In South Carolina, if you listen carefully, not all is banjo music. The gothic/deathrock explosive power of Orcus Nullify is back baby, with a new single, “All The Way“, released on the 11th of November.
From the drums through to the guitars, this is all Nullify. The guitars soar and Bruce’s vocals derisive of the old guard, the far right in their inability to accept anything other than their own narrow view and that if they aren’t right then it should all be left to crumble into anarchy. Discordant deathrock from Orcus Nullify with a message and a mosh worthy chorus.
In the City of Ekaterinburg, you will find gothic rockers, Raven Said, and October saw their new EP, Chants To Dissolve released by Moon Coil Media, plus they had the very talented Pete Burns (Kill Shelter) on mastering. Raven Said are Andrey Agapitov (vocals, guitar, bass, acoustic guitar) and Maria Agapitova (piano, synth, percussion).
The first track has a very interesting pulsating marrying of almost techno beats and gothic rock. There are sparkling synths with flourishing jangly guitar in “A Flowering And A Flattering“.”Transparent Sorrow” features the beautifully sensual vocals of Aeleth Kaven from La Scaltra, so very light and angelic in stark contrast to Agapitov’s deeper tones. This track reminded me of the bands coming out in the second goth wave of the early 90s.
Really amazing bass lines wander through “Except My Love For Her (Cold Desire Version)“. I dare you to forget the chorus as it pretty unique and a very sweet way to admit to being very much in love…..in a very goth way. There is such a violent life to “Srendi Vashtar“, from the guitar and the voracious electronics, to the urgently lowkey vocals spurred on by the smashing percussion. The last track is the shimmering “Immersive Waves” with the haunting guitars and vocals. The guitar work is simply delightful, tinkling like broken glass, over and over again.
Music brings us together like virtually nothing else on the planet. It can feed our souls and connect us on such a primal level. Raven Said are creating dark gothic rock that really is like broken glass, fragile and shinny but if you try to take them into your heart, you might slowly die from the way they cut you up…. or not. It is about depths you feel this style of music in your psyche. New and yet familiar to those of us that live our lives in black. Now there are Chants To Dissolve with, so the Raven Said.
In September, the latest Mach FoX album was released. Titled, VideoLogico, Mach FoX of Zwaremachine, is unleashing his vision of a cyber western world….Mad Max meets The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, shaken and poured into an industrial martini glass (which probably looks more like a beer stein). VideoLogico is the big baddie in this tech tale, out on the label Phage Tapes.
The networked links are exchanging data in “DigitalNations“. The electronics convey the movement of information in the modern era, the synths glide lightly with the backing of the rhythm, though this starts to waver. The single, “LowTech“, can be heard, phasing, glitching and yet serene, like the stranger on the horizon riding into a town. Does low tech refer to the analogue electronics or is the stranger a person who has been implanted with cybernetics? “MainFrame” suggests that the general public are logged into the hive mind of VideoLogico and the music is suppressed and mellow. It seems to wander and never settle, lest you find yourself able to think clearly.
They are being chased down by the “ModTracer” sent by VideoLogico to find the aberrations, those that have not succumbed to the system, There is a tenseness, the beats going in and out of rhythm and the machines scanning for the rebels, metallic and menacing. VideoLogico is trying to create absolute order and “No Design” would not fit into the ideal perfection. The music wavers from flipping around to a far more permanent sound.
Is “TheOne” the stranger, a cybernetically enhanced warrior of the wastelands? Cobbled together tech is keeping the survivors going, with the only solace, that when the power grid goes down each morning, they must regroup for the next round of battle. “VideoLogico” is the mastermind. Phasing in and out like an untuned radio, the sparks of being self aware from the artificial intelligence, taking off and asserting itself through brainwashing.
Of course, this is a storyline in my head, inspired by the music and the few words on the Bandcamp page about the story. It may or may not be correct but then this is only limited by your imagination. A lot of care has gone into the not only the creation and manipulation of the music but also the concept. I like to think of that stranger on his steel horse, riding into town to bring justice to those who need a person/totem to galvanise themselves behind. The industrial cyber western scene is set in Mach FoX’s VideoLogico.
Italian spectres of darkwave/post-punk, European Ghost, dropped their album, No Sleep, No Peace, No Shelter. Released on the label, Icy Cold Records, on September the 23rd, this is the third album for Cristiano Biondo (vocals, lyrics), Giuseppe Taibi (bass, synths, drum machines) and Mario d’Anelli (guitars, synths), with PaleAnd Sick (2016) and Collection Of Shadows (2018), the previous albums.
So we begin with “Stars In Heaven“, a buzzing takes your ear, leading you an anxious array of noise and powerful waves of almost rhythmic noise. “Chrematimos” has that wonderful stalwart of post-punk, the plucked bass rumbling away as premonitions are causing mounting reason for concern.
“White Foals” slithers under your skin with the vocals, while the guitars make that same skin shiver in eerie cold happiness. Dreams invade your sleep. Nightmares can ruin a “Good Night“. The music is stalking you like that unseen predator. There is a space like quality to “Hermetic“, sealed away while stars are consumed in loneliness.
Guitars and electronic take turns sparkling in “Cold Lips“, twisting and turning looking for fire, whilst the vocals ring out in the void. The bass holds sway in the title track, “No Peace, No Sleep, No Shelter“, a refection within a reflection, as the guitars wander between the realms of the living, dead and despair. “Living In A Tomb” does not so much feel desolate, so much as there is a longing for the light and that longing is in the vocals and wailing electronics.
Does “The Wind That Comes From Underground” come from some dark place? This track is truly full of some tremendous thumping beats with echoes and demonic clattering, as if the devil were chasing you through a labyrinth. An air of agelessness permeates the “Garden Of Delights“, sonorous and full of promise. A lovely twisting vortex of synths that pushes ever higher. The final track is “Metropolix” with its almost glitch like rhythm and the vocals that conjor images of the movie Metropolis, where everything is cold and metallic, moving with oiled precision.
European Ghost have said that the inspiration for the album comes from the idea of dreams, often meant to be a place of escape but can turn into haunting places of terror, causing apprehension from the very act of sustaining the body and mind. For me, it felt like when dreams and death are inseparable… entering a state where one is prone and open, where sleep is almost another form of impermanent death. No Peace, No Sleep, No Shelter has this wonderful, gritty texture, abrasive, polished by those magical guitars and highlighted by the electronics. They experiment with noise, creating these glorious sonic pieces that make you feel like you are standing on the edge of the void, and vocals plunge you into that void. Get haunted by European Ghost.
Looking for something cyber industrial with quirky edges? Neon Shudder might be the ticket. Based in Philadelphia, their full length album, Welcome To The NET, was released on October the 7th.
This is a project purely instrumental and from the first track, you can tell the mind behind it all, draws their inspiration from a lot of different electronic styles. “Welcome To The NET” has this speeding trap style with flowing synths. The “Tiger Drive 86” start has a very Nintendo game feel and then launches into full flight…..I swear I can hear the occasional plane engine. The music sparkles and yet there is a urgency. Something sinister this way comes, stalking and persistent in the single “Something Darker“, with the graduating keyboard work creating an air of foreboding.
Things have sped up again through the cyber highways and the sun is merrily shining on the “IO Pathways“. “DReaMCuBE//SYSTEM MENU MUSIC” is an ambient piece, star struck and meandering, possibly waiting for the gamer to press play, leading into the “inter(NET)mission“, which is literally a bridging track of very cute burbles. There is something a bit special about “Brain Drive” with its languid swells below the piano styled keys, holding a promise of something else. The else is a build up of wavering electronics entrancing the senses.
“Ｒａｎｓｏｍｗａｒｅ コンピュータウイルス“…….no one likes ransomeware, unless they created it. Police sirens before we launch into a drum & bass inspired cyber-menace with storyline attached. There is a nice flow into the heavier and noisier “TECH BRUT!“. Here we find some gorgeous synth lines in this track and experimentation with the time signatures. Finally, “A Port in a Storm” both beautifully swirling and dominating at the same time, waiting out the inclement weather.
This really does drag me back into the early period of the 80s, with gaming consoles, where we were excited if we had a few snakes to whack or aliens to blip off the face of the black screen and the fantasy/science fiction movies that embraced synth music, that caught our imaginations. Even though this holds that elemental sound, this is far too modern to be from that time, the advancement in technology creates some scintillating and smoother music that indulges those childhood memories. Welcome To The NET for this is Neon Shudder.
MATT HART is your friendly, neighbourhood cyber industrialist and his latest block rocking release, came out on October the 24th, in the form of a three track remix EP, titled INFINITE HORIZON REQUIEM. One and three are mixed by Adi Calef while track two is mixed by the man himself.
The DNA mix of “INFINITE MARCH” fair rattles your teeth with the crackling bass, sweeping all before it with monumental contempt. EVENT HORIZON is named for the movie and it feels like we are going to hit the black hole at maximum warp speed accompanied by the blood curdling screams and voices of dissent.
The final track is the TERRA TANZ mix of JUDGEMENT (REQUIEM). A requiem is an orchestral piece for death or loss, stately and noble which is exactly what you hear but the angelic chorus has been hijacked by screaming electronics and the distorted vocals. A perfect vision of terminators in their robotic cold fury, wiping the fleshy humans out of existence.
HART’S music already has that harder edge which translates well to ramping the industrial to a grandiose flurry of rhythm and noise. I love how JUDGEMENT (REQUIEM) turned out, both powerful and fragile. It is name your price on Bandcamp so now find your INFINITE HORIZON REQUIEM.
Knock twice, your fate sealed, A CloudOf Ravens does reveal. Indeed, the 11th of November was the date for the release of the second single, “Nature If Artifice“, off the LOST HYMNS album, set to come out on the 24th of February, 2023.
It sucks you in from the beginning with elegant simplicity, from the beats to the build up into vocals. That guitar in the background like a warning siren, with the very deliberate heavy keyboard chords begging you to give them your attention. The vocals sombrely remind you that not all is well in the world.
The video alludes to past mistakes of humans only in the last century and yet maybe A Cloud Of Ravens is also tying to point out that we are making those mistakes again, though even if you aren’t a history buff, the music is brilliant. This is the “Nature Of Artifice“.
It can’t rain all the time but sometimes it “Feels Like Rain” which also happens to be the Signia Alpha single, released on the 11th of November. The band is made up of singer/lyricist Harris (yes just one name like Prince), multi instrumentalist composer Matt Webster (drums, guitar), flaunting his flute style is Chris Walsh, along with jazz master Keith Jafrate on sax and some bloke called Paul Gray who normally plays bass in some kitch band called The Damned.
Every time I have listened to this, I think Paisley Park, as in the 60s. Could be the use of the flute or the happy go lucky vibe of the music, though not all is as it seems. Lyrically it is about poverty and how it sucks away all until you only live under a constant weight and greyness, which is not living.
The Bradford area is in the North of England and since the industrial revolution, suffered high levels of poverty and unemployment. A breeding ground for musicians who are great storeytellers. “Feels Like Rain” rolls along just like the days do but with a social concious.
Mix one part Danish with one part United Kingdom and you get a spark of magic called Perpacity. Martin Nyrup (Den) and Ian Harling (UK) dropped their new single, “Little Death” on November the 11th.
Don’t Let the shamanistic wails at the beginning fool you. This baby is all electronic, suave and suggestive, with the synths rolling in all the right curves and the vocals entreating you in “Little Death“. There is also the ‘b’ side, “Feel My Pain” which is far more reflective and sorrowful, mirrored by the sombre tones of the music.
The title track has a decidedly DepecheMode vibe with those graduating synths and sexy lyrics, while the backing track, “Feel My Pain” is the quiet and brooding type that gradually creeps into your head. As the French say, petite la morte and really we all need a “Little Death“.
Time for a quickie.. and honestly, who doesn’t like a bit of a quickie?! Recently, our hero, Sebastian Sünkler aka STAHLSCHLAG, has released the new, epic album, A Zone Of Silence. Soooo, what do you do from here? Where do you go?
Why, you throw open a remix project for musicians around the world to participate in, releasing it with 34 artists and calling it More Zones Of Silence. And what a collection it is, with a wide array of styles for one to choose from.
From more synthwave lead remixes, dark ambient, rhythmic noise, EBM, harsh noise, experimental and everything in between under the industrial banner are represented. MATT HART, Non-Bio, Blue Ant, MissSuicide, Mikrometrik, SublimenalStimuli and Dirty K are just some of the bands/projects whom have taken these tracks and twisted them to their will, creating their own monstrous machinations. Very worth of your listening time and then explore the other artists. Immerse yourself in More Zones Of Silence.
Onyx Music Reviews 