A document of interest, but quite confusing to
newcomers as the lack of info on the original track sources
will do little in stimulating a newcomer’s curiosity. A
blessing, however for the many fans of this act that for
weird reasons never managed a wide breakthrough, remaining
in the cult league. www.ma-musicart.com |
Gianfri
|
|
Collection
D’Arnell-Andréa – Un Automne á
Loroy (Prikosnovenie) |
|
This is vintage
Collection D’Arnell-Andréa, their first full length
dating back to 1989 and a landmark work that has instantly
put them on the map of the then shaping up darkwave scene.
Armed with a drumbox, keyboards, piano, strong bass lines, a
weeping cello and the ethereal vocals of Chloe that went a long way in becoming a trademark of the band,
they produced an album that sounds as fresh today as it was
all those years ago. Prikosnovenie have rearranged slightly
the tracklist and added a couple of tracks plus a video
track showing priceless live footage of a few early
performances of the band. This is a very good starting point
to get acquainted with CDAA if you are new to
them and a piece of darkwave history. cdaa.free.fr
- www.prikosnovenie.com |
Gianfri
|
|
The Fair Sex – Thin
Walls – Part II (Endless) |
|
With this second instalment
of the Thin Walls collection, The Fair Sex bring us fondly back to the beginning of their career,
covering the second half of the eighties. The vast majority
of the 17 tracks featured are extracted from their first two
albums The House of Unkinds and Demented Forms and
their early compilation Oddities. The band had just
started to unleash their electronic attacks with a punk
attitude that were re-invigorated in the nineties and while
the world was navigating through waves of cheesy synth
garbage that sold much more than it should have been morally
allowed, TFS demonstrated that
there was indeed proper and constructive use for those
synths and yer guitars. Here we have the testimony, and the
casual listener who at the time had not paid much attention
to the underground scene, might still recognise some tunes,
as TFS scored quite a number of club hits at the time, tracks that
are very much en-vogue even in these days of high tech and
aggro electronics. And we get the lot in Thin Walls -
Part II. From
No Excuse to The Naked and The
Dead, from Divine Service to
The Pain that No One Knows, from the unforgettable
The Jumping to ATR and the list could go on. TFS were
very much ahead of the pack indeed, proof being that this CD
does not sound a bit outdated on any respect and is a great
document of a very important side of the German electronic
pioneering underground, who, by the way never dropped their
guitars along the way! Forget those running after
“future” and “retro” tags and get the
real article! www.thefairsex.de
- www.endless-records.de |
|
Gienfri |
|
Ginger
Leigh – If I Should Die Tomorrow (Self-released) |
|
Ginger Leigh inhabits planet unpredictable-ness and is now back with a
mixture of retro sounds, oriental flavour , razor blade
noises, ear-cutting distortions, disconcerting loops and
more unexpected electronic weirdness in a general lo-fi
style. If I Should Die Tomorrow includes
18 tracks and you’re constantly on the looks for
what’s coming next. In a way the short running times of
the tracks gives this album a soundtrack kind of flavour and
indeed I reckon that GL seems
to have all the qualities for scoring movies in his own
quintessential weirdness. The general atmosphere is quite
grim and his approach definitely avant-garde. Not quite sure
how he has not landed on an appropriate label yet, as he is
churning out albums that are one more interesting than the
other (see previous Darklife issues for more reviews.
www.gingerleigh.com |
Gianfri
|
|
Land -
1988-1997 (Divine Comedy) |
|
This
retrospective embraces their first 10 years of existence of
Land. Twelve remastered tracks with some selected from their
deleted tapes releases, show their evolution and meanwhile
bring a lot of diversity. With hints of In Slaughter
Natives,
Einstürzende Neubauten, Kirlian Camera and other experimental bands, Land continue in their own way. Tribal beats, bombastic sounds
and repetitive rhythms are the main ingredients of their
works. But also vocals and guitar can be found on this disc.
Nevertheless the music remains dark, tribal industrial with
good songs like The Dance of The Legless-Cripple, Brain, Pierres De Brume, Permi Ses Habitants and Shreds. Links for every
track can be found in the booklet of the CD that is offered
in a digi-pack. divineco.records.free.fr |
|
PJVD |
|
Mana
Erg - The Blind Watchmaker (Glyptique) |
|
Mana Erg is the brainchild of composer and multi-instrumentalist
Bruno De Angelis (programming, vocals,
keyboards, guitar, and bass). Bruno also
borrowed the expertise from some guests such as
Tibero on guitars and Deborah Roberts
for lending her graceful vocal instrument in many occasions.
Maybe you already know all this…What surprised me while
reading the “thanks and supports” section, was to
see the name of Peter
Hammill being listed there. As far as I know he’s a prog
veteran but I kind of lost track of his latest endeavours.
On The Blind Watchmaker Bruno manages to blend melodic
lines, some techno beat with a lot of various elements with
good taste and logic. He also has a capability to make
catchy choruses like a normal part of this eclectic mixture.
Experimentation with sounds is where he’s taking most
pleasure in while the industrial samplings / noises collide
and stick to the musical structure like a charm. On The
Lynx and
Cun’tis Diebus the female vocals are tinted with
oriental tonalities and since we are talking about orient,
Thai instruments are adding a mystical touch to
Target. For a
real science fiction / horror movie soundtrack, I would
direct you to a cool composition called Burning
Fields. The
keyboards are often dark and ambient in their mood but the
symphonic arrangements are very well represented too as
proven on the same song. To top it all off, a couple tracks
added another dimension with heavy guitars. They are
Angel of Chaos and what do you
know…Burning Fields! The Blind Watchmaker is an excellent album but I’m curious about Peter
Hammill though! www.manaerg.1me.net |
|
Denis
Brunelle |
|
Mechanical
Moth – Torment (Scanner / Dark Dimensions) |
|
Second album for this German
duo who interpret dark, melodic, electronic pop in a quite
personal way. Giving place to much variety and combining
male and female vocals, Mechanical Moth come close to a certain British sensibility that has lead
to a new wave of goth acts that are much more electro-pop
oriented. Little dark pearls of ballads such as Blind
Prophet are
counter balanced by less inspired upbeat tracks as After
That, but the leading characteristic of the band is a quite
personal sound that sets them clearly apart from other acts.
Barring one of two episodes –such as BBF- that would have
been better left in the band secret archive, Torment
offers quite a pleasant listen, although it sort of gives
out a vague sense on non focus and of fragmentation. Quite
unconventional in their sonic approach, Mechanical Moth
give a new experimental twist to
electro-pop that goes beyond the introduction of industrial
elements, yet remaining within the dark, at times romantic
realm. www.mechanicalmoth.de
- www.darkdimensions.de |
Gianfri
|
|
Mephisto Walz –
Insidious (Fossil Dungeon) |
|
Their publicity
announces that this is “a bold release from one of the
few remaining classic gothic-ethereal-punk rock bands.”
And not surprisingly most of the tracks sound like
Siouxsie and The Banshees
around the time of Tinder Box ( 1986) with a
beefier bass line. One number, One Less Day is
reminiscent of the dream pop of Slowdive. The
best track by far is Witches Gold, a great melodic
punk -pop song. The rest, well if traditional Goth is your
thing, give it a listen. www.mephistowalz.com - www.fossildungeon.com |
|
Mike
Shankland |
|
Mind In
A Box - Lost Alone (Dependent) |
|
Mind
in A Box
are a great revelation for those who never heard of them
before. As soon as the first track (Light & Dark) gets its tempo going you
can feel that your body has this urgent need to move. The
peaceful electronic music is calm and yet incredibly catchy.
It is not aggressive, as a lot of music is made nowadays,
but subtle and gentle. Well chosen sounds, good sound
structures and special vocals are combined in different
beautiful songs with a lot of variation within this style.
As soon as songs like Change,
Take My Soul, You Sill See and Lost Alone
find their way to your speakers, you will certainly fall in
love with the electro pop sound of Mind In A Box. You can also experience the
higher tempo in Questions or the long intro in Waiting.
The music is always building up to a great moment without
ever exploding, keeping the tension going. A must for fans
of the electronic scene! An album that is suitable as
background while your working as well as dance floor filler
when played at the right volume. www.mindinabox.com |
|
PJVD |
|
Mona
Mur – Into Your Eye (Alice in…) |
|
Into Your Eye traces a trip through the musical career of Hamburg born
avant-garde starlet Mona Mur. An eclectic career which
began back in 1982 with collaborations with FM
Einheit, Alexander Hacke e
Mark Chung of Einstürzenden
Neubauten fame. The first 4 tracks belong to the first 12”
published back then, offering very minimal and raw wave
sauced up by her charismatic vocals. It was times of
experimentation and scheme deifying creativity and this is
stuff that has left the mark. Thumbs up to Alice in…
for re-proposing those gems of dark extravaganza in their
strictly original versions. Some extracts from the 1985
period still marked by the FM Einheit & Alexander Hacke
collaboration move forward in dark avant-garde territory
leaving already behind some typical eighties sonorities and
showing different facets of Mona Mur singing. A collaboration with Dieter Meier (Yello) shaped up towards the end
of the eighties. The two following orchestral tracks dating
back to 1990 and performed with the Warsaw Philarmonic
Orchestra have Mona Mur rightly coming
across as primadonna. A little intriguing masterpiece of
nocturnal passion (Crazy) closes the pre-millennium era the testimony of the work
with Dieter Meier. Working with Christian St. Clair in the nineties and in the latest period, the music comes
across as more nocturnal, passionate, even sacred at times,
while even electronic elements are also incorporated. I
could somehow draw parallels to such acts as
Siderartica. Into Your Eye is an ideal album for discovering a character as Mona
Mur who has demonstrated during her extravagant career to have
all the numbers for being a role model for creative artists.
www.monamur.net |
Gianfri
|
|
Nerthus
– Nerthus (Art Konkret / Tesco) |
|
This disc dates back to
2004, starting a series of dark ambient releases from German
Art Konkret, who have been working hard on the dark
industrial end of the spectrum. The CD is attractively
presented in 7” cardboard sleeve and holds dark
haunting ambiences of droning, filmic and rhythmic
inspiration. Sonically speaking, the 6 featured tracks are a
far cry from abstract ambient and concentrate instead on
picturing darkness on a sort of “tangible”, dare I
say soothing way. While enveloping the listener in padded
soundscapes, Nerthus do leave a door wide open on the netherworld, from where
many additional disconcerting elements join in, creating a
reverberated tension that “relieves” the soothing
factor. This is a great nocturnal companion and a release
that I can wholeheartedly recommend to dark
ambient/industrial type listeners. www.art-konkret.de |
|
Gianfri |
|
Nerve
Exhibit – The Horror of Amusement EP (Self-Released) |
|
A one man project out of
Gurnee, Illinois, Johnny NeRo aka Nerve
Exhibit has left me a bit “double minded” with the 5
tracks included in this self-produced debut EP. If on one
hand the EP offers good premises with dark atmospheres
hinting to both WaxTrax type early industrial (Taste for
Futility or even Sky Ripped
Blue) and moody darkwave of the early variety (Choke, The Blue Below), and a shoot at
dark industrial (Warmth) on the other hand
the ultra-minimalism of the arrangements seems to deter from
the impact such music could potentially achieve. Although I
do enjoy the “manifesto of intentions”, which
would go well down with dark crowds leaning on the
industrial side, The Horror of Amusement
sounds more like a demo or a work-in-progress. Curious to
hear future developments for this potentially interesting
project. www.nerve-exhibit.com |
Gianfri
|
|
Nexus –
The Beat Syndicate (Cyberdelia) |
|
Nexus from Greece shift from guitar based goth-electronic
crossover to a more popish incarnation that dispenses with
guitars altogether –at least in their common
acception-, settling in the direction of synthpop meets
electronica and a predominant presence of dance-like beats.
But it’s not all as simplistic as this, and the 12
tracks of The Beat Syndicate have a few surprises down the sleeve. It is a classy album
that’s not afraid to move into cinematic territories,
then swing back to catchy strophe and refrain structures and
concedes a lot of room to bizarre sonic experiments. Even
the most conventionally structured tracks like World Out
of This offer a nicely oblique
approach to sound shaping, giving them a nice
“avant-garde” feel. There’s a lot of the
American styled exuberance and variation in Nexus style, which might prove to make things a bit more difficult
for them in the old continent. The Beat Syndicate
is a dense album that pushes synthpop towards more
innovative boundaries. www.cyberdelia-records.com |
Gianfri
|
|
Nik
Page – Dein Kuss CDs (Wannsee) |
|
This 5-track single heralded
the release of the following album Sinmachine. Electro Goth’n Roll could be the right name of this
kind of music. A powerful rock style rhythm, coupled with
electro beats and the gliding vocals make the main title an
impressing and danceable tune. Dein Kuss is included in three versions. The radio version and also
the one featuring Joachim Witt with his
expressively dark voice, are very inspired, thanks also to
Nina Hagen-like background vocals. The third version by Lemuria, with its melancholic female main vocals and a slow sad
piano, gives a total different atmosphere. Except for the
second track Blackmail Generation all lyrics are in German,
adding to the teutonic feel. Unimaginatively three of the
five songs are also included in the following album
Sinmachine, so the
real strengths of the release are the alternate versions of
the title track. www.nikpage.de
- www.wannsee-records.de |
Karin
Zenzinger
|
|
OTX –
Escape (Brume) |
|
OTX blend dark ambient, industrial, harsh and
drum’n’bass into great compositions. The pieces
have subtle melodies, dreamy patterns, floating structures
and a dancy atmosphere. Multilayered tracks combine beats
and melody lines with a lot of variation ranging from
floating and dreamy to hard or even danceable. Highlights
are International Space Station Iss, Calls Of The Middle-East, To
Protect And to Serve, the faster Missile
Attack and Under Fence but all the tracks
are worth some attention. After searching the rhythm
Mental Escape builds further on the combinations of gloomy industrial and
well chosen beat formations. Furthermore you can find
remixes by Oil10 and Displacer and also a video
for Weapons Factory. www.o-t-x.com
- www.brumerecords.com |
|
PJVD |
|
Of
Infinity – The Essence of Infinity CDs (Self-released) |
|
This 3-track
release The Essence Of Infinity
by USA based Of Infinity can be compared with Finnish
Nightwish or with the Dutch project Within Temptation, both dating back to 1996. Like the mentioned bands, Of
Infinity present female fronted melodic metal. Both the voice of
Alessandra -quite similar to the one of Nightwish’s Tarja- and also the
Metal based background sound allow a comparison to the
Finnish melodic metal formation. Even though influences of
the band include Lacuna Coil, Tristania or
Iron Maiden, who are named by the band members themselves, Of Infinity
do not come across as a cheap copy project, far from it
indeed. These musicians seem to take out the best parts of
their idols and fuse it together in a own style. With only
three tracks, it isn’t easy to find out a
lot about the quality of this band, but what they are
presenting here is musically high qualitative and clearly
produced. The 3 tracks cover from powerful metal beats to
emotional sounds and give the hope that further works
won’t bore the listener with boring
clichees. www.ofinfinity.com |
Karin
Zenzinger
|
|
Rasal.asad
– Asuna (Thisco) |
|
Rasal.asad aka Fernando Cerquiera has
been offering ambient electronic music under different
shapes in his collaboration with Paulo Rodriguez under the name
Ras.al.ghul. Asuna is an album made
predominantly by expanded cosmic atmospheres punctuated by
distant vocal samples and short lyrics pieces and poems. The
eight tracks are very relaxed and meditative in nature and
envelop the listener in a rarefied and surreal atmosphere,
succeeding in slowing down the world around us which is a
major achievement in these days. A great nocturnal listen, a
powerful antidote to the stressful life we are, to different
degrees, all victims of. www.thisco.net |
Gianfri
|
|
Red
Reflection - Prelude To Anihilation (Frozen Empire Media) |
|
Nearly 2
1/2 years after an initial debut Amid The Ruins, Red
Reflection
now return with Prelude to Annihilation. The CD holds tribal
combinations, dens orchestration, hip hop like beats, trip
hop, noiseloops and gloomy atmospheres. The album starts
with piano, to calm you down. After that, Withering
World opens the world of Red Reflection and
creepy song structures. The songs blend into each other
nicely , as a mix allowing you to discover special points of
view and unparalleled combinations. Red Reflection take classical orchestrations, heavy ambience and
rhythm even further by introducing many new components to
the mix. The sound leans to rhythmic industrial, creating a
unusual atmosphere. At the end you will discover a hidden
piano piece. www.frozenempiremedia.com |
|
PJVD |
|
Roricat
- Uki Uki (Horus Cyclic Daemon) |
|
I don’t have much
information regarding this band besides the fact they are
Russians and made of only two members: Eugene and Julica but most likely you people know more about them than me.
What we have during this 70 minute plus CD is plenty of
melodic and ambient experimental music. No words beside some
vocal samplings on track 11 Naga Will Be Fine, one of my favourites for its nice guitar parts along with
the usual electronics and funny sounds. You can also hear
bass and percussions. Most of the time, some form of subdued
or discrete percussions is melted into the musical
structure. Uki Uki is mainly made of all sort of keyboard sounds and
experimentation giving the compositions a rather psychedelic
and / or spaced out character. Luna has a space age name and a pretty dark / ambient
atmosphere. Many times the melodic parts are repetitive
giving a certain mesmerizing feel to the music. Since it is
quite lengthy, it may be a bit difficult to listen to it in
just one shot unless you really are into this type of music
or a dedicated fan. All in all it is quite pleasant and
entertaining with a nice production. roricat.f2g.net |
Denis Brunelle
|
|
Schattenkinder
- Vision Of Nightfall (Dark Wings) |
|
The
quintet’s debut album is called Vision Of
Nightfall. Two
female vocalists bring lyrics in four languages. With a
classic instrumentation ,they produce romantic ballads and
melancholic pieces. The title track is a good opener for the
album that holds tracks like Seirene, Song of Despair and
Claire de Lune. Since the launch in 2001 by Reiner
as a studio project, the songs are being restructured in
terms of instruments as well as the vocals. This results in
dark wave and heavenly voices spread over thirteen pieces.
All music is composed by Schattenkinder
but also includes additional arrangements by Wither.
vision-of-nightfall.de |
|
PJVD |
|
Spares –
3-track promo from “Suffering Fools Gladly”
(Self-Released) |
|
A juicy preview of the
latest effort by Spares, the UK trio that emerged
back in 2000 by the ashes of defunct Children on Stun. The three tracks included in this preview CD offer a
kaleidoscope of dark guitars, hooking melodies, solid
rhythmic and female vocals. Judging by what we hear, we
should be in for a varied album that dispenses with many
clichés of UK goth in favour of refreshing ideas.
Waiting impatiently for the album. www.spares.tk |
Gianfri
|
|
Stilllife
– Remembrance (Irond) |
|
Stillife
stand for calm and peaceful ballads, but also more tempo
comes in songs like The Wait, what makes them even danceable. They are a duo
from Russia and uses assistance for violin and keyboards.
Classical instrumentation is accompanied by dark vocals, not
as singing but more as spoken words, poetry. The lyrics can
be found in the booklet in a way that is not standard.
Violin and piano go together with lyrics in English and
German (and even Russian). If you like Goethes Erben, Falk
Lenn
and Naevus,
Stillife
can bring some change in this style, combining emotional
loaded music with modern elements. The last track on the
album is a remix by Endraum.www.stilllife.ru |
|
PJVD |
|
The
Weathermen – Deeper with The Weathermen (Urgence Disk) |
|
This is the sort of release
showing how eclectic and unconventional this Swiss label is.
The Weathermen are a Belgian based duo whose origins date back to the
eighties and whose bio and credentials we’ll leave up
to you to research (or read them in their Darklife X
interview!) A tongue-in-cheek approach to entertainment,
satirical, humours and whatnot, over well conceived
electro-pop arrangements. It takes a lot of tuning to the
sort of sense of humour and the spoken story-telling in
order to endure the 10 tracks on one go. The off-beat
quality of the disc is probably the band primary goal, so it
definitely takes an off-beat audience to enjoy it. Not sure
who got there first back in the days, but a few A Split
Second traits
emerge here and there. www.theweathermen.net
- www.darksites.ch/urgences |
Gianfri
|
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THO-SO-AA
- Minus (Art Konkret) |
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A disc dense with sinister
dark and droning ambient strongly tinted with industrialism
is the latest output for Lutz Rach aka THO-SO-AA, making
for the second act in the Ark Konkret Dark Ambient series.
Minus is ghoulish and absorbing, and lives on a
fine balance between ambient and industrial, with thick
drones, some rhythmic, bubble-like passages, worrying
voices, lots of low rumbling frequencies, tense passages
building up close to apocalyptic levels. If any of the
mentioned ingredients tickles your attention and you
haven’t yet put THO-SO-AA in your map, this might be a great
opportunity. Look out for a great looking 7” gatefold
sleeve to hold your next trip through disconcerting level of
darkness. thosec.notrix.de - www.art-konkret.de |
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Gianfri |
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Out of Bochum (D), Jan
Lehmkämper, a man with a techno-trance history in the German
underground, is the man operating the X-Fusion
machinery. A choral intro and the album title, coupled with
the cover artwork, would lead immediately the first time
listener to think to a gothic opus, perhaps a goth-metal
type hybrid. Instead this is food for stompers of the dark
electro dancefloor. It’s not long into the album (track
3 to be precise) before names like Hocico, Aslan Faction or Suicide Commando start to
spring to mind. X-Fusion sport tight programming and
high production values, sounds are varied and cured to the
detail, overheard distorted vocals give the rage value,
while the occasional use of more traditional keyboard lines
gives here and there a sense of relief from the aggressive
rhythms and add important atmospheric touches. Many of the
15 tracks on offer are well suited to heating up EBM type
dancefloors and the mid-tempo numbers are again crucial in
giving the album that dynamism sometimes missing in hard
dance/EBM productions. A very positive entry in the genre
overall, if not highly original, that will go down well with
fans of the bands mentioned above and of the Noitekk wave of
dark-EBM. www.x-fusion.com
- www.darkdimensions.de |
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Gianfri |
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Zadera –
...Something Red (Strobelight) |
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Debut album for this 4-piece
hailing from Magdenburg (D), offering 15 tracks in
post-punk/early goth tradition with many a reference to
early Banshees sonorities,
perhaps Skeletal Family and a touch of
X-Mal Deutschland attitude. The discs opens
with energy and perhaps generates expectations that are not
entirely met during the course of development of the album.
The post-punk minded guitars and Conny suitably sweet&crazed vocals are the
major selling points of the album with highest moments in
the likes of the opener, That Much I didn’t Want to
Know, No
Answer, the atmospheric Fallen or the
energetic Grey and Red. Some other tracks like
You Have Lost, One More Life or Search for You seem to
lack bite and end up flattening a bit the mood throughout
the disc. …Something Red seems to suggest the band are more prone to live
performances and in all honesty all the tracks, taken
individually are well crafted and interesting. The album as
it is, however, will do little to the casual listener while
definitely being of interest to the genre specific audience.
With some extra work, Zadera could
expand on this. www.strobelight-records.com |
Gianfri
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Zmiya –
Solmamdenlo (Prikosnovenie) |
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A predominantly
Arabic-flavoured release for a French newcomer, Zmiya
who have the additional fortune of stemming out of Nantes
(F), making it easier for them to be noticed by
Prikosnovenie who are also based there. There are actually
diverse world influences throughout the album and
traditional western instrumentation is blended in, as well
as subtle electro elements. Of strict interest to world
music listeners, it also includes a bonus video. www.prikosnovenie.com |
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Gianfri |
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SAMPLERS |
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Thisco:Thiscology
- VV.AA. (Thisco) |
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This compilation is based on
pure electronic music for the Portuguese label Thisco who have put together on this CD 10 tracks by different
artists from their own country with a really good and varied
outcome, showing that Portugal has been long the new
electronic music best kept secret. All projects, such as
Flat Opak, Low
Pressure System or Headshot just to name a few, offer a clean and highly qualitative
electronic sound in a mostly quiet and relaxed way. Voices
are used sparingly –Oxygen is the only act offering full vocals alongside
Rasal.A’sad and Mikroben Krieg
incorporating spoken word, the latter in heavily treated
fashion boarding on the sensual- and synthetic arrangements
ranging from chill out to modern electronica to quiet
ambiences over to the less aggressive end of industrial. The
result is a great and pleasant listen throughout that will
easily please electronic minded audiences of a broad
variety, while presenting talented artists out of the
mainstream and very worth a spot of attention. A very
welcome non commercial attitude favouring good music as
opposed to hype, repetitive stuff that is becoming standard
fare even for the electronic so-called underground. www.thisco.net |
Thisoriented - VV.AA. (Thisco)
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Another journey
through the world of dark electronic wonders thoughtfully
crafted for us by the chaps at Thisco, Thisoriented
offers a collection of high profile names in the genre and
borders on the industrial end of the spectrum, yet
maintaining a mid-tempo character, although hi-bpm tracks
are present as well. From Mlada Fronta to Spies,
from Mimetic to
Rapoon, Ultra Milkmaids to Ah Cama-Sotz, Ras.al.ghul to Sci-Fi Industries,
This Morn’omina to
Sci-Fi Industries and so
on, this is a supremely well assembled disc that has a lot
on offer for fans of experimental electronics and industrial
alike. Some curiosities are as well included, in the form of
live action recordings and a rather unexpected track by
Sieben which blends in surprisingly well, right
before the listener is assaulted by Mlada Fronta high-bpm percussive number. Variety
aplenty, a much thought of track sequence and the high
quality of the music featured make this sampler a very
attractive item for all fans of industrial and modern
electronic music. www.thisco.net
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Gianfri |