Back catalogue: Industrial/Noise

Review: BOOM! Our favourites, Cititrax, roll the third editions of Tracks out onto our shelves, and the results are unsurprisingly strong on this excellent various artists comp. It's a mixed bag of skills, as per usual, and the sounds are those of a new NYC, fuelled by a new sort of post-industrial sensibility. Amato Y Mariana open with the tight beats and groove of "Queires Bailar", followed closely by the ominous compositions of the EBM-flavoured "Montgat" from The Sixteen Steps. On the flip, His Dirty Secrets bleeps out some morphed acid on "Structures", and "Another Stranger" from Further Reductions churns out a slow, mild-mannered house experiment with its roots clearly planted in the coldest of waves. Sick.

Review: The interesting cross pollination of sounds and ideas currently gestating around the Avian and Mira camps throws up its most intriguing proposition yet in Burma Camp. This is the newly adopted alias of Nicholas Wood, frontman of The KVB, a duo recently referred to as "the son and daughter of reverb" and one of this year's breakthrough acts. Wood has previous form with Mira, having collaborated with Ventress on his recent turn as Worn, and Repulsion finds him sinking deep into the realm of droning industrial delay across three experimental excursions. The influence of Downward boss Regis is apparent throughout, with the vicious, industrial techno grot of "Isa" standing out.

Review: The third edition of Clan Destine Trax's Dark Acid series arrives offering another mixture of established names and newcomers as well as retaining the gleefully nihilistic sonics of previous transmissions. The legendary Jamal Moss is the headline draw here and "Sexually Broken (Instrumental Version)" finds the Mathematics boss adopting the rarely used Insane Black Man alias and sounds like the remnants of "Clear" by Cybotron mangled beyond recognition and force-fed through a battered old 303 on the cusp of full-on malfunction. Tzu Sing's "Teeth" will please fans of the recent Charles Manier LP whilst Matt Weiner's TWINS project feels like a doped up D'Marc Cantu. Finally Clan Destine/ Dark Acid regular Ela Orleans unveils her Tract project with "Light In Extension" which is perhaps the track truest to this series' title.

Review: The arrival of a new release on Eaux sees Rrose break with tradition, seeking out the self-quipped "ambient nihilism" of Tujurikkuja, aka California duo Kit Clayton and Chris Dixon. Separately both artists have rich histories in the West Coast underground to dig through (fun fact: Clayton worked with Juan Mendez on the late '90s Cytrax label) but their joint output as Tujurikkuja is restricted to a pair of releases on San Francisco label Computer Music. Omerta sees Clayton and Dixon turn in a titular analogue improvisation that fans of extended abstract electronic pioneers like Dilloway will delight in. It's been pressed at 45rpm but Eaux recommend listeners approach at 33rpm! Rrose offers a version on the flip that is more appropriate for dancefloor deployment.

Review: The Malka Tuti train keeps on rolling across international landscapes, with core artists Tapan in the engine room, steering the ship. The Belgrade duo, made up of Nebojsa Bogdanovic and Goran Simonoski, have teamed up with fellow Malka Tuti artist Decha (aka Viktoria Wehrmeister) for their latest single. 'Twenty' in its original form thumps at a chugging tempo populated with bugging synth lines and unusual percussive clangs, while Decha's voice springs from speech to singing and back again. There's also a collection of remixes, including a swirling Full Circle version and the snappier EBM snarl of Rebodello's '2021 Positive Thinking' remix. Finishing it off is Tapan's own beatless version, which ramps up the trippy FX and dense pad tones for a truly evocative experience.

Review: Carla Dal Forno and Tarquin Manek together are Tarcar and they're here to sign off another winner of a year from the now cult-like Blackest Ever Black label. There isn't much that BEB haven't deserved a medal for, and they have yet again amazed us with their ludicrously on-point artistic repertoire! Mince Glace is a true thing of beauty, an album which doesn't give a damn about genres or styles, but instead travels the treacherous paths between noise, drone, dub and pretty much any other genre of music! In our opinion, the nuttiest cit on here has to be "Emboldened" for it wavy jazz edge and far-out melodies, but be sure to also check out "Fireball" for a real spin down the wormhole. Lovely stuff from both label and artists. Don't miss it.

Review: Brokntoys return this week with more no-nonsense electro action and have tapped Spanish duo TELEPHASYCX! to lend their expertise on the Spherical Coordinates EP. It's evident from the first track that this one exists on the darker and more experimental fringes, as heard on the bleak ambient soundscape of 'Atmospheric Transmission' before dropping the darkly dystopian beats of 'DE Array Networks'. Over on the flip, prepare to enter another world on the brutalist industrial noise of 'Photon Pressure' leading into one more expression in moody sci-fi bass pressure on 'Proportional Segment'.

Review: Tommy Four Seven and Alain continue their project as These Hidden Hands with a new bullet of high-powered industrial techno for their own Hidden Hundred label. "SZ31X71" is a slow builder, but once the folds of noise and distortion reach a climax it's all fury and vengeance from these two: metallic bursts of drums collide with an electrifying ensemble of synths that have been stripped right down to their essentials. Master technician and electronic visionary Roly Porter gives his own interpretation of the tune and, as you'd expect from the man, it's an aptly apocalyptic take on the original, a remix that perhaps goes even beyond the original by adding an extra layer of doom. Excellent.

Review: Following the release of their debut album, These Hidden Hands pair Tommy Four Seven and Alain flex their status within the techno community with the first of two remix EPs. It's a pleasantly diverse cast on hand to rework tracks from the self titled set too, with Berghain titan Marcel Dettmann sharing 12" space with Avian's mystery Swedes SHXCXCHCXSH and London collective Old Apparatus. In Dettmann's hands "Laika" gets turned into a fluid slab of warehouse techno that's got a weighty amount of funk to it and is complemented by two more markedly experimental remixes on the B Side. Look out for the final remix twelve next month which features Atom TM, Kangding Ray and Ancient Methods.

Review: Appropriately titled EP coming your way. 'Fight 4' opens the scoring with 'Tuning Circuits For A Revolution', a track that seems to want to get alarm bells ringing through whatever space its powering through. Although deceptively lo-fi in production, the cut is an uneasy and subtly tense electro-edged synth workout that bounds along with tangible menace, socio-politically-charged vocal sample playing out in the background just to add to the feeling of dancing straight into the Ministry of Truth.

Flip it and find 'The Vast Abyss', essentially a tune in the same vein only slightly different - less upfront, more broken and stacked with snare rolls, subduing that omnipresent synth line without completely obscuring it, narrative words lost in favour or abstract and slightly haunting (if difficult to decipher) phrases, as much percussion as you could ask for packed into it all.

Review: Denver dark lords Trisicloplox and Sectra gear up for DNO's 10th release with four uncompromising schematics the flex across the IDM / electro spectrum. Taking two tracks apiece, the pair lay down some stern sonics; 'Mail Theft' is a steppy piece of pulsating rattler, 'Bruised' is a slow-mo stomp-out, 'Megastructure' has that industrial funk swagger while 'Dead On Arrival' brings us to an apocalyptic conclusion with rasping acid and brittle, swinging two-step breakbeats. Dead or alive these structures are coming with us.

Review: Ahead of Camella Lobo's forthcoming debut Tropic Of Cancer album for Blackest Ever Black, the London label return to one of her most prized recorded moments, The Sorrow Of Two Blooms. Originally released back in 2011, this three track 12" was Tropic Of Cancer at a stage when Juan Mendez was still involved and listening back now it's all too easy to understand why so many have fallen under it's spell. There's a spectral delight to the manner in which "A Colour" unfolds, with Lobo's voice drenched beneath the reverberant drone but clinging to foggy strings that embellish the track with a certain degree of light. The languid thump of "Temporal Vessels" lays Lobo's vocals so deep in the mix you are worried she's trapped down a well whilst "Dive (Wheel Of The Law)" is perhaps Tropic Of Cancer at their mystifying, bewitchingly hypnotic best. Spread across the B Side, it comes cloaked in viscous fuzz, Lobo's yearning yet indecipherable vocals seemingly glued to the pensive guitar lines. The result is utterly captivating.

Review: Last seen next to Jamal Moss on one of Clan Destine's Dark Acid releases, the largely unknown Tsuzing debuts in quite distinctive fashion on LIES with A Name Out Of Place Pt 1. Gripping a quartet of productions, this 12" is, as the title suggests, the first of several records for LIES by Tsuzing, a Shanghai-based producer and resident DJ at the city's Shelter Club. As LIES bullishly claim, there are plenty of records at the moment supposedly influenced by EBM or Industrial music, though it's very apparent in the music Tzusing makes. See the politically loaded samples peppered throughout "1976" or the marauding sense of terror that runs through "Axis Of Revision".

Review: Rhode Island post-metal avant-garde duo The Body have made a name for themselves due to their caustic maelstrom of harsh, brutalist experimentalism as well as their prolific output and collaborative nature, releasing collab albums with the likes of Full Of Hell, Thou, Uniform, and most recently, Dis Fig. Their latest endeavour sees the pair link up with another duo of musical extremity, Toronto, Canada's recently reformed industrial two-piece Intensive Care. Was I Good Enough? has been on the cards since the artists first began making plans as far back as 2018, trading, warping and ruining mutual sessions with layers of loops, distortion, samples and even dubs, constantly striving to find the ideal haunting balance between both of their sonically hideous, oppressive worlds. For all of our ears' sakes, they just might have succeeded.

Review: Born and raised in Bern, Switzerland, Michael Antener spent most of the 1980s concerned with interpreting the subconsciously and overtly apocalyptic discourse of that time through the medium of industrial-edged, dark feeling music. "I found a niche where I could express myself, along with other people who were not afraid of dark themes," he's quoted as saying in retrospect, before going on to explain that singing about love would have been more difficult than using "cries of pain taken from horror movies". This triple vinyl collector's item celebrates that fertile, if angry and dystopian period in Antener's life. Bringing together work from two of his formative projects, The Stranger of the Swamp and Bande Berne Crematoire, what's here is captivating. Electroclash with groove, distressed collages of noise, a certain sense of sonic expressionism - all brooding shadows, menacing arrangements and deeply unsettling moods.

Review: This reissued gem offers meticulously crafted aural rituals that delve into sensual electronic music and human sexuality. Founded by Adi Newton in 1978 to merge art, science and sonology while embracing innovative, multidisciplinary approaches, The Anti Group served as a platform for exploring psycho-acoustic research and this 1994 album was recorded over three years. It is among their more accessible works - never more so than now when it debuts on vinyl after 30 years. As well as the original pieces, it comes with four bonus tracks including a film soundtrack and a remix.

Review: In addition to his prolific output as Not Waving, London-dwelling Italian Alessio Natalizia has developed quite an interest in profiling the vast archive of music that surfaced from his motherland in the 1980s. After Strut tapped him to curate the Mutazione compilation back in 2013, Natalizia has taken to square his focus on more specific artists, with this Tapes retrospective following a similar profile of Daniele Ciulini last year. Selected Works 1982 - 1992 spans a decade of recordings from Tapes, aka brotherly pair Giancarlo and Roberto Drago whose style of industrial music absorbed the counter-cultural influence of William Burroughs or Throbbing Gristle, and the sci-fi dystopia of J.G. Ballard and John Foxx. The 21 tracks here will delight anyone with an interest in the obscure annals of European primitive electronics. Reissue of the week without a doubt!

Review: "Understated genius...the passion just screams its measured whisper...something of a sheltered legend" - Clash magazine, "Consistently engages the attention...a notable degree of beauty" - The Wire, "Evocative and gorgeous chamber music" - XLR8R, "The dreamy melodicism of Claude Debussy and Arvo Pärt with the austere drift of Brian Eno and Arve Henriksen" - Dusted, "A model of forbearance and a thing of wonder" - EL magazine, "Shows some serious promise" - almostcool.org, "Not a moment wasted during its immaculate presentation" - Textura.org, "Affirmation that ingenuity must go on" - lostatsea.ne, "Never less than fascinating...Highly recommended" - Igloomag.com. After releasing the critically acclaimed 'Six Preludes' EP on Type Records in 2005, eyes were looking to young British composer Ryan Teague to see where he would take his sound next. Indeed, he referenced the EP release himself as merely preludes, so he clearly had plans to make an extra special effort for the imminent full length. In doing so he enlisted the help of a full orchestra; the renowned Cambridge Philharmonic with conductor Tim Redmond, as well as harpist Rhodri Davies who is best known for his work with the Cinematic Orchestra. Working with these key elements, Teague had the chance to compose without the limitations usually set on electronic composers and has ended up producing something truly timeless. Opening with the short introduction piece 'Introit' the album quickly gets moves up a gear with the eponymous 'Coins and Crosses', a fabulous representation of Teague's intense production skill and Rhodri Davies' peerless harp-work.

Review: Italian outfit Templebeat spent much of the 1990s offering up decidedly dark, dystopian and muscular blends of EBM, techno, new beat and industrial music on a variety of obscure, DIY labels. "Interzone" was one such release. It appeared in limited numbers on cassette in 1992, and is here given the vinyl reissue treatment for the very first time. It remains a distinctively murky and alluring set, with the band blending their own throbbing, arpeggio-driven rhythms, razor-sharp electronics, mind-altering synthesizer riffs and Nitzer Ebb style vocals with various spoken word snippets and sampled dialogue. It's a blueprint that makes for a fine selection of tracks, with thrusting and teak-tough dancefloor workouts being joined by occasional forays into moody, clandestine ambient.

Review: These Hidden Hands is the new collaborative project of UK stalwart, Tommy Four Seven and Alain, the Berlin-based producer and mastering engineer at One Million Mango. It's fair to say that techno is the main ingredient, served as uncompromisingly as possible. Their debut LP showcases the duo's love for cavernous, echoing drones and visceral, foreboding half-time beats - from the gnarly, distorted frame of "Trelesire" to the dystopian, mutant dance of "Diesel", this album has it all and comes warmly recommended for fans of Vatican Shadow and the whole Hospital Productions camp.

Review: Ravi Binning's Thought Broadcast moniker is a manifestation of the artist's experimental edge at its most organic. We've been told that only the grittiest and most archaic of production methods went into the making of this record - analog machinery and a heavy focus on tape manipulation, most poignantly - and it is exactly this which makes Benning's third LP for Editions Mego so damn special. From start to finish, the music is dense and chilling, but at the same time raw and stripped to the bone. Benning's singular drone twists move cleverly along rich soundscapes made up of glacial effects and even subtle swirls of noise such as "Runaway Signal", one of our favourite pieces. It's not all completely abstract, however, and the grainy beats of tracks like "Carving A Bow" or even "Forged Body" make this album a certified winner on all fronts. If you're a fan of Vatican Shadow's legacy, then look no further...

Review: This 10 track set is the second album to be released from the California producer, - otherwise known as Ravi Binning - this year, having just released a self-titled collection on the recently re-animated Olde English Spelling Bee. His dubbed-out, minimalist techno sketches with hints of post-punk have much in much in common with Editions Mego labelmate Ekoplekz, displaying similarly crackly sonics and radiophonic alchemy, though coated in a layer of grime, and sounding like something recorded from decayed radio transmissions that have travelled from the past through a wormhole.

Review: Throbbing Gristle's album 20 Jazz Funk Greats, originally released in 1979, is often cited as the recommended introduction to the band and the various side projects its members have been involved in over the years. Filled with several classics of the Throbbing Gristle canon ("Convincing People", "Walkabout", "Hot On The Heels Of Love") 20 Jazz Funk Greats still sounds remarkably ahead of its time and should be considered an album any self respecting collector has in their possession. This 30th anniversary reissue was originally released in 2011, made all the more enticing by the fact it had been restored and remastered specifically for each format by Chris Carter from 24bit 'baked tape' digital transfers. A timely repress of this reissue has now arrived thanks to Industry!

Review: Throbbing Gristle's second studio album is an essential work that conjures some of the most harsh and nauseating music you can imagine (not a surprise given "Hamburger Lady" is a piece about a patient burned from the waist up and forever contained in a hospital). It was pioneering in texture and technique, and mixes both live and studio recordings into one of the band's most stylistically varied works. Creeping and haunting, confrontational and challenging from front to back, the spoken word samples from children and mutated voices will probably haunt your dreams forever, so listen with caution.

Review: When it was first released in 2007, "Part 2: The Endless Not / TG Now" was Throbbing Gristle's first studio album since 1982. The pioneering industrial band had been drawn together again in 2004 to mark the passing of friend John Balance with a rare performance, and spent the next two years sporadically recording new material. The set was produced slightly differently to the all-analogue early works, with greater use of sampling and digital instrumentation. Yet despite the new toys and techniques, the music remained as antagonistic, forthright, intense and otherworldly as it had been two decades before. In other words, it's a proper Throbbing Gristle album, made by the original members to their original ethos, with a slightly different production approach. For that reason it remains a must-have for all fans of industrial music past and present.

Review: When it was first released in 2007, "Part 2: The Endless Not / TG Now" was Throbbing Gristle's first studio album since 1982. The pioneering industrial band had been drawn together again in 2004 to mark the passing of friend John Balance with a rare performance, and spent the next two years sporadically recording new material. The set was produced slightly differently to the all-analogue early works, with greater use of sampling and digital instrumentation. Yet despite the new toys and techniques, the music remained as antagonistic, forthright, intense and otherworldly as it had been two decades before. In other words, it's a proper Throbbing Gristle album, made by the original members to their original ethos, with a slightly different production approach. For that reason it remains a must-have for all fans of industrial music past and present.

Review: Given that he started experimenting with tape loops and electronics way back in 1965, Asmus Tietchens may well be one of the longest-serving avant-garde artists in the World. He has released a ridiculous number of albums over the years, with 'Ptomaine' originally appearing as a triple-vinyl affair in which each track was separated by a locked groove. The album has finally been reissued on CD but split into a number of different releases. This is the second and it's an undoubtedly adventurous affair - a suite of three movements (each split into multiple tracks) based around a combination of unusual, sometimes backwards, tape loops, discordant drones, unsettling soundscapes, decaying industrial beat-scapes and bizarre but inspired sound collages.

Review: While the name Tomorrow The Rain Will Fall Upwards may remind you of a particular Vietnam War scene in Forest Gump, don't let that put you off, the sounds here are double the pop psychedelic rock of the film. Rumoured to involve HTRK's Jonnine Standish, Brazilian singer Lucas Santanna and These Immortal Souls' Genevieve McGuckin, Wreck His Days marks the project's second release, presented again by Kiran Sande's Blackest Ever Black. A dark presence inhabits all seven tracks of this LP that should appeal to fans of Goblin, to Italian Horror and Giallo OSTs with "Reverberasia" fusing metal with ambient Italo doom. As the title suggests "Ghost From The Coast" is swathe of haunting atmospheres and coarse textures, only with an underlying bassline funk, while an eight-minute "...And I Tried So Hard" provides some sparkling respite from the forlorn sounds of everything preceding it. "I Beat As I Sleep As I Dream" then penetrates Kosmische territory, with acoustic, Latin guitars easing the tension of a devilish "Ay Carmela". Without a doubt one of the best collections of music BEB will release in 2016.

Review: There's industrial noise music, and then there's industrial noise music. At least one of those means crafting arrangements that confuse, beguile, terrify, distort, transport, distress and intrigue, which is pretty much how one might try and pinpoint Trepaneringsritualen. A project from Swedish artist Thomas Martin Ekelund, it veers between monster trapped between worlds screaming for an exit, and dark ambience the likes of which unnerves but doesn't traumatise.

Listening to Veil the World and it's no surprise many people cite a kind of psychedelic side to the work. It's certainly not going to give you the easiest trip, but then it could well be one of the most interesting you'll ever take. Visceral in the truest sense, there are certainly demons in here, but what captivating and innovative demons they are.

Review: Valerio Tricoli first appeared on the PAN label back in 2011 with a split LP alongside Thomas Ankersmit, released at a time when Bill Kouligas and co. were first starting to get props outside of the avant-garde underground. Clonic Earth sees Tricoli return to the label with his second solo LP for PAN and the five tracks are all mood and tension, a sort of contained energy that never truly lets loose to deploy noise from all angles. Having said that, plenty of moments across Clonic Earth are nervous, filled with a palpable sense of dread that is executed perfectly by Tricoli's analogue machinery. Surreal, abstract and a great addition to this label's mesmerizing catalogue.