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Review: Dark Entries will reissue the first 4 full-lengths from Carolyn Fok / CYRNAI, an Asian-American female solo artist from the Bay Area. The 6xLP box set contains all of Carolyn's officially released music as CYRNAI between 1980-1990, as well as bonus materials. Most of these songs will see their first vinyl appearance ever in a deluxe edition limited boxed set (333 copies). Remastered by George Horn, the set features an exclusive 48-page booklet with photos, quotes, interviews and liner notes written by Carolyn and introduction by Greg Allen (author of 'Klaus Schulze, Electronic Music Legend'). Over 70 songs, 4 hours of music, spread across six records plus an exclusive bonus 7" of cover songs by The Cure and Gang Of Four all packaged in a black matte wrap box with crimson red foil stamping.

Carolyn's adventures in sound began with recording stories on a tape recorder at age 9 in 1976. A short time later, exploring the scattering of musical instruments and effects units her father left lying around the family home. She became especially fascinated by his TEAC reel-to-reel recorder that set off a lifelong fascination with sound design. By the age of 16 Carolyn had become inspired by industrial electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, as well as anarcho-punks Crass. Creating the stage name CYRNAI, a rearranging alphabet of Carolyn Fok, she played in several Bay Area bands including Treason, A State Of Mind, Trial and Rhythm & Noise between 1983 and 1991. Her debut release as CYRNAI, 1985's 12" EP 'Charred Blossoms', followed by the cassette albums 'Parts of The Insomnic Wheel' in 1986, 'Hypno-Seizure' in 1987 and two versions of 'To Subtle-Drive' in 1989/1990.

Despite having been featured in publications including Electronic Musician, Keyboard and with a long term association with Industrial music, Carolyn has remained an intensely private musician, artist and writer until now. However, she has launched an ambitious project that involves releasing her vast archive of music as a 'memoir' via her website memoirofsound.com. Having spent extensive time in the studio amassing around 100 albums worth of electronic and experimental music, field recordings, collaborations, band projects and more, these are now being released in one place. "Her time is beyond due to be recognized, represented and attributed for her contributions to experimental analogue culture with sounds still fresher than tomorrow." Eloise Leigh (New Age Rage, Berlin Community Radio)

Review: We are honored to release a 5-LP Vinyl Box Set from one of the key figures of New Age music, Suzanne Doucet from her incredible run of cassette only albums from 1982-84. Suzanne was born in Tuebingen, Germany where as a three year old, Doucet discovered her innate artistic gifts. Instinctively, she was always drawing, playing music, singing, and writing. By the age of 18, Suzanne was an established pop star in Germany with several #1 hits. She also made her mark as a composer, actress, TV moderator, director, engineer, and producer. At age 25. she took a sabbatical from the music business to go on a spiritual odyssey. In 1970 she released a triple album of field recordings and mind-expanding psychedelia under the name Zweistein. For the next ten years, she developed her own style of New Age music while exploring many areas of metaphysics and spiritual practices, including astrology, music therapy, tarot, yoga and the Kabbalah.

In 1979, Doucet launched a record label in West Germany named Isis, after the Egyptian goddess of feminine divinity. She formed the duo New Age with her musical partner Christian Buhner, and released the 1982 cassette album 'Transformation', which was inspired by a visit to Findhorn, Scottland. Suzanne and Christian recorded acoustic sounds such as waterdrops and vocals using sophisticated sound manipulation devices and muli-track recording techniques. The only electronic instruments used were the Jupiter 8 and the Roland TR-808 drum machine. The next year the duo began work on the follow-up 'Transmission', which released on cassette in 1983. After this release, Buhner and Doucet moved to Los Angeles, hoping to find more kindred spirits in the burgeoning New Age scene there. Doucet met Tajalli (William Wichman) whom with she would collaborate with on the 1984 cassette 'Brilliance'. That same year Doucet married Video Artist and Yoga instructor James Bell. Together they recorded two albums, 'Reflecting Light Vol. 1' and 'Reflecting Light Vol. 2', using a Roland JX-3P, TR-909 and a Steinway Grand Piano. Both cassettes had mirrored covers, a reference to the Zweistein jacket 14 years prior.

For the first time Suzanne's cassette music is available on vinyl, in a limited run of 300 box sets. Each is stamped with a rainbow foil of the goddess Isis and includes an 8-page full color magazine designed by Eloise Leigh with liner notes, photos and reflections by Suzanne. We also have a small amount of stand alone albums available housed in jackets using the original cassette artwork. All albums have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. Doucet's career placed her at the forefront of blossoming New Age Music movement. "People all over the world become more and more inner directed", she says, "New Age Music is the music of the new millennium. We are all pioneers, our work is on the vibrational level, which is the essence of all being. Our inner environment and the outer environment are co-dependent. This is the reason why music is so important for our lives. Whatever I can do to bring consciousness expanding music to as many people as possible, I'll do... and I'll devote my total being to whatever I am doing!"

Review: Dark Entries makes the rather impressive milestone of 300 releases with a superb triple album from the Creative Technology Consortium. These tunes were written during the worst of the Covid pandemic lockdowns and find Traxx, Andrew Bisenius, and Jason Letkiewicz all combine to explore film and television music of the 80s and 90's through their vast array of vintage analog and digital synthesizers. The 25 resulting tracks are not just retro homages to those times but bring plenty of EBM, funky bass and cosmic chord patterns to the dancefloor.

Review: "The Next World Sound Series is a collection of work by contemporary sound artists working in long form instrumental composition and translated to the tangible medium of vinyl. These modern day offerings capture the analog quality and experience of last century electronic recordings, presented to you with today's technological advances in home playback, for your environmental listening pleasure." Or so say heads at the iconic and truly enigmatic label Dark Entries of this latest addition to their catalogue. A collection of work that spans the strangely frantic sci-fi tones of 'Oberenginen 0930' to the almost monastic drone of 'Soma', dubbed and muffled drums and vocals on 'Lixsm', club-ready broken beats of 'Destruct', and the evocative futurist refrains and samples of 'John Gore'. As expansive as it is exploratory and adventurous, you'll need to set aside some serious listening time for your first play here.

Review: Last year San Francisco label Dark Entries reissued School Daze, a collection of gay porn soundtracks by hi-NRG icon Patrick Cowley. It proved to be one of the year's best reissues, catapulting Dark Entries to wider attention and reinvigorating interest in the late Cowley's music. It's great news then that Dark Entries has elected to reissue more Cowley material, this time Catholic, the "lost opus" Cowley recorded in San Francisco between 1975 and 1977 with Jorge Socarras, vocalist from '80s American art punk band Indoor Life. Described by Dark Entries as a "genre bending concept album that ranges from minimalistic prototechno to synthdriven postpunk", Catholic is every bit as good as School Daze, and proof there's a lot more to Cowley than just his hi-NRG productions.

Review: Amongst those that keep track of these things, German trio Hyonobeat are considered proto-techno pioneers. While it's not known whether Detroit's Belleville Three were fans, you could argue that Hynobeat's rhythm-focused approach pre-dated both techno and Chicago house. Thanks to this fine retrospective from Dark Entries, you can judge for yourself. The material included was all recorded between 1983 and 1986, with the wild, off-kilter polyrhythms and ragged TB-303 lines of "The Arumbeya Fetish", mutant electro of "Kilian" and high-octane thrust of the decidedly out-there "Mission in Congo" standing out. Remarkably, Hypnobeat would chain together drum machines and bass synthesizers to create their tracks - a practice that would later become common during the acid house era.

Review: Having previously impressed with their reissue of Patrick Cowley's brilliant, all-synthesizer soundtrack to obscure '70s gay porn flick School Daze, Dark Entries and Honey Sound System once again join forces to shine a light on the high energy disco pioneer's work for San Francisco's Fox Studios. Unsurprisingly, it's another impressive collection, and features material recorded for a number of different pornographic films. There are naturally more up-tempo moments - see "Somebody To Love Tonight", which would later be re-recorded with Sylvester, and the synth-weirdness-meets-jazz-funk brilliance of "5oz of Funk" - but it's the impressively cosmic and exotic ambient moments, such as the stand-out "Timelink" and "Jungle Magic", that really stand out.

Review: School Daze is a killer compilation put together by the Dark Entries label and the Honey Soundsystem crew, collating some of the early recordings produced by Patrick Cowley in the years between 1973-81 and were later used as soundtrack material in two gay porn films. You will probably know Cowley for his Hi-NRG output or 'that' Donna Summer remix or his behind the buttons work on Sylvester tracks. Be prepared for a surprise (well quite a few as the 'explicit content' warning on the cover lives up to its billing) as this collection presents Cowley as a producer capable of many styles and moods. The closest School Daze comes to the sound Cowley is most identified is opening track "Zygote" and from here the collection runs through primitive electronics, short bursts of wave and more with a few extended gems that highlight Cowley's talent for arrangement. One of the compilations of the year!

Review: Dark Entries is pleased to announce a deluxe reissue of Sexual Harrassment's 1983 opus I Need A Freak. Lynn Tolliver, DJ/Program Director at Cleveland's WZAK, adopted the pseudonym David Payton in order to keep his musical endeavors separate from his public persona. Sexual Harrassment (misspelled deliberately) was formed as a concept band, with members selected based on appearance and choreographic skill rather than musical ability. Tolliver's explicit lyrics focused on the central themes of desire and sexual relations. Working at a studio in Akron, he recorded an album of quirky-yet-lurid electro funk, which was released on Heat Records. Tolliver remarks, "I learned as a youngster, sex sells! The things that are rated the worst - violence, horror and sex - are the things people want to see or hear about." I Need a Freak was a surprise hit, selling over 100,000 copies.

Review: The final part of Dark Entries' long-running series of archival Patrick Cowley releases showcases tracks originally recorded for Afternooners, a late '70s gay porn film by director John Coletti. As with previous Cowley releases on Dark Entries, the double album also contains previously unheard material rediscovered from the Fox Studio archives. It's another essential collection of atmospheric synthesizer music in the producer's distinctive style, all told, with tracks ranging from the whistling cheeriness of "Hot Beach" and the sparkling, cowbell-laden throb of "One Hot Afternoon" to the dubbed-out, semi-ambient dreaminess of "Bore & Stroke" and the humid, upbeat "Jungle Orchid".

Review: Dark Entries are back with another one of their gold standard reissues, this time focussing on the next level synth punk album Music From Hell from LA band Nervous Gender. They formed in 1978 with Phranc, Gerardo Velaquez, Edward Stapleton, and Michael Ochoa all cooking up this weird and wonderful mix of post-punk, minimal synth, and early industrial music. It has been remastered for this album, which is also expanded onto a double LP. The album kicks off with unsettling shockers then goes son to a live performance the band labelled "an electronic bruto-canto dissertation on the banality of spiritual transcendence." It's packed with occult melodies and odd bleeps and whirrs to make for a beguiling and haunting listen.

Review: Linea Aspera is the London duo of Ryan Ambridge (Synths/Programming) and Alison Lewis (Vocals/Synths). They began the project in November 2011, technically drawing inspiration from electronic music from the early 1980s. Within the duo, Alison writes and performs all vocal elements, while Ryan is responsible for the writing and performing of the electronics, as well as recording and mixing of the final recordings. For their debut album they utilized small, simple analog synthesizer set up: Roland SH-09, Roland Juno 6, Vermona DRM MKiii, Korg Poly 800 and Analogue Solutions Semblance. Linea Aspera's sound includes clear influences from early electronic body music, classic synth-pop and, in some instances, industrial and noise. Lyrically the band incorporates the sciences of osteology, neuroscience, and anthropology weaving a new medical language around themes of desire, despair and renewal. Linea Aspera serve up an icebox of dark doom riding on Alison's powerful vocals with a soft but sharp touch.

Review: El Deux is the Swiss electro-pop trio of Gutze Gautschi (guitar, vocals), Steno Onetz (bass), Martin Kraft (vocals, drum machine). Formed circa 1981 in Aarau by Gutze and Steno who played together in punk/New Wave band Fresh Color aka Frische Farbe featuring a pre-Yello Dieter Meier. Gutze's minimal electronic compositions did not fit the concept of Fresh Color, so they formed a new project with their live mixer, Martin Kraft, on vocals. The group was quite successful with many concerts, mainly in southern Germany and various TV appearances in Germany and abroad. Between April/September 1982 they recorded and mixed their debut album 'Nur Fur Madchen' in 15 days at Powerplay Studios, Zurich. The LP was released later that year on Gold Records. Influences at that time were of course the NDW "Neue Deutsche Welle'' movement and also from Gutze's time as a musician & guitarist since 1965. Their step up for recording was a Moog Prodigy, Korg Rhythm 55 (KR-55), Simmons Drums, Casiotone 202, Guitar and Bass. We've added a bonus track "Video King" that was originally released as a follow up single in 1984 before the group disbanded. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The record is housed in an exact replica of the original jacket and includes an insert with photos and lyrics.

Review: Oh mama, it's the second instalment of one of the most hotly tipped compilations around! The Bay Area Retrograde series from Dark Entries and this second chapter particularly, showcases San Francisco's buzzing post-punk and noise scene of the early 1980's, so we're talking real pioneering stuff here! There's everyone from Factrix to the legendary Tuxedomoon, but also some lesser known and more obscure names such as Chrome - a truly badass outfit if you ask us. Dark Entries couldn't have done a better job and this is the leftfield pick of the week from us!

Review: We are honored to reissue the 4th full-length from Carolyn Fok / CYRNAI, an Asian-American female solo artist from the Bay Area. Carolyn's adventures in sound began with recording stories on a tape recorder at age 9 in 1976. A short time later, exploring the scattering of musical instruments and effects units her father left lying around the family home. She became especially fascinated by his TEAC reel-to-reel recorder that set off a lifelong fascination with sound design. By the age of 16 Carolyn had become inspired by industrial electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, as well as anarcho-punks Crass. Creating the stage name CYRNAI, a rearranging alphabet of Carolyn Fok, she played in several Bay Area bands including Treason, A State Of Mind, Trial and Rhythm & Noise between 1983 and 1991.

By 1988 Carolyn's recording gear had many changes and upgrades, from cassette 4-tracks, 8-track reel-to-reel 1/2 inch, a TASCAM 388 to DAT, to floppy disk sampling. She spent three to four nights a week developing sequences for 14 hours from 10pm onwards. Samples would sometimes begin on a Synclavier keyboard with its sophisticated sequencing capabilities. Her fourth album, 'To Subtle-Drive', was self-released in 1988 as 8 untitled songs spread across a 30-minute cassette. Then in 1989 Carolyn discovered the first Digidesign digital recording software and changed the project to have more ethnic sounds and samples stemming from tapes collected during a trip to Egypt. In 1990 'To Subtle-Drive' was re-released with 2 songs from the 1988 release and 4 new compositions. This reissue adds 5 bonus tracks recorded during the same period spread across a double LP set. Each copy includes a double sided insert with lyrics, photos and notes by Carolyn. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. "Old-soul beat tracks on cassette with time and techno-guilotine songs."

Review: We are honored to release 'A Boy Alone', a double LP set from Manchester electronic music pioneer Eric Random. Best known for his early recordings for New Hormones and Les Disques du Crepuscule and collaborations with Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks), Cabaret Voltaire and Nico. As an original member of The Tiller Boys with Shelley, Random injected a healthy dose of Krautrock into the dour Manchester post-punk scene in 1978/79 before going solo the following year. Random's first 7" "Subliminal"/"23 Skidoo" was released in 1981 via Les Disques du Crepuscule and explored ominous sonic surrounds. That same year also saw the release of a second 7" single on New Hormones, "Dow Chemical Company"/ "Skin Deep". Both tracks offered bubbling, rhythmic sound patterns, and were the first to feature other musicians that would become know as The Bedlamites. Consisting of Lynn Walton on vocals, Ian Runacres and Andy Diagram of Dislocation Dance, and bassist Wayne Worm, aka Wayne Sedgeman. Their debut 12" single "Subliminal Seduction"/"Bedlam-a-Go-Go" was released in 1982 through Plurex, mixing arid funk textures and sparse melodies. That same year the group contributed proto chill-out track "6.55" to Plurex compilation 'Hours' and the highly filmic track "In Cassette Conference" to the Touch cassette package 'Feature Mist'. In 1983, Random spent several months in the Himalayas with a group of musicians from the Kulu Valley and studied non-Western instruments such as tabla. On returning to Manchester, Random convened a new group of Belamites including Walton, Sedgeman and drummer Graham Dowdall aka Dids of Ludus. They released the 12" single "Mad As Mankind"/"Dream Web Of Maya" in 1984 on Cabaret Voltaire's Doublevision, embracing electronic, industrial and dub styles. In 1985 they contributed the soothing "Pure Power" to Food Records' "Imminent Episode One" compilation. Our reissue also includes 4 unreleased bonus tracks from Eric's archives recorded between 1981-1984. The whole set adds up to 115 minutes of sinister, somnambulant Random music. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. Each copy is housed in a gatefold jacket designed by Eloise Leigh featuring a spread of ephemera, photos with liner notes by James Nice of LTM.

Review: Konstruktivists is the Industrial project of Glenn Michael Wallis from Kent, England. In the late '70s Wallis was a "control agent" for Throbbing Gristle and the Industrial Records crew. Influenced by Krautrock bands like Can, NEU!, Cluster/Harmonia as well as Tuxedomoon, Yello, Chrome, and SPK, Glenn began to record his own material. After several cassette releases, Konstruktivists' first LP 'A Dissembly' was released in 1982 followed by 'Psykho Genetika' in 1983 and 'Black December' in 1984. That same year Wallis collaborated with his friend Chris Carter, of Throbbing Gristle and Chris and Cosey fame, on CTI's 'Conspiracy International One'.
In 1985, Glenn spent a week at Chris and Cosey's studio recording 11 tracks that would become the 'Glennascaul' album originally released on Nigel Ayers' Sterile Records. Produced and mixed by Chris Carter, it marked a complete change in style for the band towards a beat-orientated rhythmic sound. 'Glennascaul' is proto electro at its very best, with Glenn's hallucinogenic vocals on top. A musical collage designed to invoke images in the mind. The back cover clearly states "No guitars. No Fairlights." For this deluxe reissue we've added two bonus tracks recorded around the same time, now vinyl for the first time ever. All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The record is housed in an exact replica of the original jacket featuring cover art, which is a co-production of Trevor Brown, Nigel Ayers and an image Glenn Wallis supplied. Each copy includes a double-sided 8x11 insert with liner notes by Nigel Ayers, press clippings, and photos.

Review: Brooklyn-based queer nightlife luminary Jasmine Infiniti self-released her debut album, BXTCH SLAP, in March 2020. Dark Entries steps forward to present the album remastered and on double vinyl. Over the thirteen disruptive club cuts of BXTCH SLAP, Jasmine conjures occult rave incantations with sub-tectonic bass and seductive harmonies. Audaciously championing R&B, vogue, and hip-hop sounds, Jasmine Infiniti's latest collection of techno-hybrid dance tunes is built for the dancefloors of underground nightlife. While SiS, her debut EP, was an ode to queer solidarity, community, and sisterhood, BXTCH SLAP refines the art of personal myth-building. It is an unflinching and uncompromising album, but it also boasts surprising range, moving briskly between ethereal hardcore house ("HOTT"), anxious dark electro ("SPOOKED"), and certifiable techno bangers ("YES, SIR", "WELLFAIR"). Meanwhile album standout "<3" hovers just above 100 BPM, a defiant statement of euphoric sensuality that's no less gripping for its dramatic deceleration. Closing number "SHONUFF" clocks in at ten and half minutes, but not a second of this acid-laced adrenaline rush feels wasted. BXTCH SLAP might be suited for the high-impact dancefloor, but this music takes on a new life in the moments we spend between the parties, alone and full of desire.

Review: Originally out on Ink Records way back in 1985, Severed Heads' Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In The Past is a personal favourite of ours from the iconic Australian act. The band were and always have been one of the few post-punk outfits to truly push the boundaries and diverge onto what some may now call proto-techno. Inside this particular LP, you get a sublime example of their signature percussion style, a fast-paced rattle of steely drums and hi-hats surrounded by odd bundles of lo-fi and distorted synth grit. With the amount of amazing tunes at the core of this beast, it would do the album no justice to just describe the all to you in mere words, but what you need to know is that the music here is totally timeless, a glorious journey down the greyer ends of the 80's dance movement, and a magnificent introspective into what is surely Australia's most interesting band of all time. Essential gear.

Review: Victrola is the duo of Antonio "Eze" Cuscina and Carlo Smeriglio from Messina, Italy. The band formed in 1979 but shortly thereafter relocated to Florence take part in a rich musical scene alongside Neon, Pankow, Alexander Robotnick, and Diaframma. Beginning as a 4-piece (two guitarists, bassist, drummer) they slimmed down to a synthesizer and guitar-based duo by 1982. Their sole release was the now classic "Maritime Tatami"/"A Game Of Despair" EP from 1983, which we reissued in 2012.

'Born From The Water' is a 12 song collection of unreleased demos recorded between 1983 and 1985. The band sent us over 100 cassettes, through which we dug to compile the first volume of their archival darkwave ballads. They used an array of Roland synthesizers (TR-606, TB-303, TR-909, Juno 6) plus a Korg Polysix, Yamaha DX7, Casio VL-Tone VL-1, DR-55 Dr. Rhythm, and Fender Stratocaster and Jazz Bass. Some of the songs would later appear on various compilations, but the versions presented here are unique. Victrola engulfs the listener with trance-inducing synth lines, oblique minor-key bass lines, angular guitar riffs, and melancholic vocals. The songs tell tales of youth, love, karma, and the decline of civilization in modern times. Each song has been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The records come housed in a jacket designed by Eloise Leigh, which uses motifs from the band's sole release and includes an insert with liner notes and photos.

Review: Patrick Cowley was one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the canon of electronic dance music. Born in Buffalo, NY on October 19, 1950, Patrick moved to San Francisco in 1971 to study electronic music at the City College of San Francisco. By the late '70s, Patrick's synthesizer techniques landed him a job composing and producing songs for disco diva Sylvester, including #1 hit "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)". Cowley created his own brand of peak-time party music known as Hi-NRG, also dubbed "The San Francisco Sound." By 1981 Patrick had released a string of his own dance 12? singles, such as "Menergy" and "Megatron Man". That year, he co-founded Megatone Records to release his debut album Megatron Man. Meanwhile, Patrick was hospitalized and diagnosed with an unknown illness, which would later be named AIDS. Recovering for a spell, in 1982 he composed two more #1 hits, "Do You Wanna Funk" for Sylvester, and "Right On Target" for Paul Parker, as well as a second solo album Mind Warp. His life was cut short on November 12, 1982, when he passed away two weeks after his 32nd birthday from AIDS-related illness.
Mechanical Fantasy Box is a new collection of 13 unreleased songs recorded between 1973-80 released in tandem with Cowley's homoerotic journal of the same title. What you hold in your hand is a collection of Cowley's work from the years preceding his meteoric rise as a pioneer of Hi-NRG dance music. This was before drum machines. Before programmable, polyphonic digital synthesis, this is experimental music in every sense. Sounds flows from funk to kraut to psychedelic ambient electronics inspired by Tomita and Kraftwerk. As David Diebold stated in Tribal Rites, "Patrick Cowley parted the veil and entered a dark world of forbidden forces, wondrous musical panoramas and bold, strident, hopeful possibilities. Patrick brought the future to us and laid it at our feet."
Some songs were mixed from 4-track stems by Joe Tarantino and all songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studio in Berkeley, CA. The vinyl comes housed in a black and white gatefold jacket designed by Gwenael Rattke featuring a photograph by Susan Middleton, liner notes by bandmate Maurice Tani and an 8.5x11 insert with notes.

Proceeds from Mechanical Fantasy Box will be donated to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, who have been committed to ending the pandemic and human suffering caused by HIV since 1982.

Review: Helena Hauff's A Tape first appeared on cassette back in 2015, winning praise from critics for its machine-driven fusion of EBM, industrial, acid and dark-wave elements. The set showcased tracks recorded over a three-year period, mostly with a stripped back studio set-up (TB-303, TR-797, TR-808 and a couple of Roland synths), which didn't make the cut for her Werk Discs debut, Discreet Desires. Now, Dark Entries has decided to issue the album on vinyl for the first time, allowing those of us without tape decks to revel in Hauff's off-kilter machine funk, intoxicating electronic soundscapes, and acid-flecked, late night workouts.

Review: Angelyne sophomore LP, Driven to Fantasy is the latest great album to get reissued as part of Dark Entries' 15th-anniversary celebration. Defined by her voluptuous, Barbie-esque allure and hot pink Corvette, Angelyne emerged as an enigmatic figure in 1984 who graced LA billboards with a provocative presence. The mystique and allure around her built to a peak and culminated in this second solo album released in 1986. Featuring eight tracks of bubblegum-hued new wave, Angelyne blends LA punk grit with flashy synth-pop on sassy titles like 'Sex Goddess' and 'Skin Tight.' This cult classic, now pressed on pink Corvette-coloured vinyl, includes a 2-sided poster with lyrics and commemorates the legacy of a true Hollywood legend.

Review: Lena Platonos, born on the island of Crete in Greece, is simply not revered enough these days, often out of the spotlight. However, those who know, know very well what this musician is all about, and of the dynasty she has left to the wider music scene. The 1980s were hers, with more than ten albums having come out in quick succession, before being lost in the depths of the second-hand market; 1986's Lepidoptera, which Dark Entries have reissued wonderfully, is one of her very best works. Irrefutably non-genre and non-wave, this quirky collection of electronic shapes and improvisational ideas hasn't aged a day in 32 years, and there is nothing to suggest that similar sorts of musicians have pushed the boundaries any further. Balanced between exotica and electronica, this is pure Greek music with a twist. Moody, sensual and deeply enriching, this is an album for the ages. Recommended!

Review: Dark Entires continue to lead the current cold wave and synth scenes from the front, this time by reissuing genre giants Severed Heads's debut album Clean from 1981. This version comes with liner notes by band member Tom Ellard plus photos and press clippings from the period that make it even more essential. Musically, of course, it is a unique mix of synth-heavy post-punk mixed with industrial rhythms and violins that groan and moan. The textures are rough and confrontational and the album has often been referred to as 'ugly' for that reason. 25% of all proceeds for the Clean reissue will go towards the Fire Relief Fund for First Nations Communities in Australia.

Review: There had apparently already been much feverish speculation around the true identity of the musician lurking behind the moniker Forbidden Overture because of the exceptional soundtrack to the 1982 queer bath house fantasy 'Turned On'. When a few of the more astute observers of the 1986 women-in-prison exploitation flick 'Bad Girls Dormitory' spotted some overlapping use of the same music from 'Turned On', it was revealed that Forbidden Overture was in fact US electro pioneer Man Parrish - a fact that seems obvious once you know. Using his unmistakable classic production techniques - only employed in very different ways to his dancefloor smashes - the building, oozing 27 minute epic 'Primal Overture' and the cheekier, more wry 'Strictly Forbidden' form one of the soundtracks of all time, even if the bath house frolics of the film itself have retreated into the changing rooms of obscurity since. Its director Steve Scott commented: "It took us about two weeks to find the right piece for the jockstrap scene. But it's like anything else-you know when it's right." The same could very easily be said of this must-not-miss release.

Review: Roy Garrett born Roy Sambar in Colonia, New Jersey arrived in New York City hungry to explore the sex and porn scenes he'd seen advertised in the Village Voice's classified section. He danced in Times Square theaters The Gaiety, Ramrod, and Big Top before moving into adult film. From 1979 through 1983 Garret starred in ten films, five of them for Joe Gage, including his lead role in 'Heatstroke'. Throughout this period of self-discovery, he wrote the suite of poems that became 'Hot Rod to Hell'. In 1982 he recorded 48 of the poems with haunting, atmospheric score by Man Parrish, who also did several soundtracks for Gage. The project was produced for the stage and for cassette by Manhattan illustrator Robert W. Richards. Richards calls 'Hot Rod', "a searing voyage through the labyrinths of modern male sexuality; it's geography ranging from porn theaters to back room bars to the intimacy of shared beds. Only a man born at exactly the moment in gay history that Garrett was could have lived through and conceived this work." Roy Garrett tells his stories of sex, violence, truth, and illusion, a visceral and personal a record as any of that moment in gay history pre-AIDS. Joe Gage, describes 'Hot Rod' as, "...sweet danger. This is a perceptive look at the underside of love. It is funny, scary, surprisingly moving and best of all, extremely acute in observing the specifics of the human condition." All poems have been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The records come housed in a jacket designed by Gwenael Rattke and includes an 44-page full color magazine with all 48 'Hot Rod' poems plus 44 previously unpublished poems from Garrett's archive. All proceeds from 'Hot Rod' will be donated to Housing Works, a New York City based non-profit fighting the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.

Review: We are honored to reissue the 2nd full length from Carolyn Fok / CYRNAI, an Asian-American female solo artist from the Bay Area. Carolyn's adventures in sound began with recording stories on a tape recorder at age 9 in 1976. A short time later, exploring the scattering of musical instruments and effects units her father left lying around the family home. She became especially fascinated by his TEAC reel-to-reel recorder that set off a lifelong fascination with sound design. By the age of 16 Carolyn had become inspired by industrial electronic act Cabaret Voltaire, as well as anarcho-punks Crass. Creating the stage name CYRNAI, a rearranging alphabet of Carolyn Fok, she played in several Bay Area bands including Treason, A State Of Mind, Trial and Rhythm & Noise between 1983 and 1991.

In 1986 Carolyn moved into her family's building in downtown San Francisco providing a space to develop her own art and music for the next two decades. She was the only tenant of the five story building. The top floor had 36 abandoned rooms with building materials and holes between floors, staircases that created natural reverb. It was during this isolated time that Carolyn would start working on her second release, 'Parts of The Insomnic Wheel,' 60-minutes of ten untitled pieces that ran into each other. This was also the first release on cassette due time constraints of the LP. She spent many nights at the 24-hour diner across the street chatting metaphysics, parallel universes, the 5th dimension and astro-projections. Carolyn would sleep next to paper/pencil and report dream states, experimenting with mental techniques, investigating how far her mind could go. It was a journey to unravel the 'dark night of the soul'. Utilizing her industrial surroundings, Carolyn would bang on sheet metal and record percussion on found materials. Originally released by Ladd-Frith in 1986, this reissue adds 4 unreleased bonus tracks recorded during the same period. Each copy includes a 16-page zine with lyrics, photos and notes by Carolyn. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios.

Review: Veteran electronic experimentalist, producer and sound engineer Colin Potter began his career at the turn of the '80s, self-releasing cassettes on the ICR label. 'The Where House?', which here gets the Dark Entries reissue treatment, was one of his earliest releases, originally slipping out - unheralded, of course - in 1981. This first ever vinyl edition includes all 13 tracks from the original cassette release - think far-sighted proto-acid, bubbly electronic soundscapes, curiously strange ambient, backwards tape experiments and instrumental minimal wave throb-jobs - plus a quartet of hard-to-find contemporaneous productions that previously featured on various mid '80s tape releases. Like the original album tracks, they're deliciously out-there and thrillingly ahead of their time.

Review: There are plenty out there - the team behind Dark Entries Records included - who will happily tell you that that Time Actor is one of the finest and most overlooked albums of the 1970s. It was the debut full-length of Richard Wahnfried, an alter ego of pioneering German ambient don and electronic experimentalist Klaus Schulze preserved for collaborative projects. In the case of Time Actor, that collaborator was Arthur Brown (he of "The Crazy World Of..." fame), whose half spoken, half-sung vocals provide a focal point throughout. Musically, the album is deliciously trippy and other-worldly, with Schulze delivering a swathe of fine electronic grooves and bubbly Berlin School soundscapes. This edition also boasts a brilliant bonus track: a 12-minute, 1983 "Afro-cosmic" revision of the title track by Italian Maurizio Delvecchio.

Review: Honey Soundsystem's Dezier comes correct with this immaculately detailed debut album. From the circuit board presentation to the album narrative itself Parler Music is a lavish affair that stretches the perception of everything we've learnt about him on labels such as Cin Cin, HNYTRX and Public Release. Back again on Dark Entities (where it all began for this alias five years ago) Parler Music is a fluorescent romp through tempos and emotions; the white knuckle synthwave of "Un Subalterne Insubordonne", the iced-out electro of "Teleconference", the sleazy off-beat slinks and triumphant chords of "Entr'acte", the pregnant cosmosis of "Une Salade Oblongue", the list of immersive synthscapes and stories goes on. A genuinely beautiful debut album.