Dark Entries Us Vinilo y CD

Review: Sad Lovers & Giants are a post-punk band from Watford, England who formed in 1980. The original lineup included vocalist Garce (Simon) Allard, guitarist Tristan Garel-Funk, bassist Cliff Silver, drummer Nigel Pollard and keyboardist/saxophonist David Wood. They released their first 3-song 7" EP "Cle" followed by the "Colourless Dream" single both in 1981 and "Lost In A Moment" 7" single in 1982. They released two studio albums, Epic Garden Music (1982) and Feeding the Flame (1983), before temporarily disbanding. In 2016, Dark Entries released Lost In A Sea Full of Sighs, a collection of the band's early work, but the record incorrectly included 1988 versions of the two songs from the "Lost In A Moment". For this repress, the tracklist has been corrected to include the original 1982 recordings of "Lost In A Moment" and "The Tightrope Touch".

Review: Dark Entries is pleased to announce a deluxe reissue of Sexual Harrassment's 1983 opus I Need A Freak. Lynn Tolliver, DJ/Program Director at Cleveland's WZAK, adopted the pseudonym David Payton in order to keep his musical endeavors separate from his public persona. Sexual Harrassment (misspelled deliberately) was formed as a concept band, with members selected based on appearance and choreographic skill rather than musical ability. Tolliver's explicit lyrics focused on the central themes of desire and sexual relations. Working at a studio in Akron, he recorded an album of quirky-yet-lurid electro funk, which was released on Heat Records. Tolliver remarks, "I learned as a youngster, sex sells! The things that are rated the worst - violence, horror and sex - are the things people want to see or hear about." I Need a Freak was a surprise hit, selling over 100,000 copies.

Review: Amongst minimal wave and alternative synth-pop enthusiasts, short-lived London band Shoc Corridor has an excellent reputation. Although they released a pair of albums and a gaggle of singles in 1983 and '84, it is '82 debut single A Blind Sign that gets collectors drooling. On this Dark Entries reissue, it's easy to see why. Flipside cut "Sargasso Sea", a fantastically spaced-out combination of heavily dub influenced post-punk bass, minimalist drum machine hits and liquid electronics, is particularly special, while "On Reflection" is a fine slab of swooning, near Balearic electronica. The title track, a Gary Numan-esque chunk of mutant synth-pop that bizarrely includes some jangly acoustic guitars amongst the arpeggio bass and twittering synthesizer melodies, is also inspired.

Review: By the time they released the cheekily titled Deep House Anthems in 1991, Chris Shepard and Mike Mangino had been releasing thrillingly odd cassettes as Smersh for eight years. Despite the title, it's typical of their work, focusing as it does on a bombastic fusion of industrial attitude, EBM style vocals, ragged acid lines and obvious electro influences. Here, four tracks from that cassette appear on vinyl for the first time, thanks to the efforts of San Fran crate diggers Dark Entries. The quartet of cuts is as bombastic and full throttle as you'd expect, with acid-fuelled opener "Rhythm Crash" and techno slammer "Hard Wired" being our pick of the bunch.

Review: Exploring electroacoustic techniques via piano, guitar, voice, and synthesizer, Istanbul-based composer, performer, and DJ Eylul Deniz makes her debut for the Dark Entries label under the Sunfear project name. The results fall somewhere between ambient, jazz, and experimental music with the addition of het haunting voice adding to the feeling of traditional songwriting being subverted and abstracted. Always taking unexpected turns, the title track even dipping into slow motion hip-hop beats, this Is a sometimes dark, sometimes uplifting exploration into totally original and highly memorable new territory.

Review: Dark Entries are back with more of that sweet, sweet goth sauce in the shape of Topographies. The San Francisco band have been building up a following for their faithful tribute to sad-eyed synth-pop and new wave from the early 80s, releasing an album in 2020 on Funeral Party as well as a single for Sonic Cathedral. It's not hard to pick out the influences, and it all makes sense when you learn Gray Tolhurst is the son of The Cure's Laurence Tolhurst. They're not simply aping another band's sound though and if you can't get enough of that quintessential goth rock sound, you're going to love this record.

Review: Oh mama, it's the second instalment of one of the most hotly tipped compilations around! The Bay Area Retrograde series from Dark Entries and this second chapter particularly, showcases San Francisco's buzzing post-punk and noise scene of the early 1980's, so we're talking real pioneering stuff here! There's everyone from Factrix to the legendary Tuxedomoon, but also some lesser known and more obscure names such as Chrome - a truly badass outfit if you ask us. Dark Entries couldn't have done a better job and this is the leftfield pick of the week from us!

Review: Victrola is the duo of Antonio "Eze" Cuscina and Carlo Smeriglio from Messina, Italy. The band formed in 1979 but shortly thereafter relocated to Florence take part in a rich musical scene alongside Neon, Pankow, Alexander Robotnick, and Diaframma. Beginning as a 4-piece (two guitarists, bassist, drummer) they slimmed down to a synthesizer and guitar-based duo by 1982. Their sole release was the now classic "Maritime Tatami"/"A Game Of Despair" EP from 1983, which we reissued in 2012.

'Born From The Water' is a 12 song collection of unreleased demos recorded between 1983 and 1985. The band sent us over 100 cassettes, through which we dug to compile the first volume of their archival darkwave ballads. They used an array of Roland synthesizers (TR-606, TB-303, TR-909, Juno 6) plus a Korg Polysix, Yamaha DX7, Casio VL-Tone VL-1, DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, and Fender Stratocaster and Jazz Bass. Some of the songs would later appear on various compilations, but the versions presented here are unique. Victrola engulfs the listener with trance-inducing synth lines, oblique minor-key bass lines, angular guitar riffs, and melancholic vocals. The songs tell tales of youth, love, karma, and the decline of civilization in modern times. Each song has been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The records come housed in a jacket designed by Eloise Leigh, which uses motifs from the band's sole release and includes an insert with liner notes and photos.

Review: It's clear that Naive founder Ines Borges Coutinho put a lot of thought into "Bed Of Roses", her debut album under the now familiar Violet alias. According to the label releasing it, Dark Entries, Coutinho approached the production process with the idea of creating songs that would together form "a sort of childhood-teenage memories diary". While it's largely instrumental, it's certainly true that the album touches on a variety of moods and retro-futurist sounds, galloping between dark ambient, ear-catching electronic melancholia, angry dancefloor intensity, dreamy happiness, good-natured post synth-pop grooves, luscious slow jams and the kind of glassy-eyed, loved-up fare that has always been a significant part of her growing body of work. In other words, it's a wonderfully produced, paced and deeply personal set.

Review: The deep archives of disco legend and synth wizard Patrick Cowley continue to prove inspirational for Dark Entries. Cowley, who passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1982, was the multi-faceted producer behind numerous disco anthems such as Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Since 2009, Dark Entries has been working with Cowley's friends and family to shed light on the lesser known facets of this singular artist's output. This has resulted in a string of celebrated archival albums, including Catholic (featuring Jorge Socarras), School Daze, Muscle Up, Afternooners, Mechanical Fantasy Box, and Some Funkettes.For the latest addition to this saga, White Trash Boom-Boom, Dark Entries has teamed up with The Stud to release four tracks culled from some of Cowley's earliest rehearsal tapes. In 1972 Patrick was living in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood with Theresa McGinley and Janice Sukaitis, friends of his from New York. In 1973, Theresa and Janice formed White Trash Boom-Boom, an all-female avant-garde performance troupe. Reacting to the Angels of Light and the Cockettes, they captured the spirit of the times: camp, confrontational, and delirious.

Review: Wisdom Wita Z aka LaShonda Corder hooks up with Dark Entries for a rare Detroit-adroit arsenal of new 90s-style house bangers. 'It's Me' was produced by DJ Maestro and DJ 001, both influential figures in the Detroit techno scene. The B-side, meanwhile, hears a retake from the adjacent DJ Resurgence. An anthem for owning and loving oneself, direct comparisons could be made to the diva vibes of Crystal Waters or CeCe Peniston, but Wita Z brings an entirely new character to the genre, with the production bringing a moodiness to the sound and giving neat contrast to her up-front vocals.