Review: Gothenburg trio Amateur Hour is Hugo Randulv, Julia Bjernelind and Dan Johansson, and Gar I Kras is their fourth album. It builds on the expansive Krokta Tankar Och Branda Vanor from back in 2022, and though still experimental and out there, it might also be their most accessible and polished work yet. Dreamy lo-fi pop meets gritty electronics and sound collage throughout as damaged linger above humming basslines and grimy guitars underpin detached vocals. It's a haunting but beautiful soundtrack for outsiders who like music from the fringe but that retains a sense of human warmth and soul.
Study For Tape Hiss & Other Audio Artefacts (12:01)
Apparition 5 (2:14)
Review: Selected from a decade of recordings, this release showcases Bass Communion at its most experimental and texturally rich. Tracks are layered with analogue imperfectionsitape hiss, wow and flutter, static noiseithat are transformed into haunting soundscapes. The mellotron, buried beneath layers of imagined rust and dirt, adds an eerie, organic depth to the fragmented drones and spectral noise. The carefully constructed album feels like an excavation of forgotten sonic artefacts, with each piece offering a narrative rooted in decay and texture. Pressed on 2xLP, this is a striking addition to the Bass Communion catalogue, perfect for fans of sonic exploration.
Review: First released in November 2024, Belief Disconnect's Desire & Discontent follows up on the preceding Decadent Yet Depraved, and cements their status as commentators of our times. If last time took a sledgehammer to the monstrous face of a world presenting as one thing but actually something more brutal and savage, this marks our arrival in different time. Masks, like gloves, are off, sides drawn, and the knife edge society and civilisation now rest upon is cast in sharp relief. This is dark, and we mean very, very dark, stuff. It's industrial. Like, super factory-sized industry. Tracks are full of rage. There's the sense that human aspects, a vocal for example, are emanating from solitary confinement somewhere in the depths of a Borg ship. And yet hearing and listening are acts of catharsis - Desire & Discontent is as much about giving us an outlet as it is reflecting a dystopian sci fi narrative which may be on the verge of coming true. Belief Defect certainly seem to think there's a chance, anyway.
Review: Belief Defect's Moe Espinosa and Luis Flores bonded over a love of early industrial music - and even now, some six years on from the pair's debut album, its influence is still very much in evidence. But that doesn't mean that this, their eight track sophomore effort, harks back to the days of Throbbing Gristle et al. Rather, the Berlin duo take their taste for the uncompromising and sonically shocking and twist it into new shapes, equally informed by experiments from the leftfield of electronica and sharpened up by acute sound design. 'Apprehension Engine' is technically ambient - it's certainly beatless - but the way it steadily frazzles and burns itself up is edgy and unsettling rather than being chill out material. 'The Witching' splices doom-laden, deep voices with lumphammer kick drums, while 'Celebrate Me!' is a gloriously half-Suicide, half-Autechre mix of cyborg aggression and throbbing sequencers. Not one to be listened to with the lights off we reckon... It'll be all fright on the night!
Review: Broken English Club is the alias of techno veteran Oliver Ho and here he explores his signature industrial wave and post-punk sound with unflinching intensity as he lands on Dekmantel's UFO Series with Songs Of Love And Decay. It is a raw, brooding album dedicated to the late Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant with tracks like 'Crawling' and 'Death Cult' echoing his tribal techno roots. 'England Heretic' meanwhile channels eerie synthwave and Giallo vibes and 'Vessel Of Skin' delves into distortion-laced post-punk that contrasts with the stark futurism of 'Pacific Island Kill.' Ho blends cinematic textures with club energy throughout so makes for a dark, emotionally charged tribute that pushes beyond typical boundaries and is sure to resonate in the club.
Review: Imagine a world where the pioneers of hip-hop and electro reign supreme, their sounds echoing through the neon-lit streets of a futuristic metropolis. This is the world that Clipping creates, their music a heady blend of gritty beats, razor-sharp rhymes and dystopian soundscapes. 'Dominator' and 'Change the Channel' set the tone with their raw energy and infectious hooks, while 'Run It' and 'Go' showcase the group's lyrical dexterity and knack for crafting intricate rhymes that weave tales of technology, alienation and social unrest. Collaborations with Aesop Rock, Nels Cline and Cartel Madras add further depth and dimension to the album's sonic tapestry, each artist bringing their unique flavour to the mix. Tracks like 'Simple Degradation' and 'Mood Organ' delve into the darker corners of this dystopian world, exploring the anxieties and uncertainties of a future dominated by technology. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is a thrilling ride through a world of futuristic sounds and thought-provoking lyrics.
Review: As we hapless reviewers make our way through these five new experimental LPs by Current 93, we cannot help but feel increasing torment and terror at the figures portrayed on the front covers of each record: hand-painted by David Tibet himself (the artist has increasingly indulged such formal solo trend-buckings through his own Cashen's Gap imprint in recent years) they appear like sleep paralytic demons or the ghosts of cancelled English folk yore. All the records are apparently ritually connected to a recent string of live appearances between London and Hastings, and Tibet's penchant for demonologic peerage titles such as GreenSleeve Drakon and Gnostic Sketch - blurring a sense of self-referentiality and occult otherworldliness - leave us bewildered and slack-jawed.
Review: English experimental group, Current 93, was founded in 1982 by David Tibet and set out to explore industrial music with abrasive tape loops, droning noises and distorted vocals. As Real As ScareCrows is a haunting new chapter in Tibet's arcane vision, and it was released alongside four other LPs to mark recent Channellings in London and Hastings. Ritualistic and esoteric, the album feels like a spectral transmission or "ScareCrow scaring crows away after Menstrual Night," as Tibet describes it. It's a deeply unsettling and bleakly poetic work that is unmistakably C93 in its mood and mystique. Each copy includes a signed risograph print of Tibet's painting, making it as much an art object as a musical release. A beautifully eerie offering from one of Britain's most enduring and enigmatic cult acts.
Review: Dawn Yawns is one of five new 12" records released at the same time, documenting one or two - if not more - furtive live sets performed by Current 93 (David Tibet) between London and Hastings in early 2025. On this quintet of new transmissions, dream and daylight are heard in grisly merger, on the back of an umbral awakening from a polar slumber, where the blood moon never sets, known to C93 fans only as the "Menstrual Night". Be warned, however, these eerie recordings have a sure capacity to mark the soul in unprecedented ways.
Review: Another of five LPs by Current 93 (David Tibet) through his own audio-esoterica label Cashen's Gap, this brilliant yellow and green hued LP nods to the universally recognised colour of earth-ground wire, and comes in the wake of a recent two part set of "channellings" (live performances) in both London and Hastings. As ever, Tibet steers the dream ship through surreal poetics and creaking soundscapes, and offers us a risograph print of his artwork, titled MayBe Skeletal RainBow, or perhaps Building The RainBow PainBow Preparing For Menstrual Night (we're not sure).
Review: Moony Tunes is one of five new 12" LPs recently unveiled by David Tibet aka. Current 93, mad witch doctor of the post-80s industrial continuum. An ever-morphing project, Current 93 always implies motifs of apocalyptic folk, dream logic, and esoteric revelations, and this volume, subtitled Preparing To Sleep In Menstrual Night, feels like a whispered dispatch from the edge of sleep and symbol. True to C93's nature, it resists easy description, lullabying eerily through hoveringly attentive drones and spellcasting vocals. Each pressing includes a riso print of Tibet's painting Moony Toons, hand-signed in pencil, thus hand-stamping an album best received as a kind of ritual, and shaped by the occult aurae of Tibet's performances in London and Hastings earlier this year.
Review: Die Sexual exist in the world of Adult, of Gary Numan on a night out at Kit Kat Club, Cabaret hedonism, phallic and yonic electronic beats, rhythms and other noises. Elektro Body Musique, the title a play on electronic body music, or EBM to the cool kids, takes the bull by the horn with savage, hyper-lascivious futurist club music that makes you feel like the voyeur and objectifier in equal measure. 11 tracks owe as much to dystopian cold wave as electroclash and synth pop, basslines warbling and bouncing beneath blunt instrument kick drums and savage key stabs, all topped with the kind of energy-inducing snares we often worry were left in the glory days of these sounds. Immediately dark, alluring, and suggestive, it's a strong case for giving in to temptation.
Review: This reissued album from Justin K. Broadrick follows the sold-out 2022 CD release from Fourth Dimension Records. Since 1983, Broadrick has worked under the Final moniker, evolving from power electronics to a more expansive yet still intense sound over the years. This record features nine tracks all named and numbered after the title and they delve into murky textures, crepuscular guitars, harsh noise and dissonant bursts. The relentless, unforgiving sound captures anger and despair and prove Broadrick's ability to transform early power electronics into contemporary, boundary-pushing forms with deeper emotional resonance.
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