Marius Georgescu b2b Khidja – PARAXOLAR @ Sameheads (Berlin) 04.09.2021
minimal synth
No More – Suicide Commando [STUTE002]
The year is 1981. The Kiel-based PostPunk / Wave underground outfit NO MORE releases their second ever single „Suicide Commando“ and their world changes forever. Well, not only their world – THE world. What began as an independently published 7“ single became a cult classic, a genre defining – and defying – song, an all-time dancefloor favorite of many, a timeless signature piece that escaped its original realm of PostPunk x Wave x Indie x Alternative to also become engrained in the DNA of modern electronic dancefloor culture most prominently in the beloved late 90s permutation presented by DJ Hell which became a classic in its own right. Now the year is 2021. Four decades have passed and NO MORE’s „Suicide Commando“ is back once again. And staying true to the underground blueprint this 40th anniversary re-release edition once again is put out on the circuit through a small independent label: the Intrauterin Recordings offspring El Caballo Semental.
L.F.T. – Salz LP [MNQ149]
Mannequin Records introduce you a brand new album by Johannes Haas aka L.F.T. (Love, Fist, Tears) – one of the hottest electro/wave names around the globe. Pursuing a stubborn DIY aesthetic with an extensive use of lo-fi technology, over compressed drum machines and tapes, over the last two years L.F.T. has released several records on different labels like Helena Hauff’s Return To Disorder and Elena Colombi’s Osaré Editions. Endorsing a distinctive contemporary sound, ‘Salz’ is moving forward to an highly authentic mixture of electro and synthwave, with a lo-fi analog power blended all over his tracks, somewhere between Liaisons Dangereuses, I-F and Bakterielle Infektion, bringing us back – and fresh as never before – the amazing early days of CBS Radio – now Intergalactic Fm.
Spammerheads – Espai, Temps i Matèria [HCR-d015]
An exciting horizon of textures, landscapes and evanescent worlds, close to a dreamlike experience, are synthesized in “Espai, Temps i Materia”, the title of the new HC Records reference signed by the Valencian duo Spammerheads, formed by Ana Escudero and David Garrido. An audio-visual project forged in 2019 under the punk concept “do it yourself” in which both sound and graphic creation (videos and covers) have been developed by the duo.
Exterminador – Age Of Consent [BM8]
Playful 80s oriented Electro Pop mini-album on Bad Manners Records from Exterminador AKA Mario Resta, half of the deep techno duo Hinode.
Human Figures – After An Ordeal [POP135]
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.
Interstellar Funk – Endless Illusion Mix #42
Intergalactic Gary @ ADE X Future Intel 15.10.2021
Daniele Cosmo @ HÖR (Berlin) 14.10.2021
Vinilette – Hypnotic Groove Mix #366
Stacian – Fractal ID [CLEAR007]
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.
Low Standard Deviation – Bunker 4018 [B4018]
This very one Lost Boy from Brazil washed ashore the Lowlands’ ‘Finis Terrae’, a produce of first-generation ‘Shock Doctrine’ and a real ‘carioca’ borne on the New World’s ‘Bossa Nova’ and ‘Esplendor Geometrico’ of old ‘Ancien Regime’ para-military junta that delivers quite some maximally dark and manic minimal wave of late, at times even slightly reminiscent of Siouxsie and the Banshees and of Joy Division, and all sung through old and charming, slightly dissonant ‘Samba’ melody lines vaguely hailing from certain sinister up-hill ‘Cidade de Deus’ margins of a distinctly distant ‘Vagamundo’ Purgatory past in either the Portuguese, the English or the Spanish tongues, rendering the paranoia ‘facsimile in Limbo’ of the coming Futurist Global Orderly State, this deep-state ‘Novo Estado Novo’ within the current ‘Nova Bossa Nova’, this ‘Guerra Nova Prometheida por uma Terra Nova Prometida’, the World’s Electronic New Wave ‘Fado’ of Digital Panopticon and similar forms of purely A.I.-bot-generated (nothing personal!) Totalitarian Torture ‘Technique du coup d’Etat’ in genuine random numbers as already foreseen and shown to all some long time before in the Magic Green on that ‘Funky Dollar Bill’, ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum’.
Tuxedo Gleam – Miscellanea [DR104]
Detriti presents “Miscellanea” from Tuxedo Gleam, an electronic/darkwave duo from Modesto, California (US), composed by Aunt Gleam (synthesizer, drum programming, voice) and Angel Marie (synthesizer, voice).
Absolute Body Control – Lost / Found [MEC056]
Absolute Body Control was formed by Dirk Ivens in 1980 influenced by the sound produced by the likes of Suicide, D.A.F. and the UK electronic scene. Eric Van Wonterghem joined the project next year just after the release of the debut 7″ “Is There An Exit?”. They released together just some cassettes during its brief initial run, but this was enough to gain a following in and outside Belgium. A compilation of tracks entitled “Eat This” was eventually done in 1993 and a first edition of the collection “Lost / Found” was issued on CD in 2005. Dirk and Eric took the project back on stage in 2006 and decided to re-activate it. They first re-recorded some of their classic songs for the album “WindReWind” and then continued releasing new material and touring all Europe and beyond. “Lost / Found” is the definitive collection of this minimal-synth-wave act and is now available for the first time on vinyl record with a total of 52 songs including 8 previously unreleased.
VA – Wave Earplug No.5 [4MGLP18]
The fifth part of the Wave Earplug series brigs minimal synth pop, electro, new beat, old school EBM, dark wave and more. Input by artists from USA, Canada, Spain, The Netherlands, Slovakia, Sweden, Germany and Hungary.
Vinilette – Comme des Larmes Podcast #54
Human Figures – Footsteps LP [BFE64]
An album of intricate minimal wave/post punk from Daniel Holt’s new project Human Figures. Human Figures is a completely new and personal avenue of expression for Holt. “Footsteps” is liminal, lonely and misty with negative space between each instrument. Each note invokes a warm hypnagogic atmosphere, tinged with fluttering anxiety. Through these eight tracks, this multifaceted musician shows another side of his art with guitars, basslines and drum machines. The mournful “Lifted Burden”, with its cowbells and echoing vocals swaddled in warm strings, sets the tone. Haunting notes are supported by a staccato beat as Holt´s melancholic vocals sail in “40 Days” before the bare brilliance of “An Open Heart.” A spread of influences is drawn on for Human Figures: the post-punk rawness of “For My Angel”, the synth romance of “Footsteps” the cold reductions of “Passing Beyond Body.” Sombre, stirring and superb.
“Footsteps” was release also on cassette last year on Popnihil.
Diana Berti VS Violet Poison – Shadowland [MRG011]
‘Shadowland’ is Marguerite Records’ 11th release, kindly provided by Francesco Baudazzi, the mastermind behind Diana Berti and Violet Poison and other countless wonderful musical aliases. Slowly emerging from the Ligurian Sea waters, A side comes from the mysterious Diana Berti; the opening track is a minimal synth with industrial attitude jam called ‘I wanna spend the night with you’, followed up by the melancholic italo-wave affair ‘Lonely soul’ on A2. Closing the first side is the retro cinematic high-tension roller ‘Mistral’. On the flip side Francesco summons his Violet Poison alias with 2 dancefloor ready tracks: B1 – the title track, ‘Shadowland’, – a mutant jam that you will absolutely love if you dig the Smersh, and the atmospheric new-beatish cut ‘The Mistake’. Closing up the EP is the clumsy wave ‘There will be always hope’, a heartful positive hymn for the new-romantics, inspired by Italian new wave bands from the 80’s such as Victrola and 2+2=5.
Bound By Endogamy – Walk With A Tumored Dog [LXRC47]
“Walk with a tumored dog” by Bound by Endogamy is the third and final instalment of the 7″ series by Swiss musicians on Lux Rec. To understand this record one needs to spend a morning, after a sleepless night, waking to the junction point in Geneva, where waters meet, leftovers wear their high off and high bridges invite you to make the last jump. One needs to deal with a frustrated environment that only brings out so much anger. One needs to know Kleio and Sam, and their symbiotic take on life.
Nicola Kazimir – Post-Heretic Dracula X Chronicles II [LESPOINTS017]
In “Post-Heretic Dracula X Chronicles II” the Dracula figure functions as a part fictive and part autobiographical metaphor. Dracula mirrors certain systematic (therefore also internal) conditionings and attributes in its whole ambivalent fluctuations. This character represents the complex relationships of a loving/living person in a neo-liberal capitalist system while oscillating between melancholia & rage, facing the preservation or loss of his love and standing in an alienated position towards the ruling order. The eleven featured compositions and their respective song names (both of them are riddled with references) playfully touch on conflicts between love, life and system-critique, without being too upfront about the subject-matter.
The Hipodrome Of Music 