by on

GIVE/TAKE are the US based label bringing you the new single from Grammy Amplifier nominated artist KPT (KEPT), whom is one half of DEATHDANCE. The new single is called “Collared,” from the Minneapolis based dark electronic musician, who has worked with the likes of En Esch, My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Martin King of Test Dept, but to name a few.

Photo by Jason Larkin

An eerie static load grates your ears, swelling like a tsunami far out to sea, building in destructive force. A noticeable click click holds its own until there is an explosive release, frenzied and consuming. A tension between the electronic elements threatening to rip at the seams and yet still holding together, joined by the rumbling vocals, just perceivable above the tumultuous mixture of textures.

“Collared” is about the sexual ownership of another and exploring that dynamic of dominator versus submission. Aggressive control of the buzzing electronics is tempered by the flow of power… just as a good psychosexual relationship should be. KPT have created a vast and engrossing track with an equally delightful video.

https://kptfrsh.bandcamp.com/album/collared

https://www.facebook.com/kptfrsh

http://kptfrsh.com/

by on

In another era, Diane Dubois and Kevin Hunter, were part of the UK goth scene, that parted ways in the 80s, and fortuitously reclaimed that friendship during the covid pandemic, forming the project Lunar Paths. The end of August saw them release their latest independent single, “BURN“.

The looping and abrasive electronic samples and synths set the background for the echoing vocals of Dubois, as she goes from whispers to full throated and delicious croons. All the while, Hunter’s rhythms set the pace ranging from tribal through to thumping out the driving time signature.

I can’t deny that this Lunar Path track, while very experimental in nature, definitely reminds me very much of early Siouxsie and the Banshees, who also were extraordinary pioneers of post-punk music. “BURN” was written by the duo as they conversed about the fires raging in Greece, where Dubois has a home. An idea about the world on fire has given us a track that can set you ablaze, from Lunar Paths.

BURN | Lunar Paths (bandcamp.com)

https://www.facebook.com/LunarPathsMusic/

https://www.lunarpaths.com/

https://www.instagram.com/lunar.paths/

by on

Gee, you get to the weekend and the outlook seems dismal? Do you have an abnormal fear of gnomes and strange alcohol? The double sided single “Synkkyyden Ja Lonkeroiden Vaikutuksesta” by TerrorroT featuring TFG (TONTTU), will probably instil the appropriate levels of terror, while you belligerently rock your body in the naughty corner.

Like a bad dream on acid, “Lonkeroiden Oikeudesta Tonttuvapaaseen El​ä​m​ä​ä​n” burbles at you in a crazed manner. What does it all mean? Only the gods of lost souls probably knows

Ahh, the delicate vocals of TFG sooth your heated brow in “Synkkyyden Vaikutuksesta Kasitykseemme Tontuista“. The gnomes could be suffering the worst hangovers of their cantankerous lives….I am of course guessing, but he does not sound like he is having a picnic, unless the picnic is in the seventh realm of Hell. Please ask the gnomes for details on this party. Cranky bastards.

Synkkyyden Ja Lonkeroiden Vaikutuksesta | TerrorroT feat. TFG (TONTTU) | PANICMACHINE

https://digital.panicmachine.com/

https://terrorrot.bandcamp.com/

https://nodevotionrecords.bandcamp.com/

by on

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)

Facebook

by on

Today’s quickie is from Swedish electronic band, Fatal Casualties. They are Stefan Ljungdahl and Ivan Hirvonen, and we are bringing to your attention a cover of The Cure track “One Hundred Years” with guest vocalist Alex Spalck of Pankow.

This track has always been a favourite of those who love the 1982 album Pornography, and the dark electronics follow this paradigm. Spalck’s wonderfully crazed and mournful vocals capture the essence of the track, while Fatal Casualties manages emphasis the heavy feeling of longing through their manipulation of synths and programmes. The music video is a must watch affair, and this twist on the gothic tune is so well done.

http://www.fatalcasualties.com/

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

by on

What is a dream? There are many theories but they are definitely made up of past experiences, but also plum the depths of human aspirations and creativity. This brings us to the experimental Australian project lixly. Whom or what is lixly? No idea but as far as I know, their release, a leopards head, is their first, and is based on lixly’s dreams.

The surreal hissing before the acoustic guitar throws you slightly, and it seems to be recorded in a room where other things are happening. The spoken vocals are eerie and prophetic, as the track is called “i cannot forget“. Maybe “the song of ereshkigal” is a falsetto version of Neil Young, if Neil was being particularly creepy in a delicate way. Distorted chiming notes, herald in a terror filled and oppressive atmosphere, settling uneasily in the back of your head, in the instrumental “i don’t want to look at the baby“.

“a leopards head” has the heavy and electricized vocals, while the wavering electronics assault your ears with their hit and run tactics, hissing and fizzing with the undefined rhythms. Classical piano strains greet your ears, ghost like, in “a royal audience“, but there is the pitched overriding electronics and what sounds like a person cooing behind it all. The final track “it is no mask“, and the deep voice is back. The music around it is full of violence on an epic scale, brooding and aggressive.

Is it an EP or is it an album??? Mmmm, I leave that up to the listener, but there is no doubt that there is a lot of horror in the dreams of lixly, as they waltz between ambient industrial, acoustic and classical, building tension. This is a dream leopards head with the disturbing and very interesting lixly.

dream leopards head | lixly (bandcamp.com)

https://www.instagram.com/lixlymusic/

by on

Weimar is an experimental industrial EP in three parts, by Brian Tibbs of Chicago. A little bit of background on Weimar, that not only is it a city in Germany, but it became in 1919, the German Reich (Republic of Germany), which also heralded in the rise of the Nazi Party

Part 1 is “Dream, Reminisce and Secession“. that starts off light and airy, with dreamy chimes, yet then it seems to have a darker level below… That darkness is so low key that the listener might not realise, considering this track full of sparkling synths. The menace of what is to come, starts to flower in “The Fruits Of Ingenuity“, as the music snakes along, the light absorbed by the encroaching storm The music bleeps and bleats, becoming almost insistent, clashing and claustrophobic. The piano wanders aimlessly, before the interspersed harsher electronics beats, let themselves be known, and that dalliance with the off-kilter synths in Part 3 called “Agnosis And Rupture“. There is a digital distress in the second half of this track and a foreboding in the dominate piano, amidst the screams and cries.

I don’t think this is that far a reach to correlate a musical comparison of the rise of political powers that seek to remove human rights in many countries, and how the Nazi’s came to power under the guise of being a country’s great saviour. What are they saving people from? From threats that they have deemed relevant and supported by zealots. Brian Tibbs has brought you Weimar which is thought provoking and a journey into the socio-political rabbit hole, through a combination of industrial married with experimental classical music.

Weimar | Brian TIbbs | Brian Tibbs (bandcamp.com)

by on

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

by on

4000 Records is a label in Brisbane/Meanjin, championing local acts, and one of their latest releases is from fhae. Ellena Ramsay is fhae, and the album sombre thorax, an ambient folk and experimental offering.

Photo by Amber Ramsey

The first track “soul” is hazy and almost a religious experience that floats with the vocals not necessarily the focus but rather an added tone that stirs within your chest. There is the gentle guitar in “body” strumming in a soundscape of echoes or the mellow, yet ghost like “drain” that slowly trickles past your senses.

The track “love you” is simply electrifying with the stringed instruments in the background while Ramsey’s vocals gorgeously ring through, stunning you into submission through the exposed beauty. It leads into the equally sweet “earth” with its multi-layered vocal track, creating a perfect choir . You can feel the building urgency in the instrumental track “emergency” or be immersed in the languidly moving “disappoint“.

In all, there are twelve tracks, with a few instrumentals in the mix. I can see why there are comparisons to the legendary Cocteau Twins due to Ramsey’s dreamy and honeyed singing, very much in the vein of Elizabeth Frazer. The music of sombre thorax feels as delicate as spiderwebs and entwined with fhae’s vocals of such elegance…. enough to invoke goosebumps in an angelic folk driven extasy.

sombre thorax | fhae | 4000 Records (bandcamp.com)

http://www.4000records.com/

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

https://www.instagram.com/4000records

by on

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