Archive for May 2009
So the new Rome is a mcd, a “teaser” for the new album? Because of the new label perhaps? Four tracks of which two are rerecorded old tracks. Three times poppy neofolk and an ambient/industrial sound collage. Not bad, but I prefered a new full-length. I guess I will have to wait.
Links: Rome, Trisol
I like the idea behind this album: after having played them live hundreds of times, thought them over, etc., Matt Howden decided to rerecord some songs “as they should sound”. The album contains some songs that I already had, some not, but all are the better tracks and indeed, they sound better too. Some sort of ‘best of’ for old and new fans and with nice artwork.
Links: Sieben / Redroom
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
Here we have a very interesting band. Duchess Says easily goes from typical electropop to more rock-oriented experimental tracks with (apparently) real drums (“post-rock”?), but this album opens with a magnificent experimental punk song that even the 70′ies artpunk bands would have never come up with. Weird screaming female vocals, lots of guitars, is this perhaps a rock band with electronic influences? Modern artpunk? I don’t mind. This is great and weird stuff.
Duchess Says, Alien8 Recordings
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…
I decided to review two albums of a disbanded project. I just discovered this great band while digging through the genre and this is probably my favourite band in this vein so far. Too bad they are no longer around, but that does not prevent me from reviewing their music.
Motormark makes sleezy electropunk with guitars and electronic rhythms. The distorted female vocals and crazy male vocals remind of the B-52’s sometimes, but like other bands in this vein, there are gothic/wavey elements, too. However this is pretty poppy, Motormark goes towards a more punk-feeling that I like a lot. Even though this album was released by Digital Hardcore Recordings, the music has little to do with Atari Teenage Riot or Ec8or. Simple lyrics, simple songs, but effective and catchy. “Chrome Tape” does not have the more typical electropop tracks like the predecessor and it is the better of the two, but I like “Pop:Up” too.
Motormark @ Wikipedia, Digital Hardcore Recordings
“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
What a nice surprice, a new Dead.Circuit cd fell on the doorstep today! Limited to only 97 copies comes this 26 minutes cdr with 3 tracks that the label describes with the very nice term “cinematic noisescapes”. Inspite of the variety of styles that this Dutch project uses on its flyers, the sound of this “industrial tribute to the routine of working class society” has the style of the previous release that I reviewed. This is great, since Dead.Circuit knows how to make dark noisescapes. This is not a piece of chaotic noise, but nicely structured, with many samples, just think about Propergol or Sistrenatus and about as good as these two too! I hope a label like Hermetique will pick up this project soon.
Links: Dead.Circuit, Alampo Records
