Tabula Rasa is a deep and often wistful journey into the world of Daniel Holt’s project Human Figures. Transitive and ethereal, these eight tracks effortlessly fuse elements of cold wave, post-punk, and minimal electronics culminating in a pensive opus awash in faded dreams. Another classic from the visionary artist at his finest.
DAS DAS is a synth-punk duo from Berlin composed by Cosey Mueller (voice & Guitar) and Jo Schwund (synth & programming). “Leben in Bildschirmen” their second album, was release in April on Phantom Records and now it gets a release also on Detriti Records.
Mini-album collecting early work by Tennessee’s Human Figures. “After An Ordeal” sees HF’s Daniel Holt moving forward by looking back. These are no mere embryonic demos, these are intricate and majestic anthems of defeat from Holt.
A roundup of positive nostalgia from Fontaine SMC: two French artists and friends who share the same vision of electronic music. They have several project under other names, often axed on IDM/electro, but this time the joined the forces for a synthwave and punk flavor project. I was a soldier EP is a social criticism/journey into human fears and hard relationships, synthetized into an 80s look, dusty and raw sounding. A mix of punk dementia and the most intense dance music, the one that takes the joints and makes you move them well.
Squirrels On Film shares “Electric-Earthy-Esoteric” a haunted song cycle of kosmiche dark-wave/cold-rave sonic incantation from, Mexican born, Texas raised musician & DJ who currently resides in Vienna, Alyssa Auvinen Barrera aka LDY OSC. She uses synthesis, rhythm & voice to conjure layered compositions that draw from post-punk, techno, dub & underground synth-wave.
The debut album of the Greek one-man project HERE-X contains everything we could expect from a leading modern post-punk act. Cold wave ambiances fulfilled with sumptuous guitar riffs and beautiful synth lines surrounded by exuberant vocals.
A project based variously in the Midwest, the Bay Area, and currently Nashville, Stacian is a longtime vehicle for dance floor alchemist, electronic artist, and producer Dania Luck, who delivers for Chicago’s CLEAR a collection that synthesizes a wide breadth of influences; from varying strains of minimal wave, to the darker baroque flourishes of German new-wave and post-industrial— all while scavenging the displaced futurism of early analog electronic music. From the glam-spattered invocation of “Dance With Me” to the frenzied snare-hits of “Read Me”, to the post-industrial stomp of “We Are War”; “Fractal ID” unfolds like a map of hypnagogic states. By the time we reach “The Well” and “Idea of Home” a trapdoor in the dance floor has opened to an otherworldly abyss, where pulsating analog beats materialize, and glimmering arpeggiations illuminate the icy well of our shared technological isolation. Stacian’s “Fractal ID” is a propulsive and perilous journey to the depths, of dynamic rhythmic modulations and expansive sonic textures; a lone ray of light that bounces and refracts along the cavernous sub-levels of the club floor.
Zürich’s Lux Rec co-founder Daniele Cosmo delivers a delightful hour of brooding cold synth recorded during the Summer Camp at Rote Fabrik.
Though the hallowed halls of Berlin’s nightlife excess now sit cold, the sounds that once haunted their depths beat ever onward, and colder still. Birthed in these hushed plaguelands, XTR HUMAN’s new full-length G.O.L.D evokes the frozen melancholy of a post-pandemic city, driven ever onward by the impetus of night’s primary currencies: sweat, release and change. The latest full-length from Johannes Stabel, G.O.L.D finds the German producer evolving as much as the rest of the world has had to. Taking his political and socially conscious lyrics into his native tongue brings a deeper and more powerful thrust to their weight—particularly at a time when Germany is weighing its own social consciousness after years of being seen as a leading world figure.
The Swiss New Wave heroes Karl Kave & Durian collaborate for the album”Untergang und Finsternis” on Detriti Records. Dreamy synths, dreamy lyrics, dreamy people.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
The Hipodrome Of Music 