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.
Gnd Lift is a slow building hazy hypnotic track with heavy atmosphere, fitting perfectly on a smoke filled dance floor. Jai Mang des Nerfs is a classic vocal driven synthpop track with the grit characteristic of In Aeternam Vales 80s cassette works. The 12″ closes with Animals Dont Mind, a slow and deeply emotive smoldering darkwave track that speaks directly to the heart, this one feels the most personal thus far. The Gnd Lift 12″ shows us all sides of In Aeternam Vale, his strengths lying in his ability to create both techno masterpieces and classic underground wave tracks, moving seamlessly from one to the next.
AN-I continues his love affair with electronics offering us three distinct slabs of throbbing machine funk. The opening track ‘Gutz’ is a dense mutant high energy number, modern yet timeless. ‘Rut’, the first track An-i recorded whilst still living in New York and the first one to catch our attention, opens the B side with a massive dose of syncopated teutonic mayhem, spacier and sparser than the rest. ‘Save Us’ completes the release with an anthem of dirty warehouse techno.
Cabaret Voltaire member Richard H. Kirk with an experimental electronic release including the great dancefloor track ”Never Lose Your Shadow.” On the EP, there’s tracks originally recorded between 1978 and 1987, which have never before been released on vinyl. The title track, Never Lose Your Shadow blurs the lines between harsh industrial, dance floor, and no wave. The other three tracks are more experimental and reference ideas Kirk was exploring in Cabaret Voltaire at the time.
Cititrax presents a 4 song split EP by Silent Servant and Broken English Club. Although the two are geographically very far apart, Silent Servant based in Los Angeles, US and Broken English Club based in London, UK, the two share a similar outlook and musical approach. Both projects have been on the rise lately, and stem from a strongly rooted techno background. Combining their influences of dance music, techno, EBM, industrial and post-punk, Silent Servant and Broken English Club offer a new breed of EBM infused techno wave on the Violence And Divinity EP. They artfully create music that works both on and off the dance floor, infusing a dark atmospheric mood with addictive, pulsating rhythms. Themes of love, death, modernity and automobile crashes appear throughout this EP from the music itself right through to the cover art and one of a kind vinyl pressing.
Cititrax presents the full length LP by Brooklyn duo Further Reductions. Shawn OSullivan (Vapauteen) and Katie Rose formed Further Reductions in 2008 as an outlet for their shared passion of electronic dance music. O’Sullivan, known for his recent techno releases as Vapauteen on L.I.E.S., 400PPM on Avian and Civil Duty (with Beau Wanzer of Streetwalker) on The Corner has been quite active lately blurring the lines between techno and noise music. With Further Reductions, O’Sullivans rhythmic sensibility is fused with Roses pop leanings to create super lush and atmospheric tracks that work both on and off the dance floor. Informed by the sounds of classic techno and early house, they subtly substitute the structure of functional club music with a more primal absorption based in their unique collaboration. Seductive vocals coupled with organically evolving sequences create a complex narrative that penetrates the subconscious in a way that conventional club music rarely threatens to.
Cititrax is honored to introduce Bruta Non Calculant, a new project by Alaxis Andreas G, the mastermind behind Le Syndicat Electronique and numerous other analog electronic, experimental and esoteric industrial folk projects of the past 20 years. Alaxis formed Bruta Non Calculant in 2006 along with his brother Victor-Yann (De Frontanel). Their debut album, World In A Tear, presents 10 tracks drenched in a dark european atmosphere complete with a sound fully formed and heroically executed. Themes of death, lust and unrequited love are all bound in this brown book-esque collection. The songs occupy their own space and communicate in their own language and as such almost seem to have the ability to alter time once the listener has succumbed to their discordant beauty. An unsurprisingly impressive comeback, Bruta Non Calculants debut album blends new wave elements with folkloric balladry impeccably, and approaches this with a modern sensibility. World In A Tear is an elegant collection of seductive songs. Vinyl pressed on white 160 gram housed in a matte full color printed sleeve.
We are pleased to announce a strictly limited edition release of rare tracks by UK legends Hard Corps. Hard Corps were true innovators of the 1980s UK synthpop scene. Hard Corps gained some notoriety for their unique and uncompromising live shows throughout the 1980s. It was the juxtaposition between their hard edged industrial sound and the fragile and enigmatic vocals of French front woman Regine Fetet that created an unusual dichotomy, lending to their strength of character as a band and thus allowing them to stand out from the rest. By 1985 Hard Corps had signed with major label giants Polydor. This enabled the band to work with a couple of their favoured and respected producers, Martin Rushent (known mostly for his exceptional work with the Human League) and Depeche Mode producer and Mute Records supremo, Daniel Miller. These sessions provided the public with just one single due to the labels non-promotion, Je Suis Passée, a sweeping arrangement of breathtaking beauty, combining pumping sequences and sheer power of emotion of Regine’s voice. The band went on a major tour with The Cure in 1985 and Depeche Mode in 1988, before finally disintegrating. As a follow up to Clean Tables Have To Be Burnt (2012), Rarities compiles the outtakes and demos that were left behind. Tracks that truly never saw the light of day.
Minimal Wave present Smile With The Eyes: a double LP of selections of unreleased material from the prolific outsider duo Five Times Of Dust. Formed in 1980 in Bristol, Mark Phillips (MAP) and Robert Lawrence came together with a shared passion for Krautrock, Industrial Electronics and the burgeoning DIY tape scene, as well as being influence by the Dadaist movement and the works of Burroughs and Ballard. Unconventional, quirky and at times melancholic and romantic, their music acted as the perfect escape from the urban decay of early 80s Bristol and Cardiff, the two cities they travelled between on weekends to record. Although unashamedly electronic, the sound of Five Time Of Dust is far harder to pin down, perhaps in part due to their location. Both Phillips and Lawrence produced music that owed little to any scene happening in London, Manchester or Sheffield at the time. As a result, the majority of their output are perfectly formed electronic curiosities. The material on Smile With The Eyes spans recordings Lawrence and Phillips made between 1982-1986. As a follow up to The Dadacomputer, their debut cassette release as a duo which we reissued earlier this year, Smile With The Eyes remains lo-fi but is musically more complex. The recordings are catchy, curious and emotionally rich. Whereas The Dadacomputer could be compared with the early output of Robert Rental, Smile With The Eyes is a collection of works that stands all on its own.
Minimal Wave presents the 47th release, a release of early 1980s ritualistic minimal electronics by French duo DZ Lectric + Anthon Shield. The songs are selections from their 1985 cassette release, Confessions D’Un Masque. Having been active in their respective projects, the duo came together naturally in 1981 and over the years began recording music together. They shared a similar philosophical outlook and love of music, from classic rock like The Velvet Underground and The Stooges, to the edgier, industrial and no wave stuff that was coming out at the time, bands like Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, and Tuxedo Moon. They performed a number of times at special venues and festivals in Europe, creating intense and engaging live performances with minimum equipment and an abundance of spirit. They also released many tapes throughout the 1980s. Their music is challenging and hypnotic. Brutal and aggressive at times, overall the message speaks more about human ritual than anything truly sinister.
The Hipodrome Of Music 