Pasiphae – Drifter
minimal synth
Violent Quand On Aime – Violent Quand On Aime [KH015]
Coming from different regions in France, Violent Quand On Aime’s members have joined forces to canalize their energies into something truly essential. Far away from hype and expectation they have created their own peculiar world. Expect a certain electronic griminess with hints of 90’s hiphop, postpunk alienation and an affinity for Musique Concrète. The overall experience is similar to the excitement one feels when hearing something genuinely original. This mini-album is the follow-up to their very impressive 7” on Le Syndicat Des Scorpions.
Book of Life / Knickknack – Verlorene Seelen / Freudlos (M.W. Cuts) [AH004]
Mick Wills makes magic again with his cuts and transforms two tracks of the past in two superb master pieces. From glorious Italo-disco to a hypnotic Industrial, one track by side on this new release on Aspecto Humano.
VA – Dutch Wave: A History Of Minimal Synth & Cold Wave In The Netherlands [OS036]
First chapter on Onderstroom digging into the history of Dutch minimal synth & wave. Comes in a gatefold sleeve with metallic finishing and pressed on 180gr. vinyl. Who needs a big, expensive recording studio with all those fancy high-tech machines that only make your weary head spin when you can do it all by yourself at home in your (teenage) bedroom? Way back in the early eighties all you really needed was an idea, quite a bit of guts and some rudimentary equipment. You could basically do whatever you wanted. The means were limited, yet the sky was unbounded. It was the time of the cold war nuclear threat, social unrest and mass unemployment but at the same time it was an era of infinite possibilities. The future was just around the corner. A lot of music that was being produced sounded just like that: a brave new world of sound and rhythm. Music was simply put on cheap cassettes, easily duplicated and swiftly distributed in limited quantities into the big world outside.
RA.627 Traxx
Endless Illusion – Digital Tsunami 148
Intergalactic Gary @ Et Andet Sted 12.05.2018
VA – Outer Himmalayan Presents [DE205]
Dark Entries and Sacred Bones team up to release the early discography of UK synth-punk and Deathrock label Outer Himmalayan Records. Between 1979 and 1982, Nick Blinko and Martin Cooper’s Outer Himmalayan Records released 7-inches by three short-lived bands – The Magits, Soft Drinks, and S-Haters – who would nonetheless cast a massive shadow on the UK’s burgeoning post-punk/anarcho punk scene. Outer Himmalayan Presents collects all of the music found on those original records, along with rare and unreleased tracks by all three bands. It’s a snapshot of a period of frenzied creativity by some of the UK’s most thrilling experimental punks.
Sterk Water – Marie EP [CCR001]
This is Cobra Club Records with their first ever release. The Marie EP, featuring two originals by The Hague youngsters Sterk Water sporting repetitive minimalism, Dutch lyrics, early 80’s electronica and lo-fi minimal wave on Marie and Zonder Te Voelen. Legowelt and Betonkust are on remix duties. West-coast legend Legowelt obviously closed his curtains for this pitch dark mix for Marie and Betonkust makes you want to put on your ugliest pair of sunglasses with his trancey translation of Zonder Te Voelen.
Meo – Fine Corsa [KH014]
Meo, pseudonym of Daniele Mei, is a cosmic dj from Rimini, Italy. Fine Corsa was his first record, released in 1985. In those days Meo was active in what was later considered to be the most famous Afro Dance Club in Italy: Melody Mecca. This release is an intensely creative hybrid of many styles and many colors. Even up until the present day this record continues to be very important in some preeminent European clubs.
Elena Colombi & Interstellar Funk @ Dekmantel Festival (São Paulo) 04.03.2018
V-Sor X – Authors 2 [PM22]
Coming to Peripheral Minimal is a classic of the synth-pop scene. V-Sor X (pronounced VEE-SORE-EX), originate from the midlands town of Lichfield (known as, rather disturbingly, ‘field of the dead’, in Latin), an important (historically speaking) but unremarkable place. V-Sor X was founded in 1979 as a vehicle for Morgan Bryan, who influenced by the post-punk protagonists and the new-wave of electronic musicians, formed a band. This is a reissue of the first single by, ‘V-Sor,X’ entitled, ‘Authors 2’, originally released in 1982 on DOX Music, in a very limited edition of 300.
Traxx @ SmartBar (Chicago) 25.02.2018
Elena Colombi – BIS Radio Show #934
VA – Selectors 005 [DKMNTL-SLCTRS005]
Lena Willikens is the kind of artist who’s only capable of following one path – her own. In many ways, she’s the archetypal selector, an unpredictable DJ who often eschews all notions of genre in favor of what she describes as “different temperatures, different time zones, different moods and a healthy portion of chaos.” Although her methods have certainly proven effective on the dancefloor, Willikens also refuses to be bound by its traditional limitations.
Credit 00 – The Metal Beat EP [RAT14]
From Conrad Schnitzler in the 1960s to the pioneers of Detroit techno in the 1980s, experimental sonic artists were often inspired by the metallic noises of industrial factories. Schnitzler wanted to recreate the sounds he heard in his apprenticeship as a locksmith with musical instruments, and the sons and daughters of the midwestern automobile-industry generation programmed the motown soul into Japanese electronic music equipment. With his new piece The Metal Beat EP, Credit 00 wants to get in line with this tradition of transforming factory sounds into music. Each of the three tracks reflects on the role of the human being in an industrial environment. The never-ending movement of the machine becomes the rhythm, while the melody embodies our forlorn voices in the vastness of the factory site. The blues played by machines–modern work songs for a post-industrial society.
Gil.Barte – Sssjp EP [BAU008]
Neubau brings up some experimental bits & pieces by Gil.Barte from Lyon, operator of the newly founded Kump label.
Alexander Arpeggio – Streng Geheim EP [BAU007]
Streng Geheim EP is Alexander Arpeggio’s first ever solo 12″. Coming out on Vienna’s admirable Neubau label, the EP is druggy, trippy and strangely alluring, featuring impressive use of psychedelic electronics and exotic, Middle Eastern melodies. Check, for example, the foreboding chords, gently pulsing drum machine beats and distortion-drenched Middle Eastern motifs of “Streng Geheim”, which is also given a weirder and even more hallucinogenic flavour on the acid-flecked Geier Aus Stahl Remix. Bonus cut “Du Hast Kein Gesicht”, an unusual but superb combination of muscular EBM grooves, whistling melodies and glassy-eyed house riffs, is also well worth a listen.
Instant Music – Instant Music LP [DE201]
Instant is the trio of Bernd Schöll (Bass, Vocals, Rhythm), Mike Hauer (Guitar, Synth, Percussion), and Marion Siekmann (Vocals) from Munich, Germany. They formed in 1980 after meeting through mutual friends attending the local art and graphic design school. The trio were dissatisfied with their surrounding musical environment. They set out to create their own brand of Neue Deutsche Welle fusing Dada, disco, and Krautrock. Over the course of 2 weeks in Summer 1980 the band teamed up with local producer Mario Strack to record 6 songs. These would make up their debut eponymous album that was originally self-released on 10” vinyl in 1981. They utilized a simple set up of guitar, bass, and keyboards, plus the BOSS DR-55 Dr. Rhythm drum machine. Metal scraps clanging appear on the tracks “Do Not” and “Optimate Minimum”, and a washing machine was sampled on the track “Joyboy”, which features Marion reading from the appliance’s instruction manual. The A-side features 4 tracks in 11 minute, while the B-side hosts 2 songs in the same stretch of time. “Charade” features no wave saxophone accompaniment from Kai Taschner of Munich New Wave band Luna Set. Marion’s vocals are between Nico’s Teutonic chill and Alison Statton’s (Young Marble Giants) playfulness, while Bernd takes a monotone approach. Lyrics for “My Boy” and “Everybody’s Gotta Mutate” were adapted from ‘Rotwang’, a fragmented novel written by Tim Hildebrandt, one of the brothers famous for illustrating the works of Tolkien.
VA – Ecdisis Vol. 1 [FRV028]
The material for Ecdisis Vol.1? Lost tracks from the past, patted down, spruced up and given a couple of shots of whiskey by Juanpablo, Dunkeltier and, a new member of the family, Vinilette. From Barcelona, Vinilette is a Dj and producer who isn’t afraid to pull a musical punch or two and she is in fighting form with her two offerings. First up, the 1986 EBM stomper “God Save The King” by Son of Sam is revamped and reconstructed into a psychedelic rollercoaster of crashing cymbals, spiralling samples and bruising bars. The clock is being turned further back, this time Belgium’s new wave punk outfit Arbeid Adelt! are the source material with their 1987 track “Help (Me Ik Stik)” muscling up on a diet of raging rhythms and splintering guitar strings. The head honcho, Juanpablo, meets up with an old member of the family Dunkeltier (aka Dj Sneaker) to finish our journey. The pair travelling back to 1983 to Catalonia and the prog-jazz musings of Pegasus. “Perseguido por el Rayo” is tuned up and transformed into an electronic bomb. Addictive grooves and hooks are polished with beats getting a shot in the arm for a hauntingly sinister piece of disco deviance.
The Hipodrome Of Music 