Cititrax/Minimal Wave US Vinyl & CDs

Review: Michel Amato aka Amato is a French producer more widely known as The Hacker. Alongside Miss Kittin, Amato has been a cornerstone of the European house, techno, and electro scene, dropping singles and album like bombs. Having contributed to a previous split 12" on Cititrax, Amato returns to Minimal Wave's sister label with a wondrous homage to industrial, EBM and electro in Le Desordre De La Nuit. The difference between The Hacker and Amato? The sounds of The Hacker are more constrained than this particular whirlpool of pseudo electro and gargling quasi techno. Whatever you want to call it, these four slammers are all made for the dark room dance, each one nastier than the other and all of them audibly produced by an artist with plenty of experience and effectiveness know-how.

Review: Cititrax proudly presents the debut LP from Another Body Found here, which is the latest moniker of A// who is well known for his pioneering work as Le Syndicat Electronique. Emerging from the French underground with a dark electro, industrial, minimal synth and wave style, he has a stark and visceral take on raw energy and haunting atmospheres. There are plenty of mechanical, hypnotic beats here with heft bass and hints of dystopian fears. The title track reimagines Bronski Beat's 'Smalltown Boy' and strips it to its emotional core, 'Lost In The Northern Lights' has a cold, urgent sound and 'Murderous Earth' is brilliantly unsettling and melancholic.

Review: It's been a delight to see Oliver Ho's Broken English Club project develop artistically over recent times, with some fine records for Jealous God and Veronica Vasicka's Cititrax label along the way. Suburban Hunting sees Ho deliver his debut Broken English Club album, featuring some 11 tracks of primitive electronics and cinematic pseudo techno cuts. Tunes like "Vacant", "Derelict", or "Scum" all share a loose techno framework, but the real aesthetic is much vaster than that, verging on remnants of post-punk, industrial and all that goodness and hybrid class that came out of the late 1980's. It's another fine addition to the sublime Cititrax discography, and we recommended it just as much as the previous numbers.

Review: Sometime Trilogy Tapes and Zodiac 44 artist Buttechno (real name Pavel Milyakov) arrives on Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax with his fourth album-length excursion. It could well be his best to date too, as we can confirm it has very few flaws, but plenty of atmospheric, ear catching fare to enjoy. He begins with the fuzzy, metallic mid-tempo techno creepiness of "March Cherskogo", before proceeding to flit between smooth horror-techno ("Back 2 The E"), melodious and spacey electro ("Elektroshirka", the foreboding "AXF"), mind-altering intergalactic chug ("Slow Durk") and sparse, crackling industrial techno (L.I.E.S-ish closer "808 Exec Dirty").

Review: Baby is the brand new album from Cosmetics, the Vancouver-based synth wave duo that formed in 2008 but have been rather quiet on the release front in recent times. having teased their return with a superb new pair of singles on 7" recently, now Cititrax/Minimal Wave finally unveil the full album in all its glory. This pair, which is made up of Nic Emm and Aja Emma, fuses artfully crafted synth and wave sounds into something new. It is dark but beautiful, with icy moods and grooves overlaid with the stunning vocals of Emma cutting through in their own alluring manner. The album comes on limited edition clear vinyl and marks a welcome return for this talented outfit.

Review: The KVB are Klaus Von Barrel and Kat Day, a hugely prolific duo who eschew thoughts of sync bait or best new music columns in favour of the next gig and the next record. Having made some notable appearances on the Downwards label, the pair makes a further illustrious step up with Immaterial Visions, a collection of music released on the Minimal Wave sub label Cititrax. Veronica Vasicka has been a staunch champion of their music of late, regularly slipping The KVB tracks into her weekly EVR show so it makes for little surprise that she'd look to put out their music on Cititrax. The subsequent eight tracks make for the boldest, most confident statement thus far from The KVB, demonstrating their palette reaches beyond the shoegaze tag they are regularly adorned with in the music press. The previously released "Dayzed" and "Old Lines" in particular are superb.

Review: Brighton based producer Richard Smith aka L/F/D/M who first emerged in 2013, inaugurating the Optimo Trax series with the Purple Maps EP before going on to release two EP's of hardware-driven atonal techno on Powell's Diagonal Records makes his bow on Cititrax "Dream Bleeds". Overflowing with body jerking industrial, raw acid/techno, the album hints of the warehouse sound of the late '90s and the caustic spirit of EBM. From opener "Cru" to "One Terminal", the eight tracks thread together; each starting point completely open, each new step informed by the last, shaped by emotion, inspiration and time.

Review: Citirax's next outing takes the form of a debut album from Los Angeles-based duo OP-ART. This pair, like so much great music of recent times, is born out of the creative isolation of lockdown and features Andrew Clinco, who you may know for his work with Drab Majesty. The alias they have adopted is an acronym of "Oblique Pleasures Amidst Rough Times" which they say reflected the challenges of their formation. Musically the duo is inspired by the 1960s visual art movement so embraces layered, psychedelic soundscapes with a minimalist approach and takes cues from New Wave artists like John Foxx and early OMD. OP-ART in particular focuses on analogue synthesis and gear like the Arp Odyssey and Moog Rogue while exploring time, romance, and existential themes with real emotional depth.