rude awakening

London After Midnight, "Violent Acts Of Beauty"
Trisol/Metropolis/Iron D
Sean Brennan's become the goth Axl Rose over the past decade. No, seriously. Much talk of a new London After Midnight record was thrown about for years with little to show except a revolving-door parade of band members coming and going and the odd cover or oddity squeaking out on a movie soundtrack (I swear - the "Saw" soundtracks exist only to fulfill bands' contractual obligations with Trisol). The crucial question about a new record remains the same for both men: giants in their respective scenes and times, will they be able to release a record that doesn't make them sound hopelessly out of touch after all these years, yet won't alienate their loyal fanbase? Admittedly, the stakes are somewhat higher for Axl given all of the very public bad blood with former band members and the intense scrutiny and debate that arises every time another release date or canceled show crops up - ask yourself honestly, how many times have you asked yourself what London After Midnight were up to in the past five or six years - but unlike Axl, Sean still has his hips and hasn't opted for Dexter Holland-style braids. Chalk one up for pretty boy.

Anyway, the record. It's good. Excellent, in fact. No really, listen...

It's mournful in a majestic, rather than whinging manner, which, come to think of it, is a thin divide by which many goth bands live and die. Moreover, it's punchy and aggressive in a fashion that you just don't hear in goth rock anymore. In short - the band's roots in the second wave of goth are a big help, not a hindrance here.

This isn't to say that "Violent Acts Of Beauty" is a nostalgia trip - far from it. There's much here that's fresh and relevant. One could also point out a couple comparisons to more recent acts that certainly aren't a knock at LAF: there are occasional flourishes of the yobbish techno-pogo that Katscan have used so well in recent years in "Nothing's Sacred" and "America's A Fucking Disease" calls Snog's "The Human Germ" to mind, and manages to deploy jazz flute flourishes without falling completely on its face, an accomplishment worthy of praise alone.

On top of all this, the songwriting itself is spot on: as a rule it's compelling and memorable material that I'll wager will reward repeat listenings, aided in no small part by Brennan's excellent guitar work. The innumerable socio-political clusterfucks that have jarred the cultural consciousness since LAF's last album ensures that there's a minimum of the cheesy demon lover/dark desire lyrics of the "Your Worst Nightmare" ilk. There are also a couple of club tracks that'll likely make for adequate DJ fodder without compromising home listening. So good on Sean Brennan: he's proven the doubters (myself included) wrong and has with one album turned a band that was little more than a vague memory from the Cleopatra days of yore into a relevant force to be reckoned with.

"In The Shape Of A Ghost": An Interview With Forma Tadre

What an update we've got for you today, kids: an interview with none other than Andy Meya of Forma Tadre fame and excellence. Like we mentioned a while back, after a ten-year hiatus there's a new Forma Tadre album in the works. We asked Andy about the past and future of Forma Tadre, as well as what he's been up to in the interim. We've posted a couple of mp3s at the bottom of this post for those who've yet to check out Forma Tadre, but happily Andy's just reissued the band's entire back catalog on iTunes. If you haven't yet, check out the history of one of dark electronic music's true innovators, before he drops what's sure to be another groundbreaking record.

IEI: "Navigator" remains a landmark album, not only due to its stellar club-friendly tracks, but also due to the theme of exploration that runs through it. How was "Navigator" developed? Was the theme of exploration specifically present from the outset, or did it only emerge as you began to produce the material for that album?

AM: It's difficult to speak from an outset - as such - concerning "Navigator". Large parts of the musical material ("Plasmasleep", "Looking Glass Men", "Celebrate the Cult" and two of the "Navigator" parts) were there even before OffBeat gave me the option to produce an album.

But I remember choosing a title for the album was quiet an easy decision. "Navigator" as a whole just reflects my thinking and my interests at that time - scientific exploration and scientific hybris, prospects of the future, my fascination with adventure, especially the polar expeditions of Ernest Shackleton and a certain cosmic connection I felt to the universe. Well, the last point sounds rather esoteric. I assure you, I have no pretty moonstones here lying around to cure me from odd diseases. If I dare say. I maybe had a similar connection to the universe, the stars and the planets an astronomer has. Outer Space was very real to me. Solar Fire. Stellar Dust. Utter Blackness. I felt like I could touch it. Walk upon the remnants of a bygone planet.

I wanted to share these feelings with the listeners - not totally unlike Lovecraft did with his literary concept of "Cosmic Fear". There's also one thing concerning the title of the album I probably haven't mentioned before. I recall I had a poster of Buster Keaton's movie "Navigator" pinned to my studio wall.

IEI: "Automate" obviously pushed the envelope even further than "Navigator" as far as atmospherics go. The album seems to be less about an overarching theme, though, and more about exploring certain sounds or spaces within the framework of individual tracks (or we could be entirely mistaken). What inspired you to move in this direction, and was this something of a prelude to your work in film and game soundtracks?

AM: The inspiration to "Automate" came from a trip to Paris, visiting the financial center and the suburban parc "André Citroen". A recreation area which would fit perfectly into any star trek movie. "Automate" was about two things: The obvious beauty of the landscape, that was striking to me and the intentions of the big companies (e.g. the Citroen firm) behind this - namely giving their employees an opportunity to relax. Not out of pure benevolence of course, but to ensure more functional "human resources". I thought that we were all "automized" (controlled to act in a predefined way) but more cunningly than in the past, e.g during the industrial revolution. I tried to work this concept into the tracks of "Automate", not with lyrics but with the shaping of sounds and the choice of certain song structures. The whole concept is more clearly laid out in the artwork of Automate 2.0 than in the original album. "Automate" wasn't exactly a prelude to my work in film and game soundtracks but helped me connecting to some movie directors.

IEI: If we're not mistaken, both "Navigator" and "Automate" are currently out of print, at least in North America. Are there any plans to re-release these albums, either on CD or online? Also, we've tried in vain for several years to track down a copy of "Automate 2.0". You mentioned on your site that an album of unreleased material from the "Automate" period might be forthcoming. Any chance that the remixes and bonus tracks added to "Automate 2.0" might be included on that?

AM: "Automate 2.0" should be released on iTunes very soon (like the original "Automate", the projected release is August 2007, "Navigator" has just gone online last week on iTunes!). [IEI: visit Forma Tadre's site to buy all three FT releases via iTunes] If all goes well and if I'm satisfied with the cooperation at iTunes I wish to release an online album this year, called "The Music of Erich Zann". The album is - obviously - dedicated to Lovecraft's short story and will contain solely instrumental tracks. It is not the album I am working on but a project a wanted to realize for some time.

IEI: How do you feel EBM and industrial (as musical genres or as "scenes") have changed in the near ten years since "Automate" was released, from both creative and business standpoints?

AM: I'm certainly not an expert on this. My impression is that - on the creative side - few people are taking musical risks. The dance scene often seems largely dominated by techno beats and technoid song structures. I'm more with the "old school" way of developing irresistible grooves like Front 242's "Headhunter" or Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" - both of which I think are still excellent and original dance tracks.

On the business side - musicians act far more professional than in the past, setting up their websites, writing newsletters etc. The fan contact through MySpace has become even more important. And there's of course the mp3 thing. Illegal downloads, bands selling less CD's, good labels closing (Dependent), good shops closing. The whole concept of selling physical CD's to get the artists some money and make a living is at stake at the moment.

IEI: When it was started, NEWT was a big sonic departure from the areas in which you and Daniel Myer were working in your respective bands. Was there a conscious decision to move in more of a drum n' bass direction, or was this just the organic result of you and Daniel working together?

AM: Our sound was an organic result but it's also true, that - in the beginning - NEWT started out as a drum n'bass pop project. Later in time it shifted to a more stellar, experimental sonic adventure. I think Autechre and other minimalist electronica have been our biggest influences then.

IEI: You also mentioned in January that you had some new NEWT material potentially in the works. Any developments on that front?

AM: No. I have postponed all my other projects until the new album Forma Tadre is finished.

IEI: It looks as though you've got another side project, Schattenfreunde, in the works with Christian from Distorted Reality, whose last album you produced. What sort of material can be expect to hear from Schattenfreunde, and when?

AM: The music is Electro/Wave with german lyrics. Christian writes most of the songs while I do lyrics and production. We'd like to release an EP next year. There's a preview on our MySpace site.

IEI: A few years ago you did a string of remixes we enjoyed a great deal (Assemblage 23's "Document" and Haujobb's "Penetration" amongst them) and we wondered at the time when new material of your own was coming out. Was remixing a way to "keep your hand in" during this period?

AM: I'm not certain, but I think I did a lot of scoring and sound design during that period. So doing remixes was in a way a nice "distraction". But I never stopped writing music for my own projects, especially for "Irgendwo Maschinen". I just didn't release anything, that was not my main focus at that time.

IEI: You've also begun to produce an increasing number of records for other bands over the past few years. How would you describe your approach as a producer, and have those experiences affected the creation of your own material in any way?

AM: As a producer, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. Especially with Distorted Reality, trying to force them into a direction they didn't feel wholly comfortable with. My vision for their tracks was rather "progressive" pure electronic while their sound developed more into a blend of acoustic and electronic sources. I refrained from to much interference later just trying to get their music to the point, shaping sounds and cleaning up the arrangement. This helped a lot with producing Cesium 137 although Cesium's sound is far more electronic by nature which made it a lot easier for me. I can't tell right now how the experiences as a producer have affected the creation of my own material. Maybe we should wait and see until the new album comes out?

IEI: Was there a specific reason for Forma Tadre being on hiatus for so long, or was it a case of other projects occupying your time?

AM: Other projects were occupying my time but it's of course always a choice of what you do with your time. I decided to explore other musical fields mainly for financial reasons. But although writing music for other people's projects is fun and exciting most of the time you certainly don't have the same kind of artistic freedom that you have when you develop your own ideas. I took me some time to realize this. On the other hand I'm most certainly some kind of control freak. I do everything myself. From production over to marketing, setting up websites etc. This also takes up some time.

IEI: Some time ago you expressed an interest in working with a cellist on the new Forma Tadre album. More recently you described the new material as "certainly not like Automate" and "a timeless electronic experience with a unique feel, style, atmosphere & heavy load of lyrics". What's the latest on the sound of the new material, and your feelings about it personally?

AM: I feel very confident. I am writing and "dreaming" lyrics at the moment. It's great to rediscover old ways and passages to give meaning to words. I rely on subconsciousness and intuition. Writing lyrics is rather an archeologic process for me. It's not invention. Not idea.

I feel like an archeologist or sculptor peeling off the shells of an object to get to the core. The tools aren't different either, maybe. Patience. Caution. Self-Esteem. If I do it right, all goes well.

Besides I have put most of the software-synthesizer into the garbage bin and started to use my hardware tools again (which I have done since 2005, when I started writing songs for the new album). This was also essential for me, maybe the starting point.

IEI: You also added "No Future-Pop, none whatsoever" to that description. Do you feel that Future-Pop is a genre or label that's outlived whatever potential it had, or is it simply a matter of something that has no connection or importance to Forma Tadre?

AM: In the past there has been an extensive hype about Future-Pop. At some time Future-Pop was almost the only imperative for commercial success. I just referred to this style as an example to explain that I don't feel my music to be bound to any narrow stylistic boundaries as such. But it's of course still electro/industrial in a way.

IEI: What concrete details can you give us about the new Forma Tadre album's release (name, date, label)?

AM: No name, no date, no label yet. The new album will contain 10-12 songs, most of them with vocals.

IEI: In the past you've cited HP Lovecraft and his cosmic perspective on humanity's significance as a major influence on Forma Tadre. Do you still read Lovecraft and will he be making his presence felt on the new album?

AM: I still read and reread Lovecraft. There are at least two tracks on the new album that are influenced by his shorter and longer stories, namely "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath" and "Dreams in the Witch House". Right now I'm writing music for an independent short movie - "The Unnamable". A very faithful adaption of Lovecraft's short story written in 1923. The movie is in the tradition of "The Haunting (Original)", "The Mothman prophecies" or "The Ring". The score is almost completed.

IEI: Any other sources of inspiration for the new album that you'd care to reveal (themes, films, books, other music)?

AM: I am sorry, but I don't want to think to much about this at the moment. I couldn't name single influences either. I'm still in the process of creating.

IEI: Specific inspirations for the new album aside, what music (older or contemporary) are you currently enjoying?

AM: Currently enjoying: Deine Lakaien "20 Years of Electronic Avantgarde", Edgar Froese "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale", Jean-Michel Jarre "Teo-Tea", Kraftwerk "Tour de France Soundtracks", Faderhead & IAMX!

-"Plasmasleep" - from Navigator
-"Lo Rez Skyline" - from Automate

RIP Lee Hazlewood 1929-2007: Make the Little Flowers Grow

Lee Hazlewood passed away on August 4th 2007. Although he is primarily known for his work with Nancy Sinatra (including the writing and recording of the oft covered "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'") and rockabilly icon Duane Eddy, Lee's solo material which combined elements of country, pop and psychedelia had a cult following amongst fellow musicians, as evidenced by covers performed by the likes of Primal Scream, Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, Megadeth, My Dying Bride and Boyd Rice. He is survived by his wife Jean and his children Mark, Debbie and Samantha.



Einstürzende Neubauten - Sand
Slowdive - Some Velvet Morning
Snog - Make the Little Flowers Grow

There's an excellent overview of Hazlewood's career as a producer and songwriter with iTunes links over at Status Ain't Hood . Make sure you check it out.

"Please rise for the deconstruction of our national anthem."

Yesterday's post by Alex on the new Laibach record got me thinking about the specfics of why Laibach's program of political satire works so well. To start with a quick nit-pick: I wouldn't say that Laibach's aesthetic is rooted in fascist imagery and music so much as it is rooted in totalitarian tropes. There's a black political humour that only comes from having one's tiny eastern European nation repeatedly steamrolled by harsh regimes from east and west, from right and left.

Anyhow, to my mind, it's pithy responses like "we are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter" that confirm Laibach as brilliant satirists. Truly committed conceptual artists (like, say, Andy Kaufman) never give the gambit away, because satire, unlike many "lower" forms of humour, requires some knowledgeable familiarity and conscious engagement with the material being satirized (as well as the formal elements of that satirization) on the part of the audience. On a side note, this is why I'd never be gutsy enough to say that any material of Laibach's wasn't conceptual. A song that they played at their last Vancouver concert sounded like a typically oontzy track in the "WAT" style until a friend from the former Yugoslavia approached me, laughing and explaining that the lyrics were from a folk song sung more than a century ago by Serbs as they were crossing a particular river, preparing to kill Croats. Or possibly vice versa. One way or the other, I didn't get the reference, nor why it would incite laughter per se. In short, my friend had the cultural language required to enter into the satire, unlike myself.

Confusion is Laibach's bread and butter: they bank on it. It's because they only muddy waters further when asked to clarify (at least for that AMG goober) that they are of such a higher calibre than all of those neo-folk ponces who run around wearing the runes and emblems of other cultures without any regard for their connotation and then explode into "defenceless artist" histrionics when anyone questions them. Blah, I don't want to get into all this again.

A point more salient to "Volk" - I think it's fair to say that their project on this record is a complete inversion of one of their most tried and true schticks: their remakes of pop songs which transform often trite original material into frighteningly epic anthems. There are a couple of interesting theories as to the nature of their intent in turning a goofy, touchy-feely song like "I've Got A Feeling" into Nuremburg rally call-and-response, or a song as lazy and crappy as "Live is Life" into a towering monument of glory (but to what?): they could be simply pointing out that aesthetics are substance, that form trumps whatever simple and base content these songs started with, or, and this is what I think makes those covers so compelling, they could be only drawing out and making explicit themes and possible readings of seemingly innocuous pop music that we'd never otherwise see - the supremacy of will, emotion and self within the tiny, insulated perfect world of the love song. We all take it as an indication of his insanity that Charles Manson heard personal apocalyptic messages in the white album (and rightfully so), but it's impossible to approach any of the songs on "Let It Be" from the same position of naivitee once you've heard what they "mean" within the context of Laibach's reinterpretation (with the possible exception of "Across The Universe"). To paraphrase Nietzsche, if you gaze for long into a spinning 45, the 45 gazes also into you.

What does all of this have to do with "Volk"? Well, the genre they're taking as their subject, national anthems, couldn't on the surface be any more different than the pop songs they've repurposed in the past (although, as I've tried to point out, surfaces are quite deceiving when it comes to Laibach). Instead of "sabotaging" the pop song by introducing questions of nationalism, power and politics that are normally anathema to pop, in "Volk" Laibach are creating space for commentary and criticism within a form that is explicitly meant for opposite purposes: namely the unquestionable celebration of nationalism and power. If the isolated would-be dictator can find inspiration in Top 40 dross, then so can the cultural critic, the anarchist and the dissident find fertile ground in the chest-pounding, anti-thought of the jingoistic anthem.

Laibach 'Volk'

Laibach is by nature an incredibly political musical entity. When the foundations of your art are the confluence of totalitarian imagery and pop music, it's impossible to not have pretty much everything you do picked apart and analyzed, searching for a straightforward interpretation which may not even be there, a straightforward meaning which arguably can't exist at all. The strength of Laibach as a group has always been in their acceptance of the lack of easy answers in their own work, and in politically charged art and music in general. The eternal question that has always haunted them, the "are they or aren't they fascists themselves" question misses the point by a wide margin. It's the ambiguity that matters, a fact that the band awknowledges in their refusal to address it except with more questions (ie, vocalist Milan's oft repeated declaration "We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter", a statement only an idiot would try to draw a literal answer from). Which brings us to 2006's "Volk" another in the band's series of concept records*, this LP finds our venerable satirists collaborating with Slovenian group Silence on a series of songs based on national anthems. The lyrics for each track address some social or historical aspect of the nation, while the arrangements twist the typical bombast and *ahem* anthemic qualities to be found in national music into something much more sinister. It's a natural fit, after all there isn't a piece of music simultaneously populist and political than a national anthem and that fact provides fertile ground for commentary on issues of national identity. On "Volk" the commentary often takes a more laid-back approach, "Anglia" is a light trip-hop style piece which skewers the arrogance of the English empire even in decline, while "Vaticanae" is almost reverent in it's simple Organ and vocal fuelled approach. There is confrontational work here however, not surprisingly on "Yisra’el" which includes within it verses from Palestinian national songs and "Francia" which criticizes France's hard-headed policies in dealing with civil unrest. It's fascinating to listen to both from the musical angle where the pomp of the music is frequently sent over the top as with "Nippon", or alternately stripped of extraneous meaning and turned into simple pleas and statements, as with "Slovania". Simultaneously, this may be the most obvious and most inscrutable piece of work from the latter era of the band's catalogue, driving home the point that Laibach is never about answers, but about posing questions, which in turn are answers in and of themselves.

*Can Laibach not make a concept record? Discuss.

catch-up

Just tossing out some reviews of records from last year that I slept on (for better and worse) before tackling some fresher stuff.

Flint Glass, "Nyarlathotep"
I'm a sucker for any pop culture product that makes even the vaguest reference to HP Lovecraft. As a dedicated scholar of Lovecraft's fiction and philosophy, this typically results either in disappointment (from the tendency in other writers to reduce his creatures to beings motivated by petty and utterly human evil, to the sheer ridiculousness of "real Necronomicons" being taken seriously by gullible idiots) or the collection of some amusing kitsch (from the charming anachronistic film adaptation of his most famous story to Cthulhu slippers). Occasionally, though, something truly remarkable, like Rudimentary Peni's "Cacophony", crops up. Over twenty years later, we have "Nyarlathotep", a Lovecraft-based record of an entirely different cast.

Flint Glass' second LP is a sleek excursion through dark ambient territory that never bores or drones. As with HPL's use of his most awful creations (after which the majority of tracks on the album are named), stark and explicit horror is left off the record, implied instead by menacing implication. When beats bubble to the surface (as on album highlight "Nephren-Ka") they evoke Lovecraft's love for the exploratory revelations of science more than any noisy and chaotic beasts. Moreover, there's a paradoxical sense of calm that starts to temper the danger this record conjures upon repeat listenings. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Flint Glass' one member, Gwenn Trémorin, elected to name this record after one of Lovecraft's most ambiguous figures. While in some fiction Nyarlathotep is wholly alien, in other works he's clearly modeled after various historical gods of science, trickery and heraldry: Loki, Hermes, Prometheus and Osiris.

For the more pragmatically minded who couldn't give a toss about Lovecraft, this is a stellar dark ambient record, with gorgeous art and packaging as well as some decent remixes from the likes of Ah Cama-Sotz and This Morn' Omina to sweeten the deal. Recommended.

Flint Glass - "Nephren-Ka"
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Apoptygma Berzerk, "Sonic Diary"
Enticed by the thoroughly stomping Mesh remake of "Mourn", I decided to wander 'round Stephen Groth's neck of the woods, to see what had changed since "Welcome To Earth". At this point, I don't think it's unfair to cast Apop as the EBM equivalent of Metallica: a string of albums loved by genre fans and critics, then a turning point record, half-full of classic jams, half-full of pitiful attempts at mainstream success, then nothing but boring faux-alterna schlock, alienating their fanbase. While Metallica and Apop might gripe that too much attention has been paid to the shifts in their respective images that accompanied their bids for crossover acceptance, I'll counter that it's more enjoyable to mock Groth's last-ditch emo-cut or Kirk Hammett's wannabe-Dave Navarro posing than it is to actually listen to "Load" or "You And Me Against The World".

Anyhow, "Sonic Diary" is a comp of cover tracks, old and new, plus a bonus disc of remixes. I'll be a weirdo and deal with the bonus disc first. The aforementioned Mesh remix remains stellar, a vengeful bootstrapping of a classic cut, but there's really nothing else of note. All but one of the other remixes are from the "Harmonizer" and "You And Me Against The World" eras and only highlight how threadbare the original versions were. That one exception is a complete remake of "Deep Red", and unless you want to know what that song might sound like if Good Charlotte covered it, I'd suggest avoiding it at all costs.

The main disc doesn't fare much better. Almost half of these tracks have already appeared on APB LPs and EPs, perhaps explaining the need for the bonus disc in order for any units to be shifted. Older covers like "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "Electricity" hold onto some charm, but recent takes on "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" are nothing short of criminal. Much of the newer material suffers due to Groth's attempts at stretching his voice well outside of his comfort zone, which wouldn't be half as bad if the tracks weren't structured so as to make his vocals their focal point. Just about the only recent track that does anything is "Cambodia", which chugs along nicely and I imagine might work well as the opening theme to an anime series involving airships. For real. No, no digs about a Kim Wilde cover beating out OMD or Kraftwerk - you can't hate on "Kids In America".

So, with the exceptions of "Cambodia" and the "Mourn" remake, "Sonic Diary" embodies pretty much everything that's gone wrong with Apop over the last seven years: egotistical yet pandering, bloated but short on substance, awkward and utterly forgettable. In closing, and by way of summing up how this record makes me feel, listening to it made the thought "this is a bad adaptation of a Keane song" pass through my mind. What could a "good" cover of a Keane song possible sound like? Argh. Damn you, Groth.

Apoptygma Berzerk - "Cambodia"

More Rhymes Than Leeb has Projects

Hip Hop and Industrial have had a rocky history of collaborations over the years. Despite having a lot of common ground historically (Afrika Bambattaa would spin Kraftwerk records at house parties in Brooklyn, Throbbing Gristle was influence by the dub and reggae coming out of the slums surrounding their studio) and a penchant for wanton sampling, most attempts to combine the genres are pretty underwhelming if not ouright awful. That doesn't stop us wondering though, what some team-ups between the lights of both scenes might yield. So without further ado Inner Ear Infection Presents: Industrial-Hip-Hop Collaborations We'd Like to See!

:Wumpscut: vs. The Wu-Tang Clan

Obvious one out of the way first. Rudy's productions are never short on atmosphere, and he's still capable of bringing some fly hooks now and again. The sampled guitar and breakbeat on his last real club hit 'Wreath of Barbs' even kind of sound like something the Rza might have tossed off for one of his much ballyhooed soundtrack joints. And if you check out the unforgettable 'Torture' skit from the Wu's debut album 'Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)' you know that Shaolin's Finest can bring the enzeit vibe if they want to. So say you get Pope Ratzinger to crank out a slow jam, get Ghost, Raekwon and Mef to spit a few roughneck bars a la 'Protect Ya Neck' and zing! A song which could in no way possibly be worse than FLA's ill-advised 'Victim of a Criminal'.

VNV Nation vs. Nas

Ronan and Mark seem to deal almost exclusively in their uplifting trance rip off business these days, but they had a few slower atmospheric jams on the first few albums which maintained an epic scope but had a darker, more forboding sound. 'Tempest' the B-Side off the Darkangel single might be the best example of this (and is a great track to boot). Meanwhile, Nas is the rapper most likely to make ill-advised religious allusions (check the cover to his bloated double-album 'Street's Disciple') and as evidenced by Puffy collab 'Hate Me Now' he can rock an epic number with the best of them. So yeah, get these guys in studio, let Ronan's just vague enough references to Christianity mix up with Nasir Jones' blatant Jesus swagger jacking come into effect and I'd wager you'd have a song of biblical proportions *rimshot*.

Cypress Hill vs. Cevin Key

Okay, this one is kind of obvious. Mr. Key's best material from the past couple of years has been what my friend Rob likes to call 'Stoner Techno', albums like Plateau's recent From the Vaults release and his two solo records from a few years back all sound best when your visiting with "The Green Guy". And Cypress Hill's weed smoking exploits need no introduction, they almost singlehandedly popularized rhyming about mary jane, mostly by rhyming about little else. It goes without saying that their music sounds best when you've burnt a few. So yeah, Get Muggs, Be Real, Sen Dog and Kevin Crompton into the studio, get them a few bags of primo chiba chiba and BAM. Guaranteed to be better than the Cypress Hill/Fear Factory team-up off that record where Burton Bell and company jumped the proverbial shark.

Jim Jones vs. Suicide Commando


Jones (aka The Dirt Angel) having deposed former Jay-Z weed carrier Cam'ron, is the erstwhile leader of New York's Dipset crew. He's not much of a rapper really, but as evidenced on last year's megahit 'We Fly High', he sounds pretty good over hard, simple synth beats. Enter Johann Van Roy, who as Suicide Commando has been producing tracks that rely on one repetitive synthline and some harsh drums for years. So get Johann to pound out a pre-set melody, get Jim to yell "Ballin'!" a bunch of times over it and I'm sure you'd have something that wouldn't be too far removed from either oeuvre. No matter what stupid shit Jones comes up with to rhyme about, it can't possibly be much dumber than anything Suicide Commando has done lyrically, ever.

Kanye West vs. Gary Numan

This one is kind of tenuous, but stick with me. Kanye is one of the most frustrating figures in hip hop, a critically beloved star of massive proportions who never seems to live up to his potential as an MC or as a Producer. Numan is a respected icon in the world of electronic music and post-post-punk, a guy who made several classic albums before a slide into mediocrity followed some years later by an unlikely resurrection doing the style of pop-industrial informed by his early records. It stands to reason that a confluence of Numan's paranoid post-human schtick and West's larger than life, flawed superstar persona would push and pull each of them in the right directions creatively speaking. If nothing else, Kanye could sample "Are Friends Electric" kinda like he sampled Daft Punk on his new single 'Stronger' and the results would be decent if not awesome.


All nonsensical skylarkings aside, there has actually been a pretty good genre crossover track this year. El-P had Trent Reznor guest on his album "I'll Sleep When You're Dead", yielding the quite excellent track 'Flyentology'. Worth a peep no matter what side of the fence you fall on.

news shorts

Andy Meya's in the process of creating a new Forma Tadre site. It's still in the middle stages of constructivitis (to cop a phrase from Uncle Mick), but there's some solid info on all aspects of the project's discography (even the photos in the liner notes!), and most importantly the news that a third Forma Tadre album is in the pipeline, making it the first in nearly ten years. Both "Navigator" and "Automate" are undisputed classics in my book, the former taking EBM into exciting orchestral and oceanic territory, the latter a stunning walk down twilight ambient avenues. Andy sez "the new album (no working title yet) will be a timeless electronic experience with a unique feel, style, atmosphere & heavy load of lyrics. No Future-Pop, none whatsoever." Boo-ya. Count another record under the FT banner one of the titles I'm most eagerly anticipating this year.
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Goth drama? On the Internet? Surely you jest! But no! And coming from the band with more "he said/she said/he released my demos in Europe without consent" history than any other: Christian Death. A new outfit, deemed Christian Death 1334 and featuring original "Only Theatre Of Pain" writers Rikk Agnew and James McGearty has been formed and is touring the classic material by "way of honoring our dear friend Rozz Williams and resurrecting the sound which is distinctly Christian Death."

Enter Valor, who retorts with "There is a bogus concert being organised by an unofficial 'TRIBUTE band', featuring the christiandeath name which is not christian death. It is billed as taking place in LA. Be warned that this is not christian death and steps are being taken to ensure that fans will not be ripped off as this is not the start of the long awaited tour."

I'll refrain from pointing out the hilarity inherent in Valor calling any incarnation of Christian Death "bogus" (if all of this is confusing, consult the wikipedia article on the band to catch up on one of the most confusing and bitter intra-band feuds EVR) and merely say that I'd be interested in hearing Christian Death 1334's take on the classic material. I'm not nuts about Eva O, never have been, but Rikk Agnew's a great guitarist and songwriter (peep his "All By Myself" solo record for some classic and classy SoCal punk), and there's no way that Christian Death 1334 can do anything but help restore at least some of the lustre to a legacy that's been tarnished for over twenty years by a bottomfeeder without a shred of dignity.

another failed idiom

Bruce: So, them Internets are abuzz about the impending debut release by Blaqk Audio. Why, might you ask, are media juggernauts like MTV bothering to give virtual ink to what amounts to Just Another Futurepop Album? Because Blaqk Audio is made up of two jabronis from AFI. But before we get into what all this means, let's address the material at hand, thus far consisting of two tracks on the band's MySpace.

Like many tepid electronic projects, Blaqk Audio are trying to claim diverse points of comparison in an attempt to con the listener into mistakenly hearing non-existent depth in their tracks: in this case they've opted for Echo & The Bunnymen as the talking point. Clearly this isn't the case, and anyone who's been paying attention to Futurepop and other club-friendly EBM recently won't hear anything here that hasn't been beaten to death over the past five years. More specifically, the two songs are wildly unbalanced, with elements dropping in and out of the mix seemingly at random, and not in a good way. Basslines vanish without a trace, choruses come and go indistinguishable from the rest of the stale offering. There's no semblance of an ordering principle behind any of this, either. Y'know how buffet restaurants always seemed great in theory when you were younger? Pizza, lasagna and chinese food all at once? But invariably you were disappointed: each of the elements were a pale imitation of what they tasted like at real restaurants, and the combination of all of the hollow simulacra on your plate at the same time just seemed like a cruel joke. So yeah: Blakq Audio are the musical equivalent of Buffet World.

As someone who doesn't really have too much time for straightforward, emotive Futurepop these days, I'm not sure that I'm the best person to be taking a sledgehammer to Blakq Audio's output thus far, but I will say this: even when it's devoid of inspiration or novelty, Futurepop is a craft-based medium. A couple of months ago I was enduring a recent A Different Drum comp, and after a brief period of listening it became readily apparent within a few seconds per song which groups did and didn't have a talent for turning out solid product of this type, whatever you think of it. Assemblage 23 and Seabound have it, Blakq Audio clearly don't. Don't be fooled, this is amateur-hour type stuff. Blakq Audio are jumping on the Futurepop bandwagon years too late with precious little to offer the party but stale Cheetos.

Alex: Would you even call this futurepop really? I mean, as problematic is that term is, I'd say it has more in common with some more recent synthpop offerings, like say Depeche Mode's 'Playing the Angel' than with anything VNV or Apop has done. Of course it should be noted that we're basing all of this on two songs, god knows what the album as a whole will sound like.

Bruce: Fair point (although I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with calling "Playing The Angel" synthpop). I'm wondering if this is yet another recent case in which contact between mainstream rock and the long-suffering standard-bearers of "this thing of ours" results in...something else. I think this paid off in spades for Apop when Mesh redid "Mourn" after years of Groth's sad attempts to rebrand himself as a super-sexy bona-fide Rock Star, whereas the notion of VNV playing for tens of thousands of Radiohead fans this summer is far too little, far too late.

As for the specifics of Futurepop and whether Blakq Audio fits the bill or not, you might be right. That said, I don't need to use the F-word to trash this stuff: it's still painfully derivative and awkward.

Alex: More than anything else, I'm curious to see how this will effect the goth-industrial club scene as a whole. My first thought is that this has the potential to bring a lot of attention and exposure to the music that's been motoring along selling nothing at all. Those of you old enough to remember the early nineties will recall when Green Day's "Dookie" broke big, and suddenly So-Cal Punk was a going concern after years of fermenting in the underground. See also No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" for the abortive Ska revival and Robert Miles' crossover megahit "Dreams" bringing Trance into the mainstream. With that said, those scenarios usually didn't do much to break other bands or artists in any real way, moreso they just introduced a wide variety of people to music they were otherwise unaware of and a small portion of the people who bought the records became aficionados of the genre. Other possibility is that this goes off like that She Wants Revenge record on a grander scale, wherein it brings no new fans to the genre, but gets mad spins in the club and has people requesting five songs off the album every god damn night.

Incidentally, apparently the one dude who isn't the guy who looks like a bitch claimed in an interview with some guitar magazine that AFI's single "Love Like Winter" was originally written for this project. That song is better than either of the tracks on the Blaqk Audio myspace, I'd be happy to play something along those lines if the full-length album has anything comparable.

The Remix: Das Ich 'Destillat'

Most of you who were frequenting EBM/Industrial nights just before the turn of the century probably recall Das Ich's 'Destillat', or at least the ultra popular VNV Nation remix. Not unlike Suicide Commando's 'Hellraiser', the chances of hearing the original or alternate mixes were pretty slim. After all this was all going down at the height of Ronan-mania, when DJs were looking for even more ways to cram some of that sweet VNV sound into their sets (and consequently dancers on the floor). I've always preferred the 'Club' remix of the track myself, and was pleased to see that Das Ich's new odds n' ends collection Addendum. It's the addition of the female vocals and the guitar sounding synth on the chorus that do it for me I think. Check this mix out and tell me it's not better than the VNV one. Seriously. Also, were the last two Das Ich records that came out on Metropolis any good? I kinda stopped paying attention after 'Anti'Christ'.

Das Ich - Destillat (Extended Club Mix)

And hey, there's even a video apparently!

Come Before Christ And Murder Kenny

World Serpent South Park is likely the best send up of World Serpent and neo-folk stupidity in general since Boyd Rice moved in with the Tanners on "Full House". Butters P'Orridge might be the best of the lot.

no escape from heaven

If yr halfway like me, you don't just think, you know that Curve never got half of the respect they were due before petering out 'round the turn of the millennium. Nowadays, with countless cross-over acts getting mucho play in goth-industrial clubs (is it more than usual right now or is it just me?), I'd push for the right label to do a best-of and/or remix release to showcase Curve's fuzzed-out to heaven, druggy goth-pop to a new generation of club kids.

But it's not a rehash of the past that we have to look forward to. I don't think it's unreasonable to claim that Collide more or less picked up picked up the torch left behind by Curve (Curve are still the cheap shorthand reference I pull out when I'm trying to sell someone on Collide), so the announcement of a collaboration between Dean Garcia of Curve and Statik and Karin of Collide under the name The Secret Meeting is both welcome and head-slappingly obvious. There are two songs up at myspace page (their actual homepage offers only a Katamari Damacy-esque purgatory of flash) which sound, well, like Collide and Curve, natch. The "Ultrashiver" album (I dare you to come up with a more obvious title for a goth/shoegaze record) is set for a June release.

(tip o' the hat to DJ Pandemonium for alerting us to this)

2006 In Review, Part 3

The Knife, "Silent Shout"
I'm not sure that anything I could write about the most (justifiably) lauded record of '06 will come as a surprise. A few months back I wrote that:

...their presentation of electro as a covertly biological form kinda picks up on where Bjork left off after the first two solo records (kinda like Goldfrapp's nature fixation), but also has all of the medical/power anxiety of, say, The Klinik (they're reappropriating the outfits of plague doctors fer fuck's sake - maybe it's Jung, maybe it's "The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen", but there's always been something abject about those beaks)...

I'll stand by that, pausing only to add that their focus on family dynamics is as equally captivating and potentially deep as their nature and medical fixations. Instead of going any further, I'd like to talk about how the record circulated in 2006 and what it meant to people.

Odds are you've heard the record, and odds are you heard about it from a friend and/or told someone else about it. Obviously there's nothing new about net-aided word-of-mouth buzz, but people's reaction to "Silent Shout" seems different to me, and not only because, unlike so much blog-hyped product, "Silent Shout" doesn't sound as though it's aged or lost anything since the day I first heard it - I can quite easily picture myself listening to this ten years from now, maybe on a rainy April Sunday, just after "Script Of The Bridge" and just before a bootleg of the 2011 Cocteau Twins one-off reunion show (fingers crossed).

No, "Silent Shout" didn't just resonate with people, it seemed to invite sharing in the most empathetic sense of the word. No hipster "I was here first" bullshit, but a heartfelt belief that this was music that your friends would benefit from by hearing. A recently removed YouTube vid of the band playing a radically revamped version of "Heartbeats" on tour (The Knife had never considered the possibility of being a live act until the success of "Silent Shout" indicated that there was a demand) included shots of a wide-eyed audience singing along with every word. The comments beneath the video often noted the audience's enthrallment with approval, The Knife becoming a conduit for reciprocal empathy and love. People in 2006 didn't just want The Knife to succeed on their own terms, they wanted The Knife's music to affect others the way it had affected them. When you consider how introverted, quiet and sparse much of "Silent Shout" is, it seems remarkable that it would inspire active communal engagement.

I'm not exactly sure what this means or how to theoretically frame it (the first techno-communal attempt to resolve Derrida's problems with "the gift"?), but I do think that it's a moment of rare beauty and hope that the best record of the year also managed to bring out the best in people: kinship, empathy, love.
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Kirlian Camera, "Coroner's Sun"
Kirlian Camera's discography remains one of the most eclectic in dark electro: running from italo-disco to neo-folk to pure ambient noise, their albums have been alternately terrifying, compelling, deliberately opaque, playful, infuriating, and heartrendingly gorgeous. With 2004's "Invisible Front.2005" Angelo Bergamini and Elena Fossi attempted to combine as many of the disparate elements in the project's history as possible. Astonishingly, they succeeded at all levels and even worked in a stellar club track ("K-Pax") for good measure. Now with "Coroner's Sun," they've managed to produce an even more varied record, which shifts between ethereal gossamer ("Beauty As A Sin"), haunting dirges ("Koma-Menschen"), and pure, screaming madness ("Kaczynski Code"). And it all might just make for their best record yet.

Their craft refines as their scope expands. Their power magnifies as they age. Moves towards accessibility are countered by ever strengthening psychoses. No one save Angelo Bergamini would muddy a straight 4-4 EBM by the numbers floorpacker by overlaying the shrieking of one of Theodore Kaczynski's manifestos, let alone use an album track to distribute his actual phone number to the ghosts that haunt him. Kirlian Camera continue their improbable, magnificent ascent in their twenty-sixth year of existence.
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Katscan, "Weapons Of Crass Dysfunction"
Katscan's sophomore release gave DJs plenty of stomp-fodder to drop in 2006, and admirably expanded from where their "Feral Bios" debut left off. They've got their snakebite and speed pogo-synth formula down to an art ("A Time For Hate," "You Love It You Shlaaggs"), but aren't afraid to go for classic 90s EBM ("Damn You All To Hell" hearkens back to quality Leather Strip material), or bump-n-grind industrial rock that owes not a little something to Rob Zombie or Marilyn Manson ("Zombie Machine'). Satisfyingly crunchy throughout, and full of cheeky-monkey cockney irreverence.

Xynthetic Progress

Vancouver's Xynthetic netlabel dropped a mammoth mission statement sampler a couple of months back which made quite an impression on us here at IEI, whetting our appetite for more tasty dn'b, electro n' glitch morsels. They've since expanded their menu to include four new EPs: I'd particularly suggest trying out the new Xyn release, "Blind Alleys," which builds shimmering atmospherics just beneath the beats. In an odd way I was almost reminded of Verhaeghen's recent Klinik stuff, can't quite put my finger on it...

Anyway, as with the sampler, all of the EPs are DRM-free, high bitrate, and absolutely free to download and disseminate under a Creative Commons license, but if you like what you hear half as much as we do, kick the boys some cash for their stellar efforts via the donation links.

Lynx and DAMN!

Is there anything more disheartening to a music geek than feeling hideously out of touch? That's how I felt when I discovered Sublight signees Lynx and Ram. Not only is it the kind of new school punky-electro I feel like I should have been up on, they're a local Vancouver act. So you know, I feel like an idiot for not knowing about them. At any rate, their debut record The System's On And It's Flashing Red came out a few weeks ago, and features a sound somewhere in the neighbourhood of recent Adult., with the seduction turned way the hell up and the drums set to 'spastic'. Some tracks like the sublime 'Our Bodies are Real' would only need slight punching up in remix form for them to really work in a club setting. Seriously, considering how unimpressive 2007 has been so far, this might be my favorite new act to put out a record. You can order it direct from Sublight. Updates if I get to see them live, which isn't that much of a stretch is it? I'm still with it!

Lynx and Ram "Our Bodies are Real"

Lynx and Ram @ Myspace

Also, peep the tunes by member Julian Fane, who apparently has a record of IDM/Shoegaze coming out on Planet Mu.

No More "Suicide Commando"

The signature track from otherwise unremarkable No/Wave Post Punk act No More, 'Suicide Commando' is one of those odd songs which is more remarkable for the breadth of its influence than its own qualities. Like a more immediate and engaging version of Kraftwerk's 'Hall of Mirrors', its repetitive keyboard line, cheap reverbed drum machine and unemotive vocals are a prototype for countless DIY electro and ebm tracks (not to mention giving fellow Belgian Johann Van Roy a name to work with), the likes of which are still coming out every day. Despite apparently refusing to perform it for a portion of the career, it seems that No More have now embraced the song recently releasing a 2-CD career retrospective entitled Remake/Remodel on which one whole CD is given over to covers and remixes of it. Unfortunately not included on the album is the excellent version by Vitalic, which we have provided below for your listening pleasure.

No More - Suicide Commando
Vitalic - Suicide Commando

Link: Suicide Commando der Song

The Rundown: Combichrist "What the Fuck is Wrong With You People?"

"It's funny how Andy has become the hero of goths everywhere, since he acts like the jock in high school that they always complain about. He parties hard, drinks hard, is a big beefy dude and loves sluts." - DJ Sound.Wav

I don't know when it happened exactly, but it seems like Andy Laplegua's Combichrist persona has become the hottest shit to hit the Goth/Industrial club scene since welding goggles. Kind of odd considering the fact that like all the Icon of Coil singer's side-projects, it doesn't really seem to have it's own identity. Truthfully, whether recording as Combichrist, Panzer AG or Scandy, Laplegua seems to just do whatever he's interested in at the time without much regard for establishing what each 'brand' is supposed to represent musically. Thus far from Combichrist we've had an album with a Noisex-like blend of Electro and Power Noise ('The Joy of Gunz') and a largely instrumental collection of techno-fied club bangers (the ultra-popular, ultra-dumb "Everybody Hates You"). Considering that, it's pretty strange to think that "What the Fuck is Wrong With You People?" is so hotly anticipated by the club kids. For all we know Andy could have decided to make an electro-polka record.

DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to be a serious critical review in any sense, so much as it is a casual overview of the album on first listen.

5 A.M. AFTERPARTY

The obligatory, unecessary intro track. Apparently Andy has been making prank phone calls.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?

The soon to be ubiquitous title track, somewhat reminiscent of Panzer AG's 'This is My Battlefield'. It's big, catchy and undeniably anthemic without resorting to the sweeping faux-grandeur of Futurepop. I dropped it at Sanctuary last night, people are already packing the dancefloor for it, shouting along to the chorus.

ELECTROHEAD

An instrumental version of this stompy club jam was released on the Industrial for the Masses Vol. 3 compilation a few months back, but didn't do all that much for me. This version with the addition of vocals seems way better, I'm starting to think it's actually the singing that tips these songs over from okay to entertaining.

ADULT CONTENT

You know, I get the impression that Andy thinks he's being kind of risque when he writes songs with cusswords in them. Also, I could be wrong but I think the 'Parental Advisory' warning on the album cover isn't a legit RIAA sticker, which is pretty hilarious. Anyways, this song is instrumental, and sounds like an outtake from the last album.

FUCK THAT SHIT

This is pretty fun and noisy. Word to Frank Booth.

BRAIN BYPASS

This is pretty boring and also 8 minutes long. Samples about drugs over a middling electro-beat. Whereas the album up 'til this point had been going at a brisk enough clip to ignore some of it's musical shortcomings, this derails things somewhat. If you listen to albums on your mp3 player, make a playlist and leave this off or stick it on the end for a superior listening experience.

GET YOUR BODY BEAT

Slightly different intro and outro than the single version released in '06, but otherwise the same enormous song we've been hearing for over half a year. This is possibly one of the best big dumb dancefloor tracks of the decade.

DEATHBED

Holy shit, this one starts off sounding kind of like "Too Dark Park"-era Skinny Puppy before going into a more terror EBM stylee. Totally unexpected and pretty great. Also, doesn't seem like it's trying all that hard to be a club song which is a nice change of pace.

IN THE PIT

Kind of aimless and lyrically profane but not terrible or anything. I stand by my earlier assertion that Andy's vocals can sell a song that would otherwise be fairly mediocre.

SHUT UP & SWALLOW

This one has a nice build before blasting off. It's probably a little long for what it is, but it fits nicely as the beginning of the final third of the album. Getting head seems to be the unofficial theme of this record.

RED

A slower, more shouty number. Perfectly serviceable. Bonus Industrial points for rhyming "auto-erotic" and "neurotic".

ARE YOU CONNECTED

This song title should really have a question mark at the end of it. But we'll overlook that as this zesty slice of EBM (which is not so far musically from some of the more aggresive Icon of Coil tracks actually) is just so darn enthusiastic.

GIVE HEAD IF YOU GOT IT

Oh wow. This transcends stupidity and enters the realm of the sublime. Andy wants sluts to give head, and doesn't mind saying so. Not since Funker Vogt's 'Shaven' has an attempt at irony been bungled so as to appear completely straight with such entertaining results. This is somehow completely awesome. An album highlight.

ALL YOUR BASS BELONG TO US

Although a quick google search yields no pertinent results, I can't believe this is the first time someone has used this as a song title. It doesn't have any vocals to speak of on it which is kind of disappointing, but is actually pretty solid anyways.

COMMENTARY: About as good as any club oriented record ever is with some outstanding moments. Get ready to hear "What the Fuck is Wrong With You?", "Electrohead" and God willing "Give Head if You Got It" a whole lot in '07.

Combichrist @ Myspace.

"What's left behind means everything to me"

Canadian distributor Storming The Base has discovered and is
selling a cache of "Seven Steps Of Nervousness," the long out-of-print and sole release by New York-based outfit NCC. "Seven Steps" was put out by Gashed in 2000 just before the label folded, and the band seems to have vanished off the face of the planet for all intents and purposes shortly after. So what's the big deal, you ask? What distinguishes "Seven Steps Of Nervousness" from the hordes of releases by other EBM bands who fell into the memory hole? The fact that this record slays.

Recorded when the three band members hadn't even hit 20, "Seven Steps" shows none of the heavy debt to influences that mark the debuts of so many other bands who'd go on to do astonishing things with an EBM template (Gridlock, Haujobb). Instead, this is a record that brutally attacks just about every EBM convention in the book by slamming them seemingly haphazardly against each other: trance-influenced builds lead only to ambient plateaus, beats erupt and abort indiscriminately, tempos swing radically in all directions. The predictability of so much modern dancefloor EBM almost seems to be being parodied, your expectations suckerpunched. You'll never quite get the hang of these cuts yet they're nothing if not compelling, rewarding, and fun as all get up to dance to. All this being said, there's not a moment or sound on this record that's sloppy: instrumentation, production and atmosphere are all honed razor-sharp, giving NCC a richly developed sonic world in which to rampage.

The easy way out call this record the sound of a young band trying to find their fit or make their mark, swinging aimlessly for a mode they haven't quite located, but that's not quite accurate. Sure, there's the keening, passionate need to put forth a mission statement of sorts that can be found on the debuts of so many bands who actually give a shit about what they're doing, but there's never a moment on "Seven Steps" at which you don't believe that NCC are completely comfortable and confident in the chaos they're dropping.

Like I alluded to before, concrete information about this band is notoriously scant, but a myspace page has recently surfaced. Whether it's official or not is unclear, but the myspace and site of vocalist Jay Slack mos' definitely are. Even better, the latter features some tasty mellow electro tracks Jay's done more recently. Check them out, check out the NCC tracks below if you've yet to hear them, and buy a classic record of exploratory EBM while you still can.

NCC - Seven Steps Of Nervousness
NCC - Weiteck

From Ground Zero to Year Zero

Alex: If you're the kind of person who reads music blogs on the regular, you've probably already heard that Nine Inch Nails have taken the ARG route with the promotion of their new concept album Year Zero. For those unfamiliar with the term, ARG stands for 'Alternate Reality Game', a kind of interactive narrative which rather than being presented as a whole is pieced together using real world resources i.e. websites, phone numbers and printed materials. In this case numerous websites (a comprehensive listing of which is currently available at Year Zero's Wikipedia page) have been found via clues in new NIN merchandise, which in concert with one another build up a pseudo-dystopian world that serves as a backdrop for the record's concept. Additionally, fans can call 310-295-1040 to hear a short message and clip of a new NIN song which serve to further flesh out the near-future setting. Even cooler, a spectogram analysis of the last few seconds of the leaked song 'My Violent Heart' shows 'The Presence' a hand like image(pictured above) referenced on iamtryingtobelieve.com and other websites.

What's most interesting to me about Year Zero as presented is that it suggests an enormous thematic departure from the standard angst-to-anguish spectrum that has been de rigeur for Trent since Pretty Hate Machine. Even a casual perusal of the near-future world suggested in the various Year Zero websites would seem to indicate that the overriding themes of the work are paranoia and disillusionment. Couched though it may be in the clothes of speculative fiction, the idea of despondency in the face of neo-conservative/religious zealotry, the continuing erosion of personal freedoms and a runaway military industrial complex doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me. Frankly, as much as I generally feel topical songwriting runs a high risk of smug sanctimony, I can’t think of any subjects that are much more relevant or deserving of artistic discourse in our current political climate. This persavive atmosphere of distrust and doubt is an incredibly fertile creative ground to sew, certainly more than the increasingly unconvincing adolescent turmoil Trent was still leaning on as recently as With Teeth. That's right: Trent Reznor has made the switch to a pundit cum prophet of post-millenial tension. I never thought I'd see the day either.

The Prospects

Ubiquitous Nu-Industrial Juggernaut/Home for Major Label Cast Offs Metropolis Records has a loaded release schedule for the months of March and April. Aside from another two albums in the endless stream of KMFDM re-releases (seriously, I keep forgetting how many albums these guys put out), a single and full-length from electro also-rans Client and a B-Sides n' Remixes album from FLA, the big M also has releases slated for scene heavyweights Combichrist, Wumpscut, Assemblage 23, and VNV Nation. In the interest of judging albums I haven't heard yet, here's a quick rundown of what you might expect from these records based solely on 30 second sound clips, a few mp3s I came across and my own prejudices. Feel free to come back in May and call me out for completely getting it wrong.

Combichrist 'What the Fuck is Wrong With You People'
Icon of Coil frontman Andy Laplegua's last album under this moniker was some of the most obnoxiously catchy disposable EBM of recent years. The industrial club equivalent of cotton candy, it seems great at the time but is ultimately insubstantial. That said his 2006 single 'Get Your Body Beat' is probably the best stompy club jam of recent years and if the 30 second clip of the album's title track from Metro's website is indicative of anything, the album could actually be a barnstormer.

:Wumpscut: 'Body Census'
I didn't actually buy the last two :W: albums after betting badly burnt on the execrable 'Bone Peeler' (although I hear tell from my compatriots that 'Cannibal Anthem' was alright), so I can't say the impending release of 'Body Census' is a shoe-in to set my world on fire. Certainly, the easy to mock You Are A Goth is really kind of inexcusable and would seem to point to another stinker from Rudy. Then again, We Believe, We Believe is pretty decent, if the rest of the album leans towards the latter and stays well away from the former it could still end up being middling to fair.

Assemblage 23 'Meta'
Maybe it's the clubs I go to but it doesn't seem like the kind of emotive futurepop Tom Shear is known for is still getting a lot of play for the dancefloor. With that in mind, all the Ass 23 records have been strong from a songwriting perspective and have had impeccable production, there's no reason to think this one is going to be any different. Of the available samples on the band's Metropolis profile, I think the Covenant-like Dirt, a B-Side from the first single is the most promising sounding.

VNV Nation 'Judgement'
This one could really go any which way. The last album had some good songs, but didn't have the catchiness or appeal of their monster second and third records. Unlike the rest of the albums I'm being unfair to here, I haven't been able to locate so much as a snippet of music to judge it by. That said, their PR write up mentions that the song 'Nemesis' features "pounding bass-line and melody to its electric-guitar like synth sounds" which could be kind of neat. On the other hand, apparently 'Testament' "could be described as an electronic-indie anthem", which sounds awful but might make sense considering the fact they're playing Coachella this year.

A Split Second - Flesh

First released on 12" in 1986 on Antler records (prior to that label's merger with Subway to form the imaginatively named Antler-Subway) 'Flesh' was the debut release from belgian duo A Split-Second. The track itself is a tasty slice of old school EBM, it's ultra-recognizable hook, pounding 4/4 drum beat and spoken vocals creating a sound comparable to more well-known contemporaries like the Klinik and Front 242 and paving the way for later acts like Bigod 20. However the most notable influence it would have would be in allegedly accidentally creating the mostly forgotten but highly influential genre of New Beat. According to legend (and Wikipedia), DJ Marc Grouls played the 45 rpm 12 inch at 33 rpms. Apparently the sound created by the slower heavier beats was like catnip to Belgian club goers and before long various acts (frequent;y the same people using different names) were churning out an endless string of sluggish electronic jams. Most notably, the musical trend would give birth to the Lords of Acid when producers Praga Khan, Jade 4 U and Oliver Adams teamed up to create their now trademark sex and acid jams. 'Flesh' itself was remixed and rereleased at a slower BPM, presumably so the record buying public could get ahold of the song in the form it was most well known in. This New Beat mix would become the most recognizable version of the song. The New Beat movement itself thrived briefly before its adherents and artists, perhaps intrigued by the sounds coming out of detroit and the UK moved on to other genres like techno, acid house and NRG, relegating the short-lived genre to footnote status in the history of electronic music. 'Flesh' itself however would show up again in the form of numerous remixes that would port it over to other contemporary forms of electronic dance music. A raved up remix by Koen Tillie would appear on A Split-Second's 1991 remix album Flesh & Fire and Paul 'Perfecto' Oakenfold would release a Trance version in 2001*. Concurrently, A Split Second founding member Chrismar Chayell released another remix album called Transmix which featured a track labeled 'Flesh (Jungle)'**.

A Split Second - Flesh
A Split Second - Flesh (New Beat Remix)
A Split Second - Flesh (Koen Tillie Mix)

*If anyone knows where I can hear even a sample of this version hit me up with a link.
**I don't know whether this refers to the genre of music or is just the name of the mix.