industrial
Daniele Ciullini – Domestic Exile: Collected Works 82-86 [ELP009]
Hailing from Florence, Daniele Ciullini was part of the forward-thinking TRAX collective, whose pan european art/music collaboration network acted as a proto-social network decades in advance of the internet. This compilation collects Ciullini’s self released ‘Domestic Exile’ cassette (1983) as well as selections from a series of other compilations(1982 to 1986).
The Soft Moon – Deeper [CT218LP]
Captured Tracks present ‘Deeper’, the third full-length studio recording from American post-punk band The Soft Moon.
51717 & Silent Servant – Jealous God 6 [JEL006]
A gripping split 12” from Jealous God. 51717 a.k.a Lili Schulder takes up the A-side with a stonking three tracks, whilst Silent Servant lets loose with a couple of slippery urchins on the flipside. Out on vinyl 12” with postcard and mix CD from Nihar Bahatt and Jason Polastri of Surface Tension on Jealous God.
Alessandro Adriani – PHNCST197
Vatican Shadow – Death Is Unity With God [LOVE100]
This double LP album arrives through Modern Love and features a handpicked selection of tracks from the Death Is Unity With God cassette box set Dominick Fernow aka Vatican Shadow issued on his own Hospital Productions label last year. 12 tracks featured here are a balanced blend of broken, ice-cold techno and finely calibrated drone pieces backed by subtle percussive patterns. There’s also plenty of his more raucous beat thrashing and even a few moments of nostalgia.
L’estasi Dell’oro – I Look Upon Nature While I Live in a Steel City [FIELD014]
Dutch label Field is back with another album project, this time from American producer Christopher Ernst, aka L’estasi Dell’oro, who also records as Penalune and is co-founder of the Voodoo Down label. Before now, Ernst has proved himself to be adept at crafting deep and atmospheric, excellently ambient techno on a range of labels. Varying his tempos and textures, he does acid, raw stuff, tough beats and more industrial grooves. Across this new 8-track album, all this and more is explored in captivating fashion. This is an expressive and expansive modern techno album from L’estasi Dell’oro that is perfectly at home on the always interesting Field label.
Area – One Less Me [SEQ012]
Sequencias first release for 2015 comes from Chicagoan, Area. He has melded elements from bass music, industrial, electroacoustic, spoken-word and techno into 3 tracks that distill their influences into something greater than the sum of its parts. Opener “Circadian” is built on a two-chord refrain to a stepping rhythm amidst a dank warehouse atmosphere. Spoken-word interlude, “One Less Me,” is little more than a female voice processed and cleverly twisted over crisp electronic filigree. The EP closes with “XXeXX” (Crushkilled Version), which sounds like the remnants of the opening track after being drop-forged and scattered to the breeze—long peals of reverberating melodic feedback straining under a dense bank of static fog—breaking free every few measures to expand into the light, then crushed. “One Less Me” is the beginning of a new relationship that we look forward to see flourish in the future, and of course, to share it with you.
Portion Control – I Staggered Mentally [DE085]
Portion Control is a British electronic and industrial band from South London. The trio of John Whybrew, Ian Sharp and Dean Piavani started out experimenting with electronics in 1980. The band released their first official vinyl album “I Staggered Mentally” on In Phaze Records in 1982. This album laid the template for the harder edged rhythmic industrial sound of the 80s and 90s. “I Staggered Mentally” is as raw as electronic music gets. Dean Piavani’s anguished vocals are the lone human element amidst electric drones, metallic beats and alien analog flickers. The perfect soundtrack for the harsh, even malignant, urban-industrial nightmare.
Broken English Club – Scars EP [CITI016]
Cititrax presents a 4 song EP by Broken English Club. Sparse vocals and shards of live instrumentation over heavy, stuttering beats and bleak synths. The tracks on this EP are rich and darkly atmospheric, pulsating loudly through a smog filled dance floor. A subversive spin on dance music, the blank-stared, pin-point-focused electronics and layers of noise betray no/wave and post punk influences, dragging together industrial experimentation and pitch-black techno.
Carter Tutti – Carter Tutti Plays & Remix Chris & Cosey [CTILP012014]
New material from Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti should always be celebrated and their latest joint opus will be of particular delight to hardcore fans. Carter Tutti plays Chris & Cosey is a logical extension of the live show of the same name the pair have been performing and perfecting over the past three years, transferring revisited classics from the stage to the album format. Completed to heed requests for the release of a live album, this double LP features some eight CC classics like “Driving Blind” and “Obsession” newly reworked and recorded at their Norfolk studio. Of course it all sounds as imperious and industrially challenging as you’d expect. Excitingly for completists, there is a second LP included that houses remixes only previously available on a tour-only CD.
S.M. Nurse – Hometape Recordings 1981-1983 [DOM020]
Around 1980 Menko Konings (eM.) started the Dutch underground formation S.M. Nurse, first together with Jos Jak and later also with Anneke Stempher. S.M. Nurse experimented with collage-like music and were inspired by N.Y.-ultra, disco e.g. The band mainly performed in the Amsterdam ultra-circuit (Oktopus, Paradiso), clubs and discotheques. They were played regularly on the famous radio programmes RadioNome and Spleen and performed live on radio in the villa of the VPRO in Hilversum. They also contributed to the theme cassette Turkish Delight of the label Ding Dong and there was a cassette release on the label Top Tape. At the end of 1983, S.M. Nurse split up.
Black Seed – Logical Consequence [DTLSND004]
Following the debut 12-inch Wild Rites for Details Sound imprint, talented artist Matteo Viani returns under his Black Seed guise with a condensed noise-filled techno formula, revealing a spectrum of dark energy experiments.
Bourbonese Qualk – Lies [MNQ059]
“Lies,” a track from the now-defunct UK experimental group Bourbonese Qualk, get new life by way of a vinyl release on Mannequin Records with Ancient Methods on edit and remix duties. “Lies”, a terse, TR 808 driven electro-tinged cut just under two minutes long, originally came out in 1986 on the Preparing For Power LP by way of the group’s own label Recloose Organization.
Liaisons Dangereuses – Liaisons Dangereuses [SSLP006]
One of the most important electronic albums of all time now in the rebound. Cloaked in mystery, Liaisons Dangereuses had an unusually powerful and alluring vision designed by Chrislo Haas from D.A.F. and Beate Bartel from Mania D. They found a rather magical singer named Krishna Goineau for their album who sang with passionate despair in French, Spanish, German, and a fractured gaggle of Broken English. This unbelievably romantic album was mixed at Conny Plank Studios and originally released on vinyl in October 1981. With an infectious collage of electronic rhythms, perhaps not heard of nor imagined before, combined with explosions and scenery changes to keep listeners entirely disoriented from start to finish, Liaisons Dangereuses paved the way for most all EBM music since it’s release. The album carried the single ”Los Ninos del Parque” which became an instant and obvious hit on every dance floor it captured, and twenty-two years later still remains a champion. Countless movements of electronic music (Detroit Techno, Chicago House and Electroclash to name a few) have cited the Liaisons Dangereuses album as a crucial influence to their cause.
Tanz Ohne Muzik – Belong [RDCVT014]
“The new Tanz Ohne Musik seems to be a small step back to the synthpop / minimal wave sound of earlier releases and away from the Galakhorrö angstpop. A small step though. Like on “Between Our Body Shapes” there are still heavy Galakthorrö influences, but Tanz Ohne Musik seems to be working more towards their own sound; an interesting sound! Most tracks have a slow, analogue sound with typical vocals. Some tracks tend more towards minimal wave, other more towards angstpop, but most are somewhere in between.” gangleri
Shifted – Arrangements In Monochrome [AVN017/AVN018]
Varg & Hypnobirds – Linje 19 LP [CDRLP024]
Northern Electronics artist Varg returns to Glasgow label Clan Destine Records for a second release this year. Dedicated to the various stops on Line 19 of the Stockholm metro, Linje 19 finds Varg working with a new partner in Hypnobirds. As you’d expect, the prevailing mood over the four tracks here is deep and atmospheric, see the discordant, delay-laden dub techno of opening track “Bandhagen”. From here Varg and Hypnobirds burrow deeper into the subterranean crawl space between ambient and techno with closing track “Hagsatra” a particular highlight. Here they take the listener on an icy but strangely warming voyage into otherworldly sonics.
Marco Shuttle – Visione [EELP001]
Marco Shuttle releasing his first solo album ‘Visione’ on his Eerie label. ‘Visione’ is a cohesive and compact work, which draws on Shuttle’s design background to unfold an audio narrative with a strong aesthetic approach. With a more abstract sound than his club-focused records, ‘Visione’ retains a cinematic scope while maintaining a common texture of sound throughout the tracks: the detailed productions were created with mainly analogue equipment with meticulously modulated oscillators, creating tracks that are by turns psychedelic, cosmic and sinister
Val_Ex – Riot [SOM030LP]
Solar One Music present a very special project. Arne Weinberg (Valanx) and Robert Witschakowski (The Exaltics) join forces as “Val_Ex” and present their first album. Dark and deep tracks are featured on both sides of this album, the intention and atmosphere is undeniably pure darkness. The common goal of achieving this is audible each second of this record. The music ranges from ambient to electro, industrial and electronica.
