synth wave
VA – Elsewhere LVI [ERS042]
Emotional Response presents Elsewhere LVI. the 4th of soFa’s compilation series. This double LP takes us to the darker side of the elsewhere ouvre, via another 12 artist / 12 track travelogue. With certain future-retro feelings, this is club music for the open minded. An album that roams from dreamy ambient territories to rhythmic patterns – internationalism for the adventurous DJ. Rusty slow-mo bangers and post-industrial synth-wave kidnap the listener to a dystopic and shady wasteland. Elements of ethnic folk, vintage vocoders and Gamelan samples all united on one homogeneous selection. With artists now known to welcoming new brethren, this is an audio trip to leave reality behind. Exotic, hypnotic, tactile, trance-inducing meditations, washed down with a spoonful of magic.
Randstad – Stranded [PNKMN029]
Following up on his contribution to the first Five Years Of Tears compilation, Randstad steps up to the bill and delivers his first solo release for Pinkman Records. Six tracks ranging from twisted industrialized beat trax to brain melting weirdo dance. A great cross-over record for adventurous DJs and fans of the cold, minimal DIY sound of the 80s alike.
Cardinal & Nun – Cardinal & Nun [LIES132]
Cardinal & Nun from Marseille delivers his debut EP for L.I.E.S. with a four track no holds barred synth punk assault. Injecting energy into the dead, channeling chaos and turmoil into his music, he rips through four tracks with a rough yet somehow elegant approach…raw to the bone yet flawlessly arranged. Synths that sound like guitars, guitars that sound like synths, metallic drum machines with a human touch and deranged vocals fuel this record til the end. Think Screamers meet Chrome meet Liasions with a healthy dose of southern California gutter punks on meth and you’re in the right place.
De Bons en Pierre – EP No. 1 / 2 [DE236/DE237]
Dark Entries presents two new EPs from De Bons en Pierre, the duo of Beau Wanzer & Maoupa Mazzocchetti. Beau Wanzer spends the majority of his days sifting through paraffin embedded animal tissues and reading old issues of Fangoria, occasionally breaking his monotonous routine to record in various fits and bursts. As well as solo material, he is also in numerous projects including Streetwalker, Mutant Beat Dance, Civil Duty, and Corporate Park. Maoupa Mazzocchetti is the pseudonym of Florent Mazzocchetti, a French producer based in Brussels. His sonic vision is one which constantly straddles the line between wild experimentation and rhythmic compatibility, drawing influence from early concrète, 80’s tape scene and Birmingham school techno. After working together on the ‘Crepes’ EP that we released in 2017, De Bons en Pierre reunited for a two day recording session in Brussels. The duo recorded 13 tracks that we’ve split across 2 EPs with 6 tracks on ‘EP No. 1’ and 7 tracks on ‘EP No. 2’. Beau says, “We hooked everything up and just pushed play. We didn’t really discuss much about the process….it was very ‘spur of the moment’.” The equipment set up included a Roland TR-808, TR-606, SH-101, CR-78, CR-8000, two Syncussions and effects. Each EP contains 25 minutes of dance floor perversions that tackle an array of rhythmic forms. Sludgy synths, serrated percussion and viscous distortion goops over leviathan rhythms.
Beta Evers – Transient [SGX004]
Beta Evers returns to Sonic Groove Experiments with another re-issue of one of her classics from the late aught decade. Three cuts of seductive vocal-charged post-punk, wave / body music.
THL – Dreams Of Leaving / Dance Like A Star [FPTHL]
A passionate tribute to a time before techno… or was techno already there? This beautiful and highly limited package includes two The Human League edits.
Scenes de la Bohème – Standing In the Rain [MW070Y]
Minimal Wave is releasing a newly mastered compilation of 6 tracks made by Scene de la Bohème (aka Anthony Waites), entitled ‘Standing in the Rain’. Scenes de la Bohème was formed by Anthony Waites in London, in 1981 with an innate desire to create poetic, subversive pop music. Without any intention of ever signing to a record label, he self-released one untitled 7” single in 1982, an edition of 150 copies, with money funded to him by his parents for his 21st birthday. He often used borrowed synthesizers to record his music in various bedroom studios and friends’ houses supplemented by his beloved cherry red Hagstrom guitar. This release includes 2 tracks that come off his sought-after untitled 7″ from 1982 and 4 are previously unreleased.
The Misz – The Lonely Crowd [MW069]
The Misz formed in Gent in 1983 by Jan Van den Broeke and Dries Dekocker at a time when they had both just relocated from the country. They lived on the same street and collaborated freely with the limited equipment they had, which always centered around the Fostex 250 4-track tape recorder. They used an unknown monophonic synthesizer, casio synths, roland drum machines, hand drums and guitars through effects pedals, improvising with their voices and often and included friends for additional voices and sounds. They captured these sonic experiments and sometimes released them on cassette in editions of 100-200. They described themselves as young, immature and bit strange yet totally bold and fearless. They sang about what surrounded them from world politics and environmental catastrophes to love and lust.
VA – Five Years Of Tears Vol. 2 [PNKMN5Y2]
Pinkman delivers another sturdy record for the connoisseurs of discomforting electronics. The second 5 Years Of Tears release unifies 6 artists, each with their own interpretation of the labels ill-famed sound, embodied in vibrating basslines, metallic beats, and corrosive acid. Gear yourself up for yet more nerve-racking music and get accustomed to the obscurity of this series of releases, because the madness is all but finished.
Identified Patient & Sophie du Palais – Don’t Exclude Anything [PNKMN28]
Identified Patient and his notorious femme fatale are back with another record of deranged darkroom anthems for Pinkman. This 12″ is where crunchy drums and heavy bass are laced with aggressively seductive vocals by Sophie Du Palais. While the theme of the songs, compared with their previous record, goes in a rather kinky direction, the raw ferocity that never fails to grip a dance floor remains.
Identified Patient – Kogeldans [PNKMN27]
Identified Patient drops another calamitous record on Pinkman. Four dungenous slowbeat cuts, brimming with energy, emotion and attitude. The EP kicks off with Geen Syndroom where jaded, murky melodies go in tandem with sexy bass lines and an obliterating broken drum beat. Thereafter, Nog Steeds High Van De Lak progressively evokes feelings of desolation and melancholia, while carrying an aggressive punch and irresistible groove. Do the flip to find two more ferocious productions in Ver Verwijderd Van Vermoeid and Haar Glans Altijd Strak. The former grips you firmly with bubbling acid and machine gun snares on the backdrop of violent kicks. The latter ends the voyage entrancingly with hypnotic synth lines, whiplash-snares and rattlesnake-hats.
Aleksa Alaska – Unmasked Discussion 70
Daniele Cosmo – WAV005
VA – Resist Entropy [LPDR006]
Splattered vinyl with a silk screen printed cover and a huge poster inside. Lustpoderosa`s eclectic lifestyle continues with its very first various artist compilation. A clash of generations in sonic form, ranging from slow and heavy industrial beats to gloomy minimal wave. Four contemporary tracks and two reissues from 1984.
EVA – Eeinsam [PS007]
Dawns early shadows by Berlin’s UBahn Platforms, desperately running from his own shadow into the arms of a lover not found. EVA is a warm soul from the past trapped in a ice cold city reliving a modern Neues Sehen. Power Station presents his fragile story & namesake EP / single title ‘Eeinsam’ which is a romantic-wave masterpiece. Flip to the B side, the beginning of EVA’s loveless story actually starts here with ‘The Gitter’, gearing to machine funk territory and a naive outlook on what could be in-store for him. Finally P808 takes us into the (sub) consciousness of his mind, just as the 808 in the name suggest, toms pulsate like his brain scanning neurons over and over, searching for the answer, ‘Who will …who will love me?’
Steel Mind – Boss Man [TD001]
Tempo Dischi is an italian label created on a mission to discover and repress classics and rare gems of the italo disco, afro and cosmic scene. With the support from all the main players who has made that era magic, we work to put back on records stores shelves a piece of art that may have been lost but it’s still timeless. The first release is one of the key projects of the underground Italo Disco scene, probably not the most famous one, but surely it is among the most loved one by DJs and connoisseurs: Steel Mind. ‘It was the end of the ’70s and at that time Disco Music was very popular. I was in a band called Caelestium, and we were playing in the most important clubs in Italy…Around the beginning of the 80s, I started to feel the desire to make a different kind of sound and I decided to start my solo project creating songs like ‘Boss Man’ and ‘Lionel’ that were closer to the Krautrock style’ recalls Piero Torsani, the producer behind this project. These songs have become a cult for many djs, including Daniele Baldelli, Beppe Loda and Alexander Robotnick and they still sound contemporary. The Tempo Dischi collective is responsible of a club friendly edit of ‘Boss Man’. And after a deeper search into Pietro Torsani’s original music archive, an unreleased track has surfaced we could not resist to give to the world: ‘Summer in The City’ featuring the voice of Marisa Lucà , at that time singer of Caelestium.
Gladkazuka – The Drop [COMEME049]
Gregorio Gomez aka Gladkazuka is a mythical figure from Medellin’s underground nightlife, contributing since pre-smartphone ages with energetic live sets to the celebration of life in the convulsive surrounding of the Colombian city. He is back on Cómeme with a full EP in which highly emotive and sensual electro dance fantasies culminate to ‘The Drop’. Gomez’ creations are nocturnal and lush, utopian and melancholic – underground dance pop that would be mainstream in a better world.
Alessandro Adriani – Montagne Trasparenti [MNQ123]
Alessandro Adriani has become a trusted source for all kinds of beyond-the-grave minimal synth, industrial and coldwave delights. Aside from his work in releasing forgotten gems and up to the minute synth incantations, Adriani has also been quietly issuing out his own music as well. Originally released in 2016, ‘Montagne Trasparenti’ is now repressed on Mannequin Records with a full new graphic design.
Opposing Currents – Mirage Information [AD007]
Jason Letkiewicz has always swum against the musical tides, flitting between different solo pseudonyms (including Steve Summers, Death Commando and Alan Hurst) and collaborative projects (most notably Mutant Beat Dance) in order to explore different aspects of his leftfield inspirations. With his latest release, a first full-length outing for Artificial Dance entitled ‘Mirage Information’, the Chicago-based artist is operating under an alias that celebrates this approach: Opposing Currents. It’s an alias he’s used once before – for a track featured on Chronditic Sound’s 2015 cassette compilation Non-Christian Referent – but ‘Mirage Information’ sounds like an artistic rebirth. Densely layered, mind-altering and often intense, the album’s seven tracks update the Cold War paranoia and pulsating electronics of EBM and industrial music for today’s complex and chaotic political climate. Throughout, Letkiewicz smothers off-kilter drum machine rhythms and throbbing, body-jacking synthesizer basslines in untold layers of hazy audio detail, creating a dystopian sound soup out of which alien electronic melodies, psychedelic acid lines and barely audible vocals emerge. At times, such as on angry opener ‘Lying Awake’, the extra-terrestrial ‘Dissolve’ and foreboding ‘Shallow Grave’, we’re invited to dance in the darkness in celebration of impending doom. On other occasions, such as the poignant and melancholic closing cut ‘It Awaits’, Letkiewicz simply seems exasperated at the chaos that is life in the 21st century. It makes for a genuinely arresting and thought-provoking listen.
The Hipodrome Of Music 