Pasquier’s new release is a 35 minute “ep” that comes in a cardboard box with some additional sweet-stuff. The music is in line with previous albums, electropop with an industrial edge. The songs are nice and catchy, but unfortunately not as industrially dirty as her show last night in Utrecht. A nice mini album though.
Links: Geneviéve Pasquier, UMB
Man I wanted to be at this festival, but the night was impossible for me. I should have seen Geneviéve Pasquier much earlier than yesterday and however I did see Propergol already, it would not have hurt (perhaps the ears, but who cares) to see him life again. Now I see some pictures…… Fortunately for all those who were or were not present, there is this compilation. It is supposedly limited to 250 copies, about 100 of which get an addition flyer and card. I got my copy from Pasquier and my copy says “Geneviéve Pasquier limited edition 02/17″ which seems to imply that each artist got a few copies to sell as well. In a nice foldout cover and with the nice artwork of the flyer comes an 8 track cd with with three tracks of Pasquier, three of Propergol and two of Bad Sector. These are not recordings of the performances by the way. Pasquier opens moody with a trance-ambient song, but continues with her catchy industrial electropop including the title track of her new album. Propergol seems to have stepped off the ambient soundscapes path (for a moment) and comes with great harsch industrial noise. Bad sector contributed an ambient track and a ‘club remix’. In total spanning only 35 minutes, this compilation may be a bit short, but very nice, especially regarding the fact that most tracks are exclusive.
Link: Chamber Music
I got this wonderfull compilation when I bought the new Geneviéve Pasquier which is released on United Manipulation Broadcasting. It opens with a great and noisy version of Pasquier’s “Existance”, they way I like her. What follows next are mostly exclusive tracks or alternative versions of The Musick Wreckers (very nice), Tonal Y Nagual (including their apparently only good track), Thorofon and Dogpop. Then the sound gets more industrial noisy with Kommando and M.A.O. After this we go to the neofolk project Jägerblut which is not my thing. To close off we get a project that is new to me: Lambitani, a true UMB project with a weird combination of industrial and folk. A very nice compilation, especially when you get it for free! I guess that if you want a copy yourself, you should just order the new Pasquier directly from UMB.
Link: United Manipulation Broadcasting
Another album with rare songs and alternative versions of Von Thronstahl. I feared I would have most of them, since I have most material of the band and quite a few compilations with Von Thronstahl on them. The nice thing about “Conscriptvm” is that there are songs that were recorded, but eventually did not make it to albums because they did not fit. Therefor there are not only different versions of tracks that I already had, but also new songs. Good news for the people who prefer the early style of the band is that most tracks of the first cd in the old style, there is even a version of “Sturmzeit”. Not that there is much of the dark orchestral industrial style, but the music for the larger part is not of the rocky kind of nowadays. The second cd has more ‘neofolky’ songs. All in all I can say that “Conscriptvm” might not contain the best material of the band, but as usual it is a very nice album to listen to.
Links: Von Thronstahl, Cold Spring
At the height of the fascist-musicians-hunt, Der Blutharsch came to the Dutch city of Leiden in September 2004. Of course the at that time usual raids of protests arose, but the major did see no reason to justify a prohibition and the show continued. The whole event became national news, especially when some of the local politicians said to go and see the show and Albin provocatively answered insinuating questions during the interview. There were no protestants outside the venue, but visitors were checked for ‘forbidden symbolism’. People had to deposit their iron crosses, while being the bandlogo at the time, they featured meters-high on each side of the stage. In the end everything was pretty much ‘a storm in a glass or water’ as we say here in the Netherlands. The politicians found the show tasteless, but not illegal.
Almost six years later, Albin decided to release recordings of the show, possibly for the old fans who are not happy with the new sound, as a reminder of people who were there or maybe as a bit of provocation, because the provocation ebbed away in recent years. The sound of the recordings is much better than I expected. The music is of course the martial industrial style with out of tone singing. I am not too fond of live recordings, usually studio recordings sound a lot better, but “Live In Leiden” is indeed a nice reminder.
Link: Der Blutharsch, WKN
It is not really the time of the year to release dark drones, is it? Inspite of that here we have a 20 minute 3″ cd with one track of Dead.Circuit and one of Luna Dopa. Dead.Circuit created a slow and monotous drone track. Low frequencies, almost no other sounds, a nice track. Luna Dopa also contributed a minimalistic track which is more soundscapish, but adds some guitar sounds (?) which I find not particularly appealing. The parts without the guitars are nice.
Links: Dead.Circuit, Luna Dopa, Industrial Culture
One of my favourite bands comes with a new album. Four years after the magnificent “Event Nihilisti” comes “Ere I Perish”. Again the band goes from industrial to (neo)folk and back, everything with their very own rock’n'roll’ish style. Nihilistic lyrics and music combined with sometimes dark, sometimes catchy songs and strange experimentations, Luftwaffe the way I like them. “Ere I Perish” is again an album that grows on me. The first part is mostly pretty dark, the latter half more folky, but in both styles, the tracks are again very interesting and original. Yep, Luftwaffe created another album that will find its way to my player frequently.
Links: Luftwaffe, Old Europa Café
Of course it was to be expected that Dernière would move away a bit more from the “martial” sound, but “Immortel” is far far worse than I feared. The sound is still recognisably Dernière, but the tempo went down and with the even more cheesy way of singing, the songs can hardly be called “catchy” anymore; “boring” or even “irritating” is a more fitting description. A few songs start like things will get better, but as soon as the singing comes in and the speed drops again, we are back to zero. I am sorry, but there is little positive that I can say about this album.
Links: Dernière Volonté, Hau Ruck!
Some seven years ago I reviewed the demo of this project. I was aware that this demo later got a regular release, but not until now did I notice that the band slightly changed it’s name going from lights to light. Seven years ago “sounds like Der Blutharsch” was still a selling-line and however Le Testament indeed has some martial edges, the music was more ambient than industrial. Actually, the same can be said about this new album. “Echoes Out Of Time” starts with minimalistic and monotous soundscapes with a bit of drumming, but towards the end the music becomes more industrial with here and there a touch of noise. I am still not particularly impressed by the old style, the last few tracks are alright. Overall this album is not really convincing, but perhaps you happen to enjoy ‘martial ambient’.
Link: Steinklang
“Triangle Of Sorrow” is the first release of Dead.Circuit’s label “Hidden.Circuit”. The release notes and the flyer seem to suggest that the music was composed jointly and that the result is something between “dark drum ‘n’ bass, ambient passages, broken beats and industrial soundscapes”, but the album with well over an hour of music has five tracks of each project, very separate tracks. First up is Septicserpent and inspite of a nice idea here and there, overall his music is not too appealing soft and light dance music. The soft and light touch is blown away by Dead.Circuit’s magnificent first track “Embracing Uncertainty”, an 11-minute “noisescape” in the Propergol style (or rather of course “Repressed Memory Theory“). After this we get Dead.Circuit’s “new direction” in the form of a dark ambient track that goes over into something IDM’ish. “Time To Heal” is a soft techno track like those on the first half of this album, but then we get some more rhythmical industrial sounds with “broken beats” which sound alright. An ambient track closes “Triangle Of Sorrow”.
The more interesting project is Dead.Circuit the ‘old style’ track is brilliant, some parts in other tracks are very nice, other parts/tracks are less so. Of course it never hurts to experiment and since this cd is only € 9,-, it does so neither for the listener.
Links: Dead.Circuit / Hidden.Circuit, Septicserpent
