The new Phormix Tapes release comes from a Greek artist based in Trikala, Tatat. With retro sensibilities, complementing it with some mid- to -late ’80s sonic influence. Everything is written live, with hardware synths, drum machines and pedals, out in one channel. The album consists of 10 inner emotional musical vignettes which meant to catalyze a wave in sense of nostalgic enchantment that synthwave die-hards will love.
Zona Utopica Garantita (abbr. ZUG) is a 2019 musical project born from the join of Frasco (Bloodygrave & Die Lust, SPO) and Jules (Cronaca e Preghiera, Nono) forming a Punk Electronic collective, that springs a vital live playing over electronic sequences. The joining of Danilo Fatur (CCCP – Fedeli alla Linea) with his charisma, experience and poetry and Misha on synthesizers stabilize the band with a solid musical estethic, direct and radical. ZUG’s music is a marriage between the machine-gunned punk of CCCP and the Body Music of the teutonic DAF, with his own poetry and experimental attitude.
Drenched in gloom and gloss, OorsprongPark’s soundscapes hexed our minds once again, and we couldn’t be happier to welcome back the Utrecht-based producer for his second release on Mechatronica. Dark Marble is bleak, gleaming and doubtlessly fluid, a sublime followup to his 2019 debut album Velvet Curtain.
Half of Manie Sans Délire, June, turns up on Artificial Dance with his anticipated new mini-album, ‘Horizons’ – following on from his studio companion Trenton Chase’s ‘Planar Array’ released earlier in 2020. True to the signature synth-splattered sound of his and his duo, June’s newest wave-imbued manifesto has us swimming amidst an organized chaos of roughly extruded keyboard wizardry, punk-minded drum programming and a retro-futuristic headspace. Scanning out the gap between Italo, new wave, EBM and new beat, ‘Horizons’ shifts seamlessly from forward-moving, arpeggio-laden circuitry (‘JW’, ‘Infinity Room’) to hi-intensity body music (’New Horizons’), through ambientoid spaced-out sonic explorations (‘Uncharted Territories’) and quirky downtempo chuggers (‘Reverie’, ‘Psychic Process’). A kaleidoscope of rhythmic tricks and shape-shifting mirages, June’s scope-expanding six-track voyage vows to play mind games with its listener till all lights have gone off.
Magnetron Music presents Karel’s second EP “The Work”. Karel is known for climbing up things, swinging in on a rope and other signature moves. He has a John Maus like, synth-pop/ wave/ 80s sound and creates a warm vibe wherever he is playing.
Rubber brings it back to home ground by diving deeper into Jan Duivenvoorden’s shoeboxes. Back in 1987, at a local youth centre in the ever-dull Zoetermeer, a group of seven non-musical friends started what could be considered a freeform band performing ‘”electronic ‘beuk’ music with noise guitar and lyrical texts”. This band was called MINIGOD and rose from the ashes of the performative act Aars/rugklachten. Their change not only meant an upgrade in instruments – from jerrycans, barrels and worn-out bass guitar to keyboard and synthesizers – but also from simply screaming into the void towards songs with something of a structure. The release portrays MINIGOD quintessentially – energy above professionalism. From a large number of tracks Rubber made a precise selection allowing punk and satire to dance cheek-to-cheek. MINIGOD is Jan Duivenvoorden (Unit Moebius), Richard van den Bogaert (Leuk & Ko), and Rob de Bakker played keyboard and synthesizer, Edwin Zuidwijk played guitar, and Siuli Ko and Bart Barendregt did the vocals.
Montreal’s based Kindest Cuts is without any kind of doubt one of the actual world’s leading synthwave/synthpop acts. Perfect pop structures and outstandingly captive musical progressions in perfect combination with classical genre male deep lead voice, following the trace of early Depeche Mode or Camouflage.
Berlin duo NNHMN – Lee and Michal Laudarg – creates moody and evocative music infected with dark synth sounds, eerie ambiances and mysterious female volcals. They return to Oráculo Records with “Deception Island” where fresh cold beats meets hypnotic techno and avant-garde of a ferociously experimental nature. We find Lee’s sultry vocals over synthwave classical bass and rhythm structures, from dark Italo Disco with touches of light EBM to classic post punk.
BOY Records was founded by Michael Zosel back in 1987 but it was after a few releases that he started to work with producer Arno Müller. “Brian” by Absurd was the first techno release on the label and a great success in the German techno scene. The cooperation continued with singles by Hypnopedia and New Scene that worked very well and put the name of BOY Records in the charts and clubs all around Germany and abroad. In 1990 another massive success came with the single “Kennedy” by Deep Thought and since there the label did not stop to release hit after hit by lot of names like Time Modem, “O”, Cybex Factor, Sonic System, Moskwa TV, MCL and lot more. “Timeless Technology 1988-1991” compiles a selection of classic tekkno traxx released on label’s most fruitful years.
Onrijn Records invites Ian Martin for a 6 track mini-album. This record releases a rich palette of hybrid electronic music. From new wave, house and electro to neo cocadisco. And is most of all a search for melody, suspense and melancholy. The track “GOD Theme” was the soundtrack of the film GOD by director Edwin Brienen (2016). Ian Martin’s “Heartbeats” is a true emotional rollercoaster!
Italo Moderni brings Modernation Vol.1 it’s the first compilation on cassette and digital from 4. Another dimension of obscurities and eighties weird sounds, all focused on a new club era of madness and sad situations. Best moment to get some inspiration with the best wizards from our modern music life.
COVID-19 pandemic infectiousness and the relative necessity to put hard distance between people has brought up a wide range of means to cope with it. For some it went by as nothing happened, some struggled with not being able to be social, some were overly social on social medias, some spent it in a total drugged-out haze. Some, like Leroy se Meurt, used it to actually create something. The 5 tracks presented in this EP are the result of that forced stay in, the push towards the outside and the realization that, in the end, there’s nowhere to go.
The Hipodrome Of Music 