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Portland based Mercury’s Antennae are back after a break with a new single,  “The Reflecting Skin,” which has been released on the Sett Records label and mixed by William Faith (Faith & the Muse/Bellwether Syndicate). Multi-instrumentalist, Erick r. Scheid of The Palace of Tears, vocalist Dru Allen and bassist Cindy Coulter, who are both from This Ascension, make up Mercury’s Antennae and an interesting tid bit you might not know is that Coulter and Faith are siblings, and Coulter was a live member of Faith & The Muse.

“This track has quite a storied history! I originally came up with the primary bass part back when I was in This Ascension with Dru in the mid 1990s! I presented it to the band, I jammed it out with our drummer Matt and Dru a number of times, but it was one of those ideas that just never took flight. It got shelved for decades, but I always felt like maybe it would find a home somewhere. Erick was very energized by the part and was like “we need to make this a song!” I didn’t have a chorus written, so we collabe’d on that, Dru added her wonderful lyrics and voice, and it all came together very nicely”. – Cindy Coulter

Allen’s voice has matured, and, to my ears become more powerful and evocative. Now that guitar, which happens to be a twelve string… it is sinuous and writhes in a glorious way, and yet it smoothly entwine with the synths, creating an echoing, dark ambience that feels timeless. This is a track that has waited until now to emerge, and maybe this was fortuitous, as it has received the sparkling Faith workover, and “The Reflecting Skin” is now a gothic gem by Mercury’s Antennae.

The Reflecting Skin (William Faith Remix) | Mercury’s Antennae

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‎Mercury’s Antennae – Apple Music

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Hisham Zreiq is a Palestinian visual artist and film maker living in Germany. He is also an electronic musician and the Goddess Asherah Project is his outlet of experimenting with ambient soundscapes which in essence could be a soundtrack for one of his movies. August has seen the release of the album The land of Joy, which contains thirteen instrumental tracks.

The album is full of light with its chimes, oriental styled sounds and rhythms. It flows with the titles fitting so well and the feel of each track is conveyed through the music. “Delight” invokes a taste of India and it truly is a delight to listen to, while “Frisky” has playful bleeps that run at a whirlwind pace. The land of Joy should be listened to when you want to unwind or need to be taken away to a place where you can be free to dream. The Canaanite Goddess Asherah has the power to grant you joy in the electronic world.

The land of Joy | Goddess Asherah Project (bandcamp.com)

https://hishamzreiq.com/

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Out on the British label Utopian Mechanics, Stockport based Through The Gloom have just released the new ambient electronic EP, Dark Patterns.

Opening track “Perfect Dark” gives the atmosphere of an anti sunrise, as if the shadows are creeping forward, encroaching on all. Deep tonal aberrations escape from the virtual abyss, with a tribal electronic twist in “Hostile Architecture.” An ancient drone with a female vocalisation, almost Middle Eastern in sound, creating a mystical allure. There is a reverence in the beginning of “Whispers Within” and indeed there are the hushed voices within the mix. The piano wanders, as if a lost train of thought, trapped in a slowly decaying cycle.

“Llanto” is gently laid before you, analogue sounding keys greeting you intermittently, which is nothing like the track “Cut Their Tongues.” Finely abrasively with foreboding, building with divine and ancient righteous portent, setting your teeth on edge. The vocals are strained and full of warning as the background is filled with tribal rhythms. Final track, “Nostromos Reckoning” is like a breath of fresh air after being compressed by the last track. It soars on gossamer wings, expansive and billowing into an infinite horizon

For me, this style of experimental and soundscape electronic music should fuel the imagination, taking you away from the mundane, inspiring joy, wonder and even fear of each new world opened to us. Through The Gloom has this in spades on Dark Patterns.

Dark Patterns | Through The Gloom | Utopian Mechanics (bandcamp.com)

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It has been two years since a project called Voidant took flight, with the release of their self titled album. A deep love of music and experimentation, as well as a friendship across an ocean, brought about an electronic gem. UK based David ‘Wolfie‘ Wolfenden, guitarist of the iconic Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry and Caroline Blind, from the USA, solo artist and lead singer of Sunshine Blind, are celebrating their debut album with a remix EP, featuring other extraordinary musicians, fiddling with those delicate stems.

Kicking off with “Vortex,” this is Elenor Rayner, front woman of New Zealand’s Robots In Love, who has a knack of drawing beautiful, dark sweetness out of her remix projects and she does not fail to cause a quickening of your heart, as the barbed tendrils hook into your skin. CWHK is from Sunshine Blind, and he has taken on the ephemeral “Ghosted” with the Brave or Silent Remix, upping the tempo and adding a very exotic feel to the track. The one cover on the EP is Love’s “7 and 7 is” and has been given the treatment by Danny C from 2 Forks, a member of yet another famous US goth rock band, The Wake. The remix rocks harder than ever and yet has developed this disco/dance orientation.

https://www.side-line.com/voidant-uk-us-team-up-with-londons-decommissioned-forests-and-new-york-filmmakerhttps://www.side-line.com/voidant-uk-us-team-up-with-londons-decommissioned-forests-and-new-york-filmmaker-tintin/-tintin/https://youtu.be/gVu7jgcilbY?si=su4PNJkAjTI5hWNf

I cannot think of a better bunch than the UK’s Decommissioned Forests, who have taken the shamanistic “La Loba,” into a cosmic realm, swirling and mystical, centred around Blind’s vocals. Max Rael of Decommissioned Forests and History Of Guns, has truly put the funk into “SG Truth,” and it is nearly trance inducing. The original “Phantom Ex” was a very free form piece, that Wolfie has taken, creating the Birch remix, adding more guitar and rhythm, giving the bass filled track a heavier air.

“Writing these lyrics and vocal melodies was a cathartic practice of embracing sadness and grief. It’s all in there. There was no return. It’s terminal. There are no hopeful bits, it’s all goodbye. The vocals stand on their own, and those who have remixed the songs have understood that, in perfect alignment. That’s why I called it ‘Abandon Hope’, from Dante’s Divine Comedy: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here” Give up and give in. Join with the heedless infinite.” – Caroline Blind

Abandon Hope is a wonderful way to relive some great tracks, or if you are new to the music of Voidant, then submerge your ears in the myriad of styles and talented artists which could lead you to finding even more favourites.

Abandon Hope | Voidant (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/voidantmusic

http://www.voidantmusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/robotsinlovemusic

https://www.facebook.com/2forksmusic

https://www.facebook.com/sunshineblind

https://www.facebook.com/decommissionedforests

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Should you dare slip into the wooded areas of Marietta, Ohio, after dark, you might happen upon the ambient and industrial musing of Pressed Flowers. Blake Pipes is the man bringing forth the electronic magic/madness in the single, “The Ascension.”

‘I composed “The Ascension” using, among other things, the sounds of hammers on large nails, the sounds of vehicles barely able to bear the weight of their load, and a mess of synthesizers. These elements were each stretched to their limits and sculpted carefully into place. In the track, there is a choice to make, a choice to stay or to go. The choice is made to go. The path forward is not necessarily a pleasant one, but neither is the path back. Too often, we can only hope to outrun what we try to leave behind.’ – Blake Pipes

This track is saturated in growing dread, from the scraping metal into the nails being knocked in. There is a near Hitchcock shower scene , which prevails and then collapses into what could be described as the warblings of an estranged classical orchestra, which is oddly satisfying. It is an intriguing use of elements and experimentation. There is a horror filled majesty with “This Ascension” by Pressed Flowers.

http://pressedflowers.bandcamp.com/

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Harsh Reality Music has been a purveyor of electronic music since 1982 in Memphis, Tennessee, and they have released the latest Mad Masks single “Structures.” Based in the French Alps, Mad Masks has been around since 2013 and is made up of duo,  Zio Voodoo and Dominique Stela.

For one dollar US on Bandcamp, you can purchase this thirty-five minute epic. The guitar strums away as the electronic waiver and fuzz. I believe I hear a ghostly female vocal in the mix, a sighing phantasm into the computerised morass. Eerily ambient, interspersed with twinkling chimes, there is the ebb/flow of the synths and a sombreness that feels un-naturally ancient and alien. “Structures,” by Mad Masks, is a perfect experimental and atmospheric electronic piece that invades your senses.

▶︎ MAD MASKS | MAD MASKS | Harsh Reality Music (bandcamp.com)

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Glaswegian band, Hanging Freud have a new single, out on the Belgian Spleen+ label, just before the release of their seventh studio album, titled Worship. The track is called “Falling Tooth,” and the name alone made me feel all creepy. Not sure what Paula Borges and Jonathan Skinner have been up to, but I’m not sure if I’m up to hearing about falling teeth.

The rhythm sounds like a clock, ticking down, while Borges vocals gracefully wander the soundscape like a ghost searching for completion. Electronics whir and drone, building the tension, as time ignores all of it, matching on.

Beautifully avant-garde and engrossing, like a fever dream that takes you down a path of your mind, you never knew existed. Hanging Freud’s first offering off the new album leaves you wondering what is next… though I am rather relieved to say no teeth were hurt nor fell in the creation of “Falling Tooth.”

https://hangingfreud.bandcamp.com/track/falling-tooth

https://www.facebook.com/hanginfreudmusic?mibextid=ZbWKwL

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The electronic merry men of British project Decommissioned Forests (DF), have a new release, which is not a new release. How is this so, you might ask yourself?! I shall elucidate. Dream Technicians 2023 Promo is a compilation album, drawing on singles, remixes, the most played on Spotify, and favourite tracks chosen by bandmates, Max Rael, Howard Gardner and Daniel Vincent.

There are tracks from the debut album Forestry, released in 2019, such as the delightful and gauzy “Drifting Into Darkness“, the gothic overtones of “Asleep Under The Leaves” that invoke the ghost of Coil, and and you get to enjoy the stunning “Impermanence“, with the entrancing synth playing that swells, begging for your attention..

The last album, Industry, was released in 2022, and there is “Base“, full of turgid, droning insecurities. DF have added a previously unreleased version of “Triggered“, now called “These Triggers“, which is equally electronic, but this new version almost jumps out at you with a faster rhythm pulsating and increasing the nervous tension. “A Comforting Uncertainty” was also the backdrop track for a short movie of the same name, and its tendrils slowly envelope your psyche, while the creeping doom of the monstrous entity within “Drop Brick“.

You can lose yourself with the transcendental 2022, electronic remix of the instrumental “Impermanent State“, that was the band’s original single, while “Bad Dust“, paints a languid soundscape, with Rael’s voice burbling occasionally in the background, running for a gargantuan 20 minutes and 48 seconds, off the EP Fortean Amps. Dream Technicians 2023 Promo has been put on Bandcamp for free and you really can’t do better than that. One cannot deny the influence of Coil on this project and all three members all admit to being huge fans, yet you can most certainly hear their sound is developing and further becoming very much Decommissioned Forests. Just brilliant.

Dream Technicians 2023 Promo | Decommissioned Forests (decomforests.com)

https://www.facebook.com/decommissionedforests

Decommissioned Forests (@DecomForests) / Twitter

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Norwegian, Erlend Eilertsen of Essence Of Mind, is about to release the second album under the project name Lights A.M., on the Alfa Matrix label, called Stories Without Words Vol. 2, on June the 23rd. However, we get our first listen through the single “Not Ready For This“.

An element of foreboding and lament is in the electronics, as they waver and chime through the instrumental track. Ancients drum whilst the low murmur of the droning electronics is in stark comparison to the gentle synths, that hold the lilting melody of what has passed. Subtle, beautiful and memorable is “Not Ready For This“, which you are utterly ready for by Lights A.M.

Stories Without Words Vol. 2 | LIGHTS A.M | Alfa Matrix (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/lightsaftermidnight?mibextid=ZbWKwL

http://alfa-matrix-store.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Alfa.Matrix?mibextid=ZbWKwL

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Apparently, the project Habitable Moons is air and atmosphere out of Stockholm, but actually, it is a guy called Peter Lindström out of Stockholm and back in January, they debuted the EP, oddly called….well… EP1. This kind of alludes to the fact that there might be other EPs in the future.

“October 3” kicks off, with highly rhythm intensive textures layering over each other. The pulsating electronics are almost futuristic in nature. Perhaps this is a date in future that we are awaiting with trepidation. There is the feeling of movement and the build-up of something ancient in “Winter Storm, Baltic Sea“, though it does not seem like a violent storm, but rather swells and ebbs with driving rain. The third track is “Cape Breton, Nova Scotia” and the sounds of gulls and guitar give you a glimpse of sun drenched beach running into the ocean, and early morning when the day is but young. It seems at peace with the world as the land wakes up. The guitar looping could be mistaken for church bells, and we even get to hear the voice of the progenitor, Lindström.

Just a small observation of mine was that the Bandcamp player that you can preview tracks on, was not showing any minutes, nor seconds for any of the three tracks, which is something I am not used to and it kind of gave an air of uncertainty as to how long the tracks went for. Maybe I should pick the word “timeless” as that suits these electronic tracks that conjure up visions with their rhythms and experimentation. EP1 runs for approximately twenty-five minutes, but it definitely doesn’t feel that long, and maybe that is what happens on Habitable Moons.

EP1 | Habitable Moons (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/habitablemoons?mibextid=ZbWKwL