Review: A repress of Innershades & Betonkust's 2018 new beat sensation 'Forever In Boccaccio!' has long been requested by hardcore record collectors. And now it has become available and has been fully remastered and housed in a new sleeve design, limited to just 300 copies. It was first made, according to the two being it, in January 2017 "under grey Belgian skies," when they had been consuming lots of acid and new beat, which of course shows. The title cut is brilliantly dark and gothic but is backlit by haunting vocal harmonies and underpinned by a menacing bassline. The three other cuts explore similar moods and grooves with great authenticity.
Review: Fans of mechanical techno-not-techno sounds will be all over Minimal Wave's latest transmission from 80s French underground heroes In Aeternam Vale. Having reissued several essential lost works from the outfit last year, most notably the proto-Sandwell sound of "Highway Dark Veins", Veronica Vasicka delivers another two tracks from the vault. Stylistically mirroring that previous two track release the title track is an equally brilliant synth-techno beast which could easily pass for a Function track today, while B-side "Calling Somewhere" sounds like a cold wave version of proto-halfstep. Needless to say, the fact that these tracks are 22 years old literally left us speechless.
Review: IMS these days usually stands for the annual Ibiza Music Summit that kick starts each summer sedans, but for this disco-loving diggers out there, it means just one thing: International Music System. Here we have the latest reissue of some classic Italo disco tunes from the much-loved outfit, all remastered once more. This trip of top tunes have been taken from their 1983 album and they sound as good now as ever. 'An English '93' is a strident cut with melodies washing over the face of the cold drums and big chord stabs. 'Run Away' then gets breezy on a summer groove, and closer 'Bubble Rap' has that super old school feel.
Review: Vincent Fries second album as Italo Brutalo, the throbbing, darkwave and EBM-influenced heaviness of Heartware, has been given the remix treatment. There's eight high-grade, club-focused reworks to choose from, with our picks of a very strong bunch including CYRK's dark, twisted and funk-fuelled electro re-imagining of 'Reach Horizon', the glossy, big studio Italo-disco brilliance of Mufti's rub of 'Dream Machine' (think Stephen Hague producing the Pet Shop Boys circa 1986) and Shubostar's thickset, melody-rich, Bobby Orlando-influenced rework of 'Heat of the Night'. We'd also recommend checking out the two takes of 'Into a Sampler'. There's a raw, intense and breathless dark Italo-disco tweak courtesy of Fabrizio Mammarella, and a more chugging, atmospheric rewire by Kris Menace.
Review: IAMX is Chris Corner's solo project, which can be traced back to 2004, around the time his former band, Sneaker Pimps, went on hiatus. Spanning multiple genres, from burlesque-hued dark cabaret to electronic rock and unbridled dance music, there have now been eight studio albums, two remix records, two live albums and two experimental albums released under the moniker. Fault Lines² is among the finest in that oeuvre, and the most recent. Fresh for 2024, this collection of work paints a vivid picture of the artist - at times unsettling and slightly eerie, in other moments melancholic-yet-euphoric, it's dramatic, theatrical, innovative and strangely teetering on the brink of traditional and more explorative schools of sound. Probably not something you'll hear much like again this month.
Review: Identity Theft is the solo electronic music of Michael Buchanan, commencing in 2011 with the album Night Workers. Having previously released on labels such as Oraculo Records, Treue Um Treue, Record Label Records, and Katabatik, here he continues to astonish with the atmospheric, brooding and liturgical electro opus, Omnia Vitas. Rooted in Dusseldorf-school electro with strong leanings towards the more abstract krautrock origins of the genre, Vanitas continues to flesh out the themes of surveillance and paranoia - themes endemic to his music from the outset - albeit this time he also works in samples culled personally from the posthumous sonic archives of several departed (and unnamed) producer friends.
Review: Onsen Music isn't just the title of Shoko Igarashi's second album, but rather a manifesto of sorts. The name refers to a "genre" of music the saxophonist, flautist, and vocalist has created. A strange, bouncy-yet-angular corner of the electronic music universe that feels like it's inviting you to a party thrown by Mr Soft and a flying unicorn. Sounds extend themselves, curve, wobble, warp, float, glitter, and do everything else in their power to make sure you know this is a safe listening space that's equally danceable. Ever bubbly and colourful, 'Rainy' represents the full blown nu disco end of the record's vast spectrum, while the likes of 'Ukigusa' come over far closer to Ryuichi Sakamoto's clean, crisp and cuddly pop excursions - staunchly leftfield and out there, but strangely familiar and universally likeable.
Review: Dark Entries takes it back to New York City in around 1982 for this previously unreleased record from Ike Yard. This cult crew was made up of Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann, Kenneth Compton, and Fred Szymanski and they worked in their own realm somewhere between proto-body music and No Wave peers in New York. They disbanded just a year after forming having dropped an EP on Les Disques du Crepuscule in 1981 and then a self-titled album for Factory in 1982. Using the Korg MS-20 and the Roland TR-808 they cook up plenty of hybrid electro-acoustic sounds and ramshackle rhythms that are underpinned by moody baselines and perfect to get bodies moving in the club. Whether you're a post-punk fan or lover of weird electronics, this is well worth checking out.
Review: The arrival of Il Quadro di Troisi could not have been more ironic. Anything but new faces on the music scene, the Italian electronic partnership of Eva Geist and Donato Dozzy debuted as the reality of living in a pandemic really began to hit home - November 2020. A month that usually calls for their brand of dark, Ital-disco-cold-synth stuff was void of the situations you'd want to hear it in. No parties, no clubs, no concerts - not even an opportunity to stick it on when getting ready to do something. Nevertheless, we've more than made up for it now, and having grown incredibly close betwixt that waking nightmare and today's chaos, the arrival of a new LP is an enticing prospect. As the notes explain, "everything changes, all things evolve, nothing stays the same... La Commedia marks the band's embrace of a more traditional song form, shaped by a very personal and distinctive musical style. The distinguishing elements of Il Quadro di Troisi's music meld into a unique mix that is both seductive and eerie, elegant and earthy, contemporary and timeless."
Review: This fresh new LP by Inconscio Viola, an experimental electronic duo from Greece, flaunts eight cuts of dark, ambient-atmospheric EBM and intersperses them with industrial and noise influences. Limited to just 50 copies, an aura of specialty adorns this one, with gothic gated snares and ghostly verbed-out shouts ricocheting across every track. Most riveting is the toothy saw line on 'Wounds', which sounds to peppered with the whispers and roars of a demon throughout.
Review: Ionnalee's 2018 debut album "Everyone Afraid To Be Forgotten" was superb, so hopes are high for the artist's similarly minded sequel. "Remember The Future" is a little bolder, shinier and more upbeat than its predecessor, though stylistically it still sounds like a 21st century update of Kate Bush's distinctive early '80s sound circa "The Dreaming" and "Hounds of Love". It's a dreamy, ethereal and otherworldly take on electronic pop that's always alluring and often memorable. The album's plentiful highlights include "Some Body", the superb Zola Jesus collaboration "Matters" - a deep, bubbly and intoxicating affair - and "Mysteries Of Love", an echoing, Royksopp-produced cover of a song from David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti's "Blue Velvet" movie soundtrack.
Review: It is now five years since Nabihah Iqbal got widespread critical acclaim for her debut album Weighing Of The Heart, and finally, she is back with another. This one, Dreamer, was two years in the making and finds the London-born artist, curator, broadcaster and lecturer offering up her most reflective and raw work to date. This versatile talent has done everything from composing music for the Turner Prize to being involved in a performance as part of a major Basquiat retrospective. Here she reflects on pandemic experiences having let the ideas develop in her head before she even turned on her machines.
Review: Italoconnection deliver the second volume in their Midnight Confessions Italo trance albums series. The partnership of Fred Ventura and Paolo Gozzetti first saw the first edition of Midnight Confessions in 2021; three years later, a whole new fresh set of modern yet true-blue Italo sonics are unleashed. As Ventura's unmistakable lead vocals regale tails of optimistic liaisons and lost love, Gozzetti's monumental production style brings a torrential sheen to an otherwise well-known Italian dance style. On the likes of 'Cold War Lovers' and 'Systematic', we hear a further set of ruminations on current events, the former track marking a synthwave sojourn as Ventura laments the energetic anomie, the inhibitions of today: "we should be dancing, we should be dancing all night..." Released on a limited edition 2xLP via Bordello A Parigi.
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