The Swiss New Wave heroes Karl Kave & Durian collaborate for the album”Untergang und Finsternis” on Detriti Records. Dreamy synths, dreamy lyrics, dreamy people.
Karl Kave & Durian – Untergang und Finsternis [DR-030]
cold wave
Wladyslaw Trejo – Nuestra Voz / Tranzyt W [LI-05]
Wladyslaw Trejo comes with a 7″ single dedicated to Warsaw. “Nuestra Voz” is a poem wrapped in sharp synthesizers about the silent threat of totalitarianism. The accompanying video clip amplifies its meaning and serves as a metaphor. “Tranzyt W” is an instrumental that portrays the walk of an inveterate observer, Wladyslaw himself, through the streets of modern Warsaw.
Deathtrippers – Deathtrippers LP [DW032]
Deathtrippers was formed by Sasha Raoul in Leeds, UK, 2015, his influences being classic 80s’ gothic rock / psych / electronica / 80s’ indie. They have also contributed a couple of tracks to compilations in 2020. Each song is a dancefloor smasher in its own style. Dead Wax Records have gathered all their recorded output (previously on digital formats only), some of which has been edited, some remixed and all of it newly mastered specifically for this vinyl, making it flow and sound better than ever.
Quattrovalvole – De School [OR89]
Quattrovalvole is the project of Joone & Miss Zagato. Taking inspiration from Ferrari’s Vetroresina 308, sunset driving on a dark mission, the listener becomes an accomplice, so beware. You may be charged. Curb crawling, speeding, reaching for something that drives you wild and swerve off the road. The windscreen shatters, and your fingerprints are everywhere. Run. Four on the floor Italo-disco, glossy 80s new wave, Quattrovalvole is an afterdark lifestyle. Released by Oráculo Records.
Coldreams – Crazy Night LP [CAM019]
After the repress of their single “Eyes / Morning Rain”, Camisole Records announces the reissue of Coldreams tape “Crazy Night”. Recorded in 1984-1985 by a gang of young students passionate about Post-Punk this record represents the culmination of the band first period. Haunted lyrics and melancholia were already the basics of their sound and from “Don’t Cry” to “Crazy Night / Burning Passion” it’s difficult to imagine that they were only 18 to 19 years old at that time. “Bulbs and Bubbles” and “Turn the Button” show their pop appeal which definitely takes them apart from their contemporaries and all-around gloomy feelings infuse these six tracks which unveils another part of Coldreams history.
VA – Another Cold World 3 [CBR015]
Cold Beats Records announces the launch of series Another Cold World. This time with a 12″ EP the composed with 4 tracks including DILK, WLDV, Dernier Sex and Hanging Gardens, keeping the label’s philosophy, we have once again united groups and artists that stand out within the minimal/synth/coldwave scene.
Kinder Aus Asbest / Rosa Nebel – Split EP [LXRC42]
The first Lux Rec release after summer is a split EP that puts together two musicians from different regions, different backgrounds. On the A-side there’s an old acquaintance of the label, Kinder aus Asbest, with Life after Death and Washed Away. As hopeless as it gets. On the B-side there’s Rosa Nebel, and upcoming artist from Austria that matches perfectly, with his dystopian views on society, the core dissatisfaction for humankind that Lux Rec has.
Human Figures – Footsteps [POP127]
Popnihil returns with an album of intricate postpunk from Daniel Holt’s new project Human Figures. Besides running Ardetha Records, Holt has impressed with dungeon synth and ambient projects, his dark synth duo Vault, and a mind-melting techno 12″ for L.I.E.S. Records. But Human Figures is a completely new and personal avenue of expression. “Footsteps” features hymnal, meditative post-punk from musical polymath Daniel Holt.
Wladyslaw Trejo – Es Una Bestia [PY90]
Polytechnic Youth return with the whacked out synth-punk mini LP “Es Una Bestia” by Wladyslaw Trejo. Trejo is a Spanish musician, and a key figure in the European underground electronic scene; and despite this being his first solo album since 2015’s self titled debut, he is eternally busy, especially as part of ‘avant-wave’ dueo Slovenska Televiza. Trejo says of the record: “Es Una Bestia is a settling of personal accounts with the ghosts and fears of youth. Digging through the wounds, exploring the cursed soul, inviting his monsters to come to the surface and they do so in the form of vitriolic and hallucinated synth-punk. For this bloody task he has aquired the best possible help, the complicity of the prestigious (and Nick Cave favourite) Polish painter Aleksandra Waliszewska, who provides vocals, as well as the director and musician Wiktor Stribog, the brain behind the ‘Kraina Grzybów’ phenomenon, who collaborates on the lyrics. In his solo project Wladyslaw reveals himself as a crooked line, a faustic anomaly that invites to a dark and psychotropic journey in the form of feverish electronics, industrial rhythms, and almost paranoid sound walls through certain life risks”.
Borusiade – Fortunate Isolation [DE266]
Dark Entries Records presents ‘Fortunate Isolation’ the sophomore album from Borusiade. Born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, Borusiade aka Miruna Boruzescu started dj-ing in 2002 as one of the very few female DJs in the city’s emerging alternative clubbing scene. Influenced by a classical musical education, a bachelor in film direction and fascinated by raw electronic sounds, Borusiade first combined these universes in the construction of her DJ sets and starting 2005 also in her music production. A sound of her own has slowly crystallized, often dark with poignant bass lines, obsessive themes and by all means melodic. ‘Fortunate Isolation’ is perhaps Borusiade’s most personal release to date. Eight songs that capture a bystander witnessing the world as it undergoes drastic changes. We have disconnected ourselves from ecology, humanity, preservation, care for what surrounds us, for what is still alive. Borusiade adds, “| know that this place, our home has went through so many other extinctions, but | believe things will find their own way on this planet only once we are gone. Entropy creates a time-line but also a transformation – a new beginning.” The album’s sound is gloomy and powerful mixing sonic film sequences, rhythmic excursions and soothing yet obsessive vocals that touch one’s deepest senses. Lyrically the songs tackle themes of forgotten memories, spirituality, mortality, and destruction.
VA – Aleatory Chaos Third Chapter [OR71]
The Spanish label Oraculo Records presents Aleatory Chaos Third Chapter, a various artist including four cord wave / synth pop tracks coming from Xymox, Vacant Stares, Oby Wolf and Abu Nein.
Curses – Carcassonne [HNRBS003]
Luca Venezia, aka Curses, has with his Carcassonne-Mini LP, written and produced a cold wave dream filtered through how all the sci-fi movie soundtracks of the eighties should have sounded like; picture The Cure on a study visit in John Carpenters studio in 1983. This six-track Mini LP is his first release on Hoga Nord Rekords and features eighties influenced dark and expensive sounding electronic music. Luca Venezia also solves the task of putting vocal elements in the tracks with sharpness and precision; the heavy processed reverberating overdubs float in and out on a tastefully low level in the mix.
Coldreams – Eyes / Morning Rain [CAM014]
This long time sought after french post-punk/coldwave/melancholic pop 7″ finally gets an official reissue, by Camisole Records. Coldreams was a french female fronted post-punk band hailing from Clermont-Ferrand.
Alessandro Adriani – Montagne Trasparenti [MNQ123]
Alessandro Adriani has become a trusted source for all kinds of beyond-the-grave minimal synth, industrial and coldwave delights. Aside from his work in releasing forgotten gems and up to the minute synth incantations, Adriani has also been quietly issuing out his own music as well. Originally released in 2016, ‘Montagne Trasparenti’ is now repressed on Mannequin Records with a full new graphic design.
Stratis – New Face LP [DE241]
Stratis is an electronic duo from Cologne, Germany, formed by Antonios Stratis and Albert Klein in 1981. They took inspiration from the progressive electronic synthscapes of Tangerine Dream & Vangelis and the proto-techno of Chris & Cosey and Yello, as well as jazz and funk. The duo recorded 5 cassette-only albums between 1982 and 1986 – Exotic, New Face, Musica da Ballo, Film Musik, and Raging Beauty – which were released on their own label Creative Tapes (later called Temporary Music), and which were also licensed to Colin Potter’s Integrated Circuit Records (ICR) label. We are pleased to announce the first ever standalone vinyl reissue of their sophomore album “New Face’, which was recorded and released in 1983. It consists of eight future-fixated tracks that could have been composed for movies like Blade Runner or Tron. A wide range of minimal electronics are presented, from robotic synth pop to melancholic cold wave to Neue Deutsche Welle electro.
Kris Baha – In Your Arms [SLK007]
No stranger to the darkness, Kris Baha takes us by the heart this time for the 8th She Lost Lontrol’s release. The sound of this 12 extended EP is sad as it is romantic filling the void of most things that are present in our lives albeit momentarily. ‘In Your Arms’ is not the defeat but the endless struggle, the serendipitous celebration of loss. Within the lyrical confines as dark as the period that brought them to light, he screams about fighting and resisting in a cruel present through a selfless in-look for a outsiders perspective into what it means to him and us to have lost to love , lost to lust and lost to death. Every end has a beginning.
Ron Morelli – FACT mix 685
Olivia b2b Charlie @ We Are Radar X Szum 16.11.2018
Lebanon Hanover – Let Them Be Alien [FP024]
It’s been almost six years since the release of the band’s critically-acclaimed debut album “The World Is Getting Colder”. Since then the half Brit-half German duo have established themselves as one of the most powerful and successful genre-defining acts throughout Europe, scoring 5 heart-throbbing albums and numerous performances all around the world, making them one of the most successful bands of the cold wave / minimal wave scene. Lebanon Hanover’s the 5th album “Let Them Be Alien” is available via Fabrika Records. Exploring the sonic and emotional range that the audience have learned to expect from Lebanon Hanover, “Let Them Be Alien” is built up in emotional vocals, liquid chords, dramatic keys, and distorted digital waves where the duo recalls the eerie clouds of industrial and goth 1980’s. The album depicts the dark honesty and profound feelings of two alienated personas with true romantic hearts yet feeling socially unrest. In each track, William and Larissa tell a different story which will sweep the audience through a deep, conscious, continual and wistful trip, and ultimately keep them anchored in feelings.
