Back catalogue: Industrial/Noise

Review: Boris Barksdale's Eternal Remorse originally saw the light of day on Portugese label Eye For An Eye as a digital release back in 2018, and now it's getting a vinyl pressing. A physical release feels appropriate for this pointedly dusty release, which leans in on synthwave influences to create a thoroughly dark and gnarly atmosphere. '5.0.5' steps out on a tough, dishevelled rhythm section, with seriously degraded synths falling apart behind the jackhammer drums. '7.0.8' takes the intensity up a notch, hitting with an industrial bite, while 'Sentier' channels even more of that Ministry-flavoured malaise with its disturbing yelps and screams. 'Sramota' has the hallmarks of a mid 80s bedroom beatdown from a blackened soul, 'Take Notes' delivers yet more pounding, percussive punishment, and 'Geezer' rounds things off with a bleak and troubled slab of EBM dragged from the underworld to stalk amongst all nightcrawlers and ne'er-do-wells.

Review: Rampant and 'up for it' as usual, the Cititrax label is back with a new set of wayward technoid experiments for the more trained ears on the dancefloors. This time it's Romania's Borusiade and newcomer The Sixteen Steps who share two sides of a wax plate and, of course, proceed to annihilate any idea of a quiet night in. The former sets off with the mechanical acid bumps of "Infatuation", guided by an eerie set of vocal blurs, and that's followed by the comparatively more beat-centric techno of the apocalyptic "Confutation". On the flip, The Sixteen Steps first lands on "Signals From The South", a house banger with noxious levels of mutant bass at its core, followed by the single-minded industrialism and sheer techno brutality of "Promises On The Run". WOWZAH!

Review: There's a delightfully celebratory feel about this debut volume of Cititrax Tracks, a new 12" series from Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax. As beautifully presented as we've come to expect, Tracks Volume 1 boasts a quartet of dancefloor-ready smashers from a blend of new faces and label stalwarts. Amato (aka The Hacker) kicks things off with the glistening EBM funk of "Physique" - all restless synth refrains and pounding bottom end - before LIES affiliate Tsuzing go all dark, psychedelic and twisted on the thrillingly intense, acid-flecked "King of System". An-I go all DAF (with a touch of Front 242) on the fuzzy and dystopian stomper "Mutter", before Cititrax regulars Broken English Club delivers a storming chunk of industrial-tinged analogue funk ("Glass"). Bravo!

Review: It's been a delight to see Oliver Ho's Broken English Club project develop artistically over recent times, with some fine records for Jealous God and Veronica Vasicka's Cititrax label along the way. Suburban Hunting sees Ho deliver his debut Broken English Club album, featuring some 11 tracks of primitive electronics and cinematic pseudo techno cuts. Tunes like "Vacant", "Derelict", or "Scum" all share a loose techno framework, but the real aesthetic is much vaster than that, verging on remnants of post-punk, industrial and all that goodness and hybrid class that came out of the late 1980's. It's another fine addition to the sublime Cititrax discography, and we recommended it just as much as the previous numbers.

Review: We're starved for two-sided 12"s in the world of ambient music, but Chris Madak aka. Bee Mask has refreshingly graced us with one this week. It should be said that there's Skee Mask and then there's Bee Mask; the latter is far more unsung, undeservingly so. Madak's music is abstract and cerebral enough to have lent him credo enough to have released on the likes of Weird Forest, Spectrum Spools and Room40. But this latest reissue, 'Versailles Is Not Too Large Or Infinity Too Long', hears him plunge the ethereal heights for the US label Unifactor. Originally released on cassette on Chondritic Sound in 2008, these pieces deserve the renewed attention and the fresh laying to wax, since they're not 'regular ole' ambient cuts in the slightest. Unafraid of indulging the high end freqs, Bee Mask fleshes out a mood of uncertain, urgent bliss - sizzling, crunching and soaring the drone, as if its maker were a modern Icarus flying too close to the sun.