post punk
Traxx / NPNK – Revenge Of The Poulet Cat [MME909]
For those who have been following Macadam Mambo from the beginning, you must have noticed that eclecticism and craziness are definitively the main lines of the label. Well, this new release by Nation’s Traxx and Npnk will prove it once again. They have prepared 4 stunning edits, exploring Industrial, Minimal Synth Pop, EBM, Post Punk.
Video Look – Kall Lycka [FLEXI011]
Straight from the Gothenburg harbour comes Video Look. They were featured on flexi009 (Flexivåg), Fact mag 004 and has remixed Roladex, Love Surgery. 11 tracks of the finest working class synth-punk with harsh lyrics in Swedish.
Musumeci – Untitled (Traxx edit) [MNQ050]
Musumeci tapes reissue, with their brutal body music plus, similar to DAF, CHBB and Liaisons Dangereuses, was one of the most acclaimed in the Mannequin Records 2013 productions. Traxx, the Chicago-based head of Nation Records, redesigned a raw live version of ‘Tag Fur Tag’ with what he described as a ‘hugly-tape Kode’
Psyche – Re-Membering Dwayne LP [DE061LP]
At the end of 1981, brothers Darrin and Stephen Huss and schoolmate Dwayne Goettel performed for the first time as Psyche in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Their live show was a combination of horror and electronics that was completely unprecedented in Western Canada. Although Goettel and the Huss brothers parted ways before Psyche was to release any material, the masters containing Dwayne Goettel’s performances were preserved in the band’s vaults. Now, 19 years after Goettel’s untimely passing in 1995, Dark Entries records presents ”Re-Membering Dwayne”, the original Psyche-Dwayne Goettel sessions. All tracks were recorded and mixed on 4-track during a single day in March of 1983. Psyche’s early material is visceral and abrasive, a far cry from the sleek, dark synthpop they’d later become known for. Psyche disquietingly conflate the organic and the mechanical, calling into question the limits of the human form. Each LP includes a 12-page booklet with excerpts from Darrin Huss’ diary, unpublished photos of Psyche with Dwayne, and an essay by Darrin reflecting on Psyche’s past and the Goettel legacy as well as lyrics. This collection is a glimpse at the early Canadian industrial scene and the roots of Skinny Puppy. Go take a walk in the past with an ear for the future; you just might learn something.
Sandra Electronics – Want Need EP [MW054]
Minimal Wave presents a 6 song EP by the UK/US duo Sandra Electronics. Originally formed as Sandra Plays Electronics by Karl O’Connor in 1988, the project has evolved over the years to become a collaborative endeavor with Juan Mendez (aka Silent Servant). Three of the tracks were first released as an Untitled 10” on Downwards in 2010, and the record quickly sold out. Those songs have been re-edited and remastered for this EP, and three more rare demos and live versions have been added. The songs can be described as hypnotic industrial electronic mantras with enigmatic keyboards and treated vocals. Each track draws the listener in, with its repetitive psychedelic percussion and dark affected vocal.
The KVB – Run Away [AMPLA075DD]
The latest release for The KVB comes via Ample Play, a London label that’s best known for releasing the music of indie rockers Cornershop. The two-track Run Away EP sees the duo on form once again, with more curtailing synths, straitlaced drums and vocals clear as mud. Both tracks on the EP are somewhat contrasting, the title track being dancey and melodic, while “436” is a grungier version of sounds you could expect from Tropic Of Cancer or HTRK.
Silent Servant – Holiday Mix December 2013
The KVB – Minus One [AUK109]
London-based “dark wave” duo The KVB are a productive lot. Somewhat remarkably, this is their sixth album since 2011. It further explores there trademark distant, discordant, murky sound, blending barely-audible vocals and shoegaze guitars with fuzzy tones, clandestine moods and atmospheric grooves. While they can do full-throttle noise – see the growling “Dominance/Submission” and “Something Inside”, which push reverb and multi-layered guitars to their limits – they’re actually at their best when exploring less intense pastures. There’s much of this on Minus One, with the wide-eyed “Passing By”, dreamy “Endless” and clandestine “Kill The Lights” standing out.
Deathday – No Future [MNQ046]
Deathday (formerly Deathday Party) is a Los Angeles based Experimental Post-punk band, formed in Santa Ana, California in 2008 by brothers Alex Guilln and Giovanni Guilln. While the title-track is an unreleased one, instead ”Dropped Into Obscurity” was already included in the Downwards compilation ”Click Heels” alongside with Tropic Of Cancer, Silent Servant, The KVB. On the B side Mannequin asked to the synth-master Legowelt to remix “After Dark”. Seldom has the post-punk revival seemed as urgent as with Deathday, who match their guitar driven dirges with esoteric industrial soundscapes and tape manipulation. Their music is often as bleak as it is violent, with low end cacophony bludgeoning the listener into submission. Lyrically, Deathday often invoke the violent culture hidden beneath the media, as well as explore the crippling aftershocks of isolation and the mysticism of the occult.
Lè Travo – Erring And Errant [DE056]
Lè Travo is the brainchild of Patrick Bollen from Tienen, Belgium. As a teenager in the early 1980s, Patrick would visit ”DeAtelier”, the infamous coldwave/gothic club in Leuven. He would be inspired by Joy Division and other Factory releases, The Danse Society and Cocteau Twins. He gathered a some session musicians and a female backup vocalist. Eventually Patrick bought a Greengate DE-3 sampler, using the brains of an Apple 2E with a keyboard bolted onto it. He crafted loops made from a deconstructed upright piano, hitting the strings directly with a drum stick. Lè Travo made their first appearance on a split LP with Fred A in 1984. ”Erring and Errant” is their debut 7 song LP originally released in 1985. For the reissue 3 bonus songs from the split LP have been added. The songs are coldwave in the vein of Weimar Gesang, Opera Multi Steel, and Clan of Xymox. Guitar, bass and sample interplay with piano and synthesizers with dark and forbidding crescendos in the fast numbers, and elegaic melancholy in the slow tracks. The vocals are delivered with a sense of urgency, while the lyrics are inspired by avant-garde movements such as futurism and constructivism, as well as science fiction and existentialism.
Patrick Cowley – School Daze [DE052]
11 track album by Patrick Cowley. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary and influential people in the cannon of disco music, Cowley created his own brand of Hi-NRG dance music coined The San Francisco Sound. By the mid-70ies, Patricks synthesizer skills landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco superstar Sylvester such as You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), Dance Disco Heat and Stars. This helped Patrick obtain more work as a remixer and producer. Of particular note was his 18-minute long remix of Donna Summers I Feel Love. By 1981 Patrick released a string of dance 12inch singles, like Menergy and Megatron Man, creating the soundtrack for a generation. Prior to his passing on November 12, 1982, he recorded two more Hi-NRG hits, Do You Wanna Funk for Sylvester and Right On Target for Paul Parker. In 1981 Patrick was contacted by John Coletti, owner of famed gay porn company Fox Studio in Los Angeles. John had heard about Patricks music from the legendary Sylvester and proposed he write music for his films. Patrick jumped on this offer and sent reels of his college compositions from the 70s to John in LA. Coletti then used a variable speed oscillator to adjust the pitch and speed of Patricks songs in-sync with the film scene. School Daze is a collection of Cowleys instrumental songs recorded between 1973 and 1981 found in the Fox Studio vaults. Influenced by Tomita, Wendy Carlos and Giorgio Moroder, Patrick forged an electronic sound from his collection of synthesizers, modified guitars and self-constructed equipment. The listener enters a world of dark forbidden vices, introspective and reflective of Patricks time spent in the bathhouses of San Francisco. The songs on School Daze range from sparse prototechno to high octane funk to somber post-punk to musique concrete, revealing the depth of Cowleys unique talent.
The KVB live @ Boiler Room 19.09.2013
The Soft Moon live @ Saint – Petersburg 03.04.2013
Tropics of Cancer LIVE @ Boiler Room 19.09.2013
Veronica Vasicka – LN-CC Store Mix 033
VA – Trevor Jackson presents Metal Dance 2 [STRUT107LP]
Strut present ‘Metal Dance’, a new compilation from one of the UK’s most respected DJ / producers, the man behind Playgroup and original founder of the legendary label Output Recordings, Trevor Jackson. Echoing elements of his renowned DJ Kicks mix from 2003, Jackson draws here on specials that have peppered his DJ sets for almost two decades. ‘Metal Dance’ mines deep and hones in on the more underground and danceable side of industrial, post-punk and EBM (Electronic Body Music), a phrase coined by Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk but honed by later bands like DAF and Front 242 as socialist realist aesthetics were dragged onto the dancefloor during the mid-’80s. Jackson cherry-picks classics and rarities from this era, including a new edit of Nitzer Ebb favourite ‘Control I’m Here’ (sampled on Quartz’ rave classic ‘Meltdown’), the cold dance of Analysis’ ‘Surface Tension’, Neon’s dark ‘Voices’, re-interpreting a Master C&J riff from the early days of Chicago house, and hard-hitting dubs from Pete Shelley, Alien Sex Fiend and more. Herein lie sounds that have heavily influenced today’s crop of artists – from LCD Soundsystem and The Knife to Factory Floor and Hot Chip. Elsewhere on the album, Jackson brings in unexpected gems – a track from cult John Carpenter film ‘Escape From New York’ re-edited by Klein & MBO’s Mario Boncaldo, a lost album track by avant garde Spanish artist Diseno Corbusier and a UK promo-only mix of Yello’s ‘You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess’.
Tropic of Cancer – Restless Idylls [BLACKESTLP005]
Restless Idylls is the first full length album from Tropic of Cancer, the solo project of Los Angeles-based Camella Lobo. Lobo debuted in 2009 with ‘The Dull Age’/’Victims’, a 10” single on Downwards and the first of three collaborations with Juan Mendez (Silent Servant). Two years later came a second Downwards release (‘Be Brave’, remixed by Cabaret Voltaire’s Richard H. Kirk), followed soon after by The Sorrow Of Two Blooms on Blackest Ever Black – the label’s third release and one if its most cherished. Since then there have been 12” releases on Mannequin, Sleeperhold Publications, Ghostly International (a Part Times Punks Sessions live split with HTRK) and a limited edition compilation, The End of All Things, compiling singles and unreleased recordings. Restless Idylls marks ToC’s return to BEB and consists of eight new recordings written in Los Angeles, with additional production from Karl O’Connor (Regis) in New York and London. Its themes? The usual: romance, devotion, pain and helplessness. Mixed up mortals struggling against the brute mechanics of fate, and proving unequal to the task. A forced retreat into private, precious idylls of longing, faith, mystery, even misery. The urgent motorik of lead single ‘More Alone’ is perhaps a misleading foretaste of the full-length, which is more lush, languid and extravagantly despondent than previous TOC material. Troubled hymns from an empty room, in a drowned world. A sensual and sepulchral psychedelia.
Traxx – Slowboat To Corellia – PHNCST122
Barbiturates – Shades 10″ [LRR007]
Lost Race Records presents Shades 10” the new album from Barbiturates, featuring 8 synth-pop & new wave tracks.
