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 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 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.
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.
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?’
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.
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 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.
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.
Rat Life Records presents Various Rats. A compilation of ultimate Party Hits for the downfall of society. Happy Doomsday everyone. If there is a rat there is life.
Sometime FTP contributor Sansibar is the latest experimentalist to make his bow on Natural Sciences, a label that we reckon is amongst the most vital and interesting around right now. Spat out of Helsinki’s underground punk and metal scene of the Lepakkomies institute, Sansibar steps up with his debut vinyl release of chronic electronic plague pulled from winters of darkness, new beat and discarded political manifestos.
Steve Murphy returns to Lobster Theremin for his debut solo album, curdling a molten mixture of metallic tones and stomping rhythms all culled from the electro, new wave, EBM and italo worlds. Cold wave spoken word vocals shimmer, holla and wail from the depths of an 80’s basement studio (Connessione Europa, Digital Fix Today); stomping italo rhythms take off with a flourish and wash, as they’re bound onto the surface of poly synth dreams (Space Train, Mira Electronics); bastardised modular squelches and blips reveal a hidden underground lab (Ray Gun); modem-bleeping electro machine-worx and on-the-run basslines from 2125 (Disappointed, The Truth, Again); the end, when it comes, is a slow play-em-off jam. An italo electro elevator them tune gently carrying us up to a formerly erased dystopian level of this monolithic brutalist cuboid.
Rotterdam’s Machinegewehr returns to Electronic Emergencies with Kurayami, a four track 12-inch. Its analogue synths make Machinegewehr’s sound darker than ever, reaching into every groove. The embodiment of Disco Noir, the record leaves you with a sophisticated sadness, made bearable only by the pulsating bass and rolling beats leading you to the dance floor. Kurayami’s mysterious cover art was created by the multi-talented artist himself.
Simply a hard-hitting and smashing debut EP. Leroy Se Meurt from France is a duo with a background in electronics and in punk music, which is very evident in their sound. Old school EBM, fused with fierce elektro with true punk attitude and energy that is always there.
Lena Platonos is a Greek musician, pianist and music composer. Her third solo album, ‘Lepidoptera’ was produced in 1986 and reissued by Dark Entries in 2018. Inspired by a scientific book on butterflies she found in a trashcan one day, the compositions follow minimalistic motifs and carefully-staged soundscapes. Lena narrates each song in deadpan fashion, skillfully reciting her surreal Greek poetry. Now Dark Entries recruited 4 contemporary Greek producers to remix their favorite tracks from ‘Lepidoptera’. First up is ‘Cyaniris’ remixed by Anatolian Weapons who delivers an enchanted late-night journey through the New Wave forest. Next is ‘Araschnia Levana’ remixed by Pasiphae who speeds up the pace with machine driven melodic electro pulses. On the B-side we have June remixing ‘Cyaniris’ twirling the track into a complex deep sea dive with lush drum kicks and pads. Closing out the EP is a remix of ‘a Gee´a ´ Aporia Maturna’ by Morah who leads us to the underworld of Hades via sinister squelches and full-on apocalyptic rave breakdown.
Despite sounding like an 80’s cassette only wave outfit La Stèle des Pleurs is a contemporary band from the north parisian suburbs. They’re mostly inspired by the underground tape scene of this period and use a 100% analogue set from synth and drums machines to tape recorders according to their unkwnown masters. The 7 tracks of this mini-LP are only instrumentals somewhere between the melancholia of Enno Velthuys and the heady sound of Stratis. Their music seems untouched by contemporary world and influences, recorded in order to compose their own enigmatic but familiar universe. Gloomy landscapes and feelings may appear but surrounded by a glimpse of hope.
The piece de resistance of the ‘Collected 1984 – 1989’ project, all the music on this LP has never been heard before, except for a single tune released on a rare 7” in 1988. The track selection and sequence is the result of Ducret & Isar closely listening to the many hours of unreleased material Desaever shared with them. Saved from oblivion and irremediable decay, the music on this LP is now just waiting to be played and listened as well as to inspire.
