“Grand Virage” is the first single from SIIE’s upcoming debut album Acmé, set for release in April 2025 on Cold Transmission Music. This darkwave electro track invites listeners on a haunting, introspective journey, featuring driving synths, mesmerizing melodies, and evocative French vocals. It captures the experience of navigating life’s uncertainties and pivotal choices. Enhanced by a remix from Emmon, which adds a minimalistic, atmospheric touch, the track becomes an ideal soundtrack for those unafraid to explore both the light and dark sides of their path.
Borusiade lands on Dark Entries with their triumphant third LP, THE FALL: A Series of Documented Experiences. The Romanian producer and DJ Miruna Boruzescu aka Borusiade has a track record of genre-bending releases on tastemaking outlets like Cómeme, Pinkman, Cititrax, and of course Dark Entries, who unleashed their stunning 2020 sophomore album Fortunate Isolation. THE FALL builds on Borusiade’s mythos with its 9 brooding and sophisticated tracks investigating the contours of memory and embodiment – the “fragile bridge between body and mind” in Borusiade’s words. Moody basslines and melancholy synths wrestle with muscular rhythms; this is electronic body music for the heart and head. This is their most diaristic work to date, as well, chronicling love and loss through the gauze of reflection. Tracks like “Save Me”, “Recovery and Redemption”, and “The Fall” sprung from painful breakups, periods which Borusiade identifies as some of their most creatively fruitful, finding themselves “making the best music when I was brokenhearted.” There are odes to musical titans we’ve lost: the minimal electro producer Porn Darsteller is comemorated on “Darsteller”, while industrial legends Genesis P-Orrige and Lady Jaye are honored on “Pandrogyne.” THE FALL comes housed in a sleeve using Gautier D’Agoty’s “Essai d’Anatomie,” an anatomical work from 1745, and also includes a lyric sheet. Trauma, from lost love to pandemic isolation, informs THE FALL, situating itself as a gap that can only be accessed through sound and the creation of art. “What can I add? When life gives you drama, make music.”
Citirax introduces the debut LP from the Los Angeles-based duo OP-ART, a project born out of the creative isolation of the lockdown era. The band, the brainchild of Andrew Clinco – known for his work with Drab Majesty – was originally named using the acronym “Oblique Pleasures Amidst Rough Times,” a nod to the challenging times that inspired its formation. In Andrew’s own words, the album “represents a sonic analog to the visual art movement of the 1960s,” meaning it is both densely layered and psychedelic, yet aims to capture a sense of minimalism in its tradition, theory, and conceptual approach. OP-ART’s sound is heavily influenced by the New Wave genre, drawing inspiration from artists such as John Foxx, Martin Dupont (with whom Andrew has collaborated on a track), Experimental Products, and early OMD. True to their commitment to authentic analog sound, OP-ART eschews digital plug-ins in favor of a wide array of analog synthesizers and outboard rack effects units. The album features a diverse collection of synthesizers including the EML 500, Arp Odyssey, Arp Omni2, Jupiter 6, SH-02, SH-101, Moog Rogue, and Roland Promars. Each piece of equipment contributes to the album’s lush, rich soundscapes, creating a tactile and immersive listening experience. ‘The Final Act’, the title of the LP, is a testament to the duo’s ability to blend catchy melodies with profound emotional depth. The album offers an introspective journey through themes of time passing, romantic entanglements, and existential reflections on an apocalyptic scale. With its evocative sound and thoughtful lyrics, ‘The Final Act’ promises to resonate deeply with listeners, making it a compelling and significant debut from OP-ART.
Meta Moto presents the fifth solo album on their platform. ‘Neturi Vietos’ comes from Lithuanian producer Darius Siuipys aka Shaknis. Shaknis is a highly talented producer, mixing and mastering nerd, analog gear collector, Eurorack synth builder, and all-around genuine lad. His new album showcases a blend of pure electro with elements of breakbeat.
The long-awaited return of the techno trance wizard Asymetric80 is finally here. You can once again expect his unique vision of what a dancefloor banger should be: powerful low drums and mesmerizing melodies dancing around the perfect bass to energize any dancefloor.
Dark Entries celebrates its 15th anniversary by returning to where it all started, the initial darkest entry: Eleven Pond’s masterpiece ‘Bas Relief’, an ultra-obscure album from 1986 that would become a definitive dark pop holy grail. Eleven Pond was James Tabbi (vocals, acoustic guitar), Jeff Gallea (drum machine, synthesizer, vocals), Jack Schaeffer (guitar) and Dan Brumley (synthesizer, samples, vocoder, melodica). They met in Rochester, NY, while attending art school, brought together by their shared love of 4AD and Factory Records. Taking cues from acts like Joy Division, Fad Gadget, and For Against, Eleven Pond’s infectious basslines, churning guitar riffs, and atmospheric synths will charm all fans of moody music. But what really makes Bas Relief shine is the timeless songwriting on classics like “Tear and Cinnamon”, “Portugal”, and the anthemic “Watching Trees.” With only 500 copies in it’s initial release, ‘Bas Relief’ resurfaces with a fresh remaster that corrects a pitch shift from previous reissues. ‘Bas Relief’ is a true lost relic of the cold 80’s and an essential piece Dark Entries history.
This is a truly gem for darkwave collectors. Noah Renolds is the Australian behind Second Sight, a hidden project reminiscent of // Tense // , Valis or Ortrotasce. Pulsating beats, a peculiar use of short samples á la Wax Trax and amazing minimal synth compositions makes the perfect combo.
Meta Moto presents the latest offering of Poladroïd. Drenched in dense, filtered atmospheres and infused with nostalgic echoes of a bygone era, ‘Danse Macabre’ exudes a dark and gritty ambiance, straddling the realms of retro-futurism and melancholic machine melodies. Drawing inspiration from a spectrum as wide as Holderlin’s ‘Hyperion’ and the poetic works of Robert Brasillach and Charles Baudelaire, ‘Danse Macabre’ showcases Poladroïd’s versatility in crafting diverse sonic landscapes while maintaining a signature sound.
This long awaited debut album offers a cross-section of songs, previously performed live multiple times, where Oliver Decrow provides insights into his life and emotions, attempting to process experiences. Themes such as the suicide of a friend, self-doubt, grief, courage, love, fear, hope, the subconscious, letting go, escaping, and numerous emotional highs and lows are explored in his album.
Bedroom Talks, hailing from Ukraine, is a gifted solo artist whose music, delves into an eclectic blend of genres including coldwave, darkwave, synthwave, post-punk with touches of EBM. “Call Me Malespero,” produced during Ukraine’s shelling, captures the essence of his art in a unique and moving way. It’s a powerful testament to human resilience and the ability to find beauty even in the darkest moments, evoking a range of emotions from pain and anger to palpable sweetness, all woven into poetic lyrics and enveloping melodies.
That true beauty lies in the essentiality and meticulous combination of a few elements is sometimes not just a cliché. The delicate blend of Roland CR-78, acoustic guitar and dissonant organs that intertwine in ‘Open Windows’ is a vivid demonstration of this. It is these few elements, now distant and hinted at and now close and deafening, that paint the backdrop of melancholic nostalgia where laconic whispers move the listener within the paintings that bear the sonic signature of Human Figures, the project of Daniel Lewis known also as Daniel Holt. In the 8 canvases of Open Windows the folk tradition is repainted in a more contemporary guise: the sweet and sad litanies are alternated with fast and frenetic stornelli in which the combination of tradition and experimentation constitutes the stylistic signature. The open window through which the listener has the opportunity to look out in this album does not, however, give onto a natural external panorama. It projects into an inner world where introspection and silence are the only chance to grasp its sublime beauty.
Cold Transmission presents the second chapter of their Zeitgeist Chrome series, dedicated to the finest electronic music. Includes songs by Grey Gallows, Kalte Nacht, Oliver Decrow, Rina Pavar, Teatre & Years Of Denial.
The Hipodrome Of Music 