Gangleri – music reviews

It has been five years since the interesting debut of this Romenian duo. “Dialogue” mixed different kinds of music into an interesting style. On “Divine Skinny” there is again a mix of styles, but the result differs from the previous album. After hearing the Myspace tracks I got myself a copy of the new album, but I must say that I am disappointed by it. The cd opens interestingly with a mix between folk and industrial, but most of the tracks are rather bluesy, minimalistic, slow tracks, mixed with electropop and other poppy sounds. Especially the female vocals are not my thing (I prefer the photos of the very skinny Julie in the booklet) and the music is quite boring at times. I do like the fact that the bands presents something very uncommon and perhaps some more (than four) listenings will make the album grow a bit, but I can currently not give too much praise to it.
Links: Divine Muzak, Punch Records

The female half of Thorofon / The Musick Wreckers is back. It is only recently that I got to know Geneviève Pasquier (about a year ago) and I have to admit that I pulled her three earlier releases off the internet. I like some of the songs on these albums. Pasquier has a nice mix between oldstyle industrial and electropop, but the result is less predictable than this description suggests. On “Le Cabaret Moi” Pasquier has a little bit more of a ‘cabaretesk’ sound, the lyrics are now mostly in French and Pasquier incorporated a few new sounds. Still the new album is recognisable in song structure and style. Poppy songs with strange distorted industrial sounds or simply rhythmical industrial with Pasquier’s singing, most of the time nicely catchy. Yep, an original style and I happen to like this relatively more accessible current in the extreme electronics scene and this album is a very nice one in this direction.
Links: Geneviève Pasquier, Ant-Zen

There is this Dutch project called Distel that makes “angstpop”. Indeed this sounds like Haus Arafna / Galakthorrö and the few tracks that I heard are not all that bad. Supposedly there is an album on the way so every once in a while I check if it is already available. Then I noticed that the band has a few live shows, under which a “Gifgrond” party with an “Enfant Terrible” label night in Tilburg coming Saturday. Gifgrond? Enfant Terrible? The latter turns out to be a label with quite a few releases out, the last of which is this compilation cd. “With Radio Resistencia we give another overview of independent music as we see it… and this time not strictly limited to electronic music.” So: “angtpop”, “elektro chansons”, “dada synth punk”, “obscure 80′ies”, a good place to pick up new genre-names! Most of the music on this compilation sounds quite a bit like 80′ies wave and more modern electropop to me. Some tracks are completely electronic, some more rock-oriented. Most tracks are just nice, some are not my thing and a few are quite enjoyable. Different music from what I play usually, but that is a good thing, right?
Link: Enfant Terrible Productions

Recently I have searched through the electropop/-punk scene since I kept running into interesting music from that corner. Now there is a lot of typical electropop that comes nowhere near the level of Vive la Fête, but there also appears to be a lot of very experimental and progressive material with crazy humour and weird ideas. Dandi Wind is a female vocal artist who puts together some weird and wonderfull music. The music is more electropop than a Duchess Says or Motormark, but sounds nothing like Crystal Castles or ADULT.. This is mostly caused by Dandi’s use of vocals, but the music itself is not too typical either. The music is catchy and danceable, but you have to like to crazyness. “Concrete Igloo” (2005) is a great album, “Yolk Of The Golden Egg” is even more experimental, but it is a bit tame compared to the predecessor. There are a couple of more rock-oriented tracks that are nice, but overall I like “Concrete Igloo” better.
Dandi Wind, Summer Lovers Unlimited Music

Damn, there is so much crazy music out there! A while ago I ran into a digital compilation with 64 tracks varying from electropop to electropunk to experimental punk and all kinds of weird stuff: “Modern Mutants handbook” it seems to be a compilation of a music lover going around on P2P networks. A great pile of mostly new music. “Digital Penetration” is a real compilation from a real label, released on a real cd. The music is a crazy and varried as on the illegal compilation. You get to hear Duchess Says with a rather typical electropop song, but already the opener of Kap Bambino is weirder than some Cock Rock Disco stuff. I guess in a way most music can fall under the banner of electropop(/-punk), but this is as varried as it can get. From trance-techno-like songs, to more breakcore sounds to even digital poprock and who-knows-what. By far not all tracks are brilliant here, but some of it is worth digging through that scene more.
Alt Delete Recordings

Crystal Castles supposedly are one of the earlier electropop groups, but it seems that the releases do not go back before 2006. This album with no title is the only full-length so far. I knew the name, but not the music. Crystal Castles has some of the more typical soft electropop tracks, but some tracks have weird, distorted female vocals that I hear with more electropunk oriented bands. Other tracks are completely over-the-top Atari-sounds tracks with strange rhythms. I guess I only knew the more accessible tracks (which are the most on this album) and therefor never really paid attention, but the band has a weird side too. Not my favourite from this corner, but not all that bad either.
Crystal Castles. Different…

“Pop:Up” opens brilliantly with a fast punky track. Next up are digital rhythms with guitar and crazy (distorted) vocals. Not all tracks are explosive, but all are great. Electropop and electropunk. I wish I had heard of this Scottish band before they quit.
Motormark @ Wikipedia, Popchild Records