Review: Following on from their standout debut album Benevolence in 2019, Skemer return with a second record for Italian label Avant! The duo of Kim Peers and Mathieu Vandekerckhove have tapped into a fertile strain of dark wave with a seductive gothic mood which should be essential listening for fans of The Cure et al. There's a pervading gloom to tracks like 'Easy To Embrace' but it's offset by the motorik thrust of the drums, and there's a generous dose of pop nous to ensure these shadowy songs land with a broad audience. If you're looking for a soundtrack to shortening days in the Northern Hemisphere, this album is a must-check.
Review: France's Macadam Mambo welcomes the ambient, minimalist progressions of Poperttelli to front their discog. Disjointed Dreams explores the concept of dreaming, dream analysis and dream travelling, bringing Krauty electronic workouts and modular hypnoses to an ultimately playful but also entrancing palette. Our highlights have to be the beatless murmurer 'Ukrussian' and the dubby rainmaking cascader 'Simplifie', which avow Poperttelli's apparent knowledge of and ability to work in a range of different styles and vibes.
Review: Apparently inspired by 1980s computer game soundtracks and the synth-heavy scores to fantasy films, M83's "DSVII" is slated as a sequel to the band's 2007 set "Digital Shades". If so, it's a rather belated one, especially considering the French outfit has released three studio sets and a swathe of soundtracks since then. Regardless, the material here is deliciously evocative, emotion-rich and atmospheric, mirroring the ebb and flow (and peaks and troughs) associated with soundtracks whilst relying entirely on i80s-sounding synthesizers and drum machine hits. It's basically synth-wave, with Symmetry's "Themes From An Imaginary Film" - itself based on music initially intended for the "Drive" soundtrack - being an obvious comparison.
Review: Synth-pop, cold wave, dark wave, EBM, future pop. Whatever label you want to give Joyland, the second studio album from Canadian electronic music project TR/ST, one truth is undeniable - this is unashamedly overt and unapologetically futurist in sound, and the tracks big enough to fill a main stage and then some. Opening on 'Slightly Floating', a rare moment of calm before the storm, once second tune 'Geryon' drops it's game over in many ways. You're in, and there's no way out. That said, it's not all rave horn synths and bounding kicks drums. 'Are We Arc' is as weird, trippy and opiate as they come, like the twisted fever dream of a cabaret duet. Or something similar. 'Four Gut' is a wobbly tech-hued workout, and the title track probably owes as much to hardcore as anything else.
Review: The 2019, full-length, 11-track album by Years Of Denial is said to have been written and produced in a country house once surrounded only by vast, empty landscapes and an endless sky. Despite the isolation feeding its making, the debut album Suicide Disco is still an inescapable somatic provocation; it's not where you are, but who you are inside. The duo of Jerome Tcherneyan and Barkosina Hanusova now hear their debut album for Veyl reissued here, not long after a second noose in the form of Suicide Disco Vol. 2 was heard strung up a in 2023. Suicide Disco was a comparatively greyscale exercise in delay and decay, the likes of 'The Pain I Meditate' and 'Contradiction' making for manic dust-clouds of post-industrial fallout; sonic , Industrial Revolutory sequelae, topped off by an expressionist vocal narrative from Hanusova.
Review: CHBB was a project by Beate Bartel and Chris Haas that developed from a collaboration first embarked upon in 1981, while working on the self-titled album Liaisons Dangereuses. After initially releasing their music only on four limited cassettes, this compilation from Soulsheriff flaunts their complete works, including all recordings from the original tapes paired with several new and original tracks by each artist. One can hardly tell the difference between original and new here; from the surreally throat-sung contraltos of 'NBKE' to the jankily strange doubletimes of 'Bali', from the the warbly hypnotisms of 'Shapeshifter' to the womping-kicks-over-German-language-incantations of 'Ima Iki-Mashoo', there's an industrial, experimental treat here for everyone.
Review: Minimal wave pioneer Das Ding aka Danny Bosten is back after ten years on Electronic Emergencies with a nicely curated collection of archival tracks sourced from early 80s tape recordings. Working with friends in a bedroom studio in the Dutch countryside, Das Ding crafted raw, experimental music with cheap analogue equipment that drew on new wave, early EBM and proto-techno. Listening back now these sounds are unmistakably Das Ding and this clear vinyl pressing preserves the original lo-fi atmosphere with meticulous remastering by Ruud Lekx. A real triumph of the DIY spirit of the era.
Review: Twenty nine years ago (can you believe it) Alexander Robotnick released his first album, Ce N'Est Q'Un Debut, featuring what's arguably his most defining track "Problemes D'amour" with the Harajuku-cute vocals of Martine Michellod. It's this album that has influenced countless French synth pop acts and a horde of old school electro lovers, and all this time later it's been repressed (again) by the label that first released it, Medical. Keeping the sacredness of this LP firmly intact by sticking with the keyboard-head artwork, Ce N'Est Q'Un Debut - along with Man Parish's 1982 self-titled debut - should be in all of our record collections.
Review: If we tell you that's Marseille's new wave electronic heroes Martin Dupont have supported the likes of The Lotus Eaters, The Lounge Lizards and Siouxsie and the Banshees, but also been sampled by Madlib and Tricky, then we're beginning to get to the heart of their wide appeal. Now, after the success of 2018's The complete collection 1980-1988, the band have returned complete with original members (alongside some new additions) and their first new LP for 35 years. It's not hear to see their influence on electronic artists - the surging, dark DXS7 synths and programmed drums remain intact - as well as the goth appeal of singer Alain Seghir, with his shadowy voice clocking in somewhere between Scott Walker's doomy self-reflection and Billy Mackenzie's compelling histrionics, shown off to its best here via 'Nice Boy' and 'Your Passion'. Drama, death and tragically doomed love... What more do you need to liven up your lunch hour?!
The Master Scratch Band - "Breakwar" (The First version) (2:29)
The Master Scratch Band - "Jailbreak" (The First version) (2:44)
The Master Scratch Band - "Computer Break" (The First version) (2:54)
The Master Scratch Band - "Mad Scratch" (2:47)
Review: Yugoslavia went through unthinkable turmoil during the break up of the Soviet Union, which is why it is all the more astounding even all these years on that it had quite such a fertile and innovative music scene. In 1984, Zoran Jevtic and Zoran Vracevic were a key part of it and helped revolutionise the sound of the day by introducing synth-pop, breakbeat and hip-hop with their Data and The Master Scratch Band projects. Their releases paved the way for modern electronic sounds and this album dives deep into that era and compiles their earliest unreleased works from between 1981 and 1983. It's a daring exploration of genres including industrial, EBM, minimal synth and electro-funk. It adds up to a true digger's gem that will significantly elevate your vinyl-hunting credentials without having to do the hard work yourself.
Review: It's been a busy time for Hawksmoor, with the critically acclaimed Telepathic Heights album arriving last year and a re-release of the stunning Saturnalia landing on Library of the Occult earlier in 2024. Now we have a brand new studio collection waiting to be explored, and it's every bit the record fans will have been hoping for given the track record here. Owing plenty to seminal German electronic acts such as Cluster, Neu!, Michael Rother, Can, and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, there's also plenty here rooted in more melodic synth schools of music alongside the ambient work of Brian Eno and more. The result is something that sounds at once modern and old, timeless yet out of time. A work of extraordinary talent and just a little bit of genius, we'd say it has been worth the wait but the remarkable thing here is just how prolific Hawksmoor seem to be.
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