The latest in the synth-heavy sludgedown from Public System Recordings, invites a new cast of characters into the dungeon dance. The common theme throughout this sampler of titans of industrial the world over, seems to be wide, slowed down melancholy. Some tracks take a floor-friendly jump, while others demand the attentive consumption of a more serene setting. These two discs are packed with dynamic, chugging, and forward thinking jams that make you mesh all things PSR is passionate for.
Broken English Club presents the second part in the White Rats trilogy, a full-length double vinyl album that focuses heavily on the dancefloor with droning techno, head banging acid and cinematic synth noise. This album continues Oliver Ho’s musical journey, fusing techno with industrial post punk and textures of death metal producing a unique electronic vision. Ideas and influences that went into the writing of the album was the dark soul of Wormwood scrubs prison in west London and the obsessions in the JG Ballard book Crash. White Rats II stands as a relentless and personal portrait of techno and all the things that feed into the creation of it.
Barro from Spain brings for the second release a compilation of six industrial tracks from Betek, Nole, Orlok 101 and Persona Non Grata.
Torrent unleashes 8 malevolent creatures that writhe, scream and fight their way across both sides.
Private Selection Records founder and curator Dreams comes crashing in with a 6-tracker falling between thick body music and gnarly, frenzied electro. With ragged rhythms, reverberating synths and heart-wrenching vocal elements these tracks tie together a dystopian journey beginning with sheer rampage, leading to devastation and ending in hopeless ruin.
Kris Baha is back on Pinkman Records following up his ‘Can’t Keep The Fact’ EP last year with another great release rich in energy, rhythm and under the influence of his Master. In ‘My Master’ Kris expertly fuses the past and present amidst sonic aesthetics of 80s new-wave, minimal synth and post-punk – all this in amongst fierce percussion, wired sequenced baselines and his vocals up front, revealed and out of the dubby shadows. The result is 6 tracks dribbling with nostalgia in a 2019 context and in classic Kris fashion, can be played on the dance floors of your mind right through to dance floors of reality. In this release Kris submits himself, wholly to his master, which is himself. Who is your master?’
If heavy industry is a thing of the past, no-one told Identified Patient. For the past few years, he has been a one-man factory: by day, assembling component parts of acid, techno and all varieties of wave (dark, cold, minimal) on the production line; by night, a DJ dynamo pulsing with so much energy he could power a small city. His style is the kind of churning, lithe, fractured machine funk that could make Trent Reznor weep with envy – mean but clean, sinister and stomping but crucially, never overconfident or overblown. After two show-stopping performances at the parent festival last year, Signals In Snakes marks Identified Patient’s first Dekmantel release, for the technoid UFO sub-label.
The third release from the Pubblicazione series is out on the Italian label Hiroshima 45. Chernobyl 86. Windows 95. 80s EBM Mexican band Interface went digged, contacted, then re-edited by Sneaker Dj. The unique slow industrial marchs signed Raw Ambassador strike again. Rawmance: 3AM when the walls sweat. Addictive dance. Dutch master Das Ding hosted here with a progressive storm, rougher than ever.
The second release from Bore Hole, St. Petersburg label associated with the now infamous Клуб (Kisloty Club). The release continues the label’s DIY philosophy with four trippy lo-fi cuts from an obscure Moscow artist, Muscles & Hate, who is also known as Synkronized, balancing different in genres and tempos ranging from 120 to 160 BPM.
Soft Machine is a surreal wander through the mystical sonic forest. A vision curated and designed by Chicago native Justin Aulis Long. A Cyclopian point of view while gazing through a wide lensed scope, which exists in the liminal spaces where light meets dark and angelic forces bath in the sludge and stardust of unfiltered eroticism. Eye of the Minotaur – collage 001 is a collection of artists working in varying musical practices that are channeling the solitude of mutantness, strolling through the familiar yet unfamiliar halls of the uncanny, refusing ordinary structures of the mundane, grasping the cold humor of cynicism, basking in the dichotomy of cosmos and chaos, and invoking the energies of Eris and Eros.
Anshaw relentlessly exposes a range of emotion and versatility through bit crushed textures, varying sonics and unorthodox song structure. The result is a creation of his influences (bass, techno, post punk, electro & dark wave) fused with his own unique vision. Culminating an EP that sounds absolutely powerful yet melodic.
The term ‘cruelty’ is so limiting according to our cultural expectations of it, an act may give perceived ‘good’ to the perpetrator and ‘bad’ to the victim. It may give good in the long run and bad in the short run or vice versa. The unifying factor to all forms of cruelty is Ghoulia.
Following up on his contribution to the first Five Years Of Tears compilation, Randstad steps up to the bill and delivers his first solo release for Pinkman Records. Six tracks ranging from twisted industrialized beat trax to brain melting weirdo dance. A great cross-over record for adventurous DJs and fans of the cold, minimal DIY sound of the 80s alike.
Mannequin boss Alessandro Adriani returns with his second full-length, ‘Morphic Dreams’, this time on Stroboscopic Artefacts. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, ‘Morphic Dreams’ is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements – i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire.
Cardinal & Nun from Marseille delivers his debut EP for L.I.E.S. with a four track no holds barred synth punk assault. Injecting energy into the dead, channeling chaos and turmoil into his music, he rips through four tracks with a rough yet somehow elegant approach…raw to the bone yet flawlessly arranged. Synths that sound like guitars, guitars that sound like synths, metallic drum machines with a human touch and deranged vocals fuel this record til the end. Think Screamers meet Chrome meet Liasions with a healthy dose of southern California gutter punks on meth and you’re in the right place.
The Hipodrome Of Music 