Posts Tagged ‘Electeonic’

Listen: ‘In the Headlights’ by Haujobb

Posted: 4 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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German electro-industrial mainstays Haujobb have just dropped the sinister sounding retro-futuristic slo-mo banger ‘In The Headlights’ as the first single from their forthcoming new album, The Machine In The Ghost. Scheduled for release on 20th September, it is the 10th full length record by the Prague-based group, which formed in 1992 and has existed as the duo of Daniel Myer (vocals/programming) and Dejan Samardzic (programming) since the mid-‘90s.

“’In The Headlights’ was actually one of the first tracks written for the album,” explains Myer. "Dejan recorded and sampled his exhaust hood, which kind of sounds like a jet engine, and we built the song around that sample. There is also a sound that might be identified as a tambourine, which is really just a key chain dropping onto the floor. This and other physical constructions that are sampled throughout the album act as relics of interfaces between man and machine.”

Maintaining an impressive penchant for refusing to do the same thing twice on each studio album, The Machine In The Ghost deploys field recordings to create some of its most prominent sounds. In order to achieve the desired effect, the duo used a mix of software and hardware in the shape of everyday items. This deliberate nod to a previous era with more analogue shifting of the dials complements the retro theme of The Machine In The Ghost (albeit without indulging in nostalgia for its own sake), the album revolving around the highly charged relationship between mind and matter, analogue and digital.

Despite their constant artistic evolution, a unique musical handwriting is present throughout the Haujobb catalogue. Originally founded as a trio in the West German city of Bielefeld, they were initially influenced by the ‘Vancouver school’ of industrial electronics (the likes of Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly), but it did not take long for them to be recognised as figureheads of a more modern take on this sound that incorporated elements of IDM (intelligent dance music) that helped catapult them onto the wider international scene.

Co-founding member Björn Jünemann left the band after their second album, with Myer and Samardzic subsequently releasing the acclaimed ‘Solutions For A Small Planet’ (1996) and thereafter maintaining a strong strike-rate that has included New World March (2011), their 7th record and regarded as another milestone effort.
 The Machine in the Ghost has seen Haujobb begin another exciting chapter in their career. As we enter the next industrial and creative revolution that has been ignited by the rise of AI, it shows that they still have their musical fingers on the pulse.

Listen to ‘In the Headlights’ here:

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Watch: ‘Isolation’ by Souvlaki feat. Deborah Grandi

Posted: 9 December 2020 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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After announcing the release of his second EP titled "Continued Survival", the Italian-born electronica musician and producer Souvlaki unveils another piece of this new work, which was preceded by the single “7LUNGS” (featuring Slim Gong) at the beginning of November.

“Isolation” features Deborah Grandi on vocals and is presented with a stop motion video directed by Souvlaki himself, along with Carlo Rodella and Nicola Nolli.

The musician comments: "This is the first song I started working on for this new EP, the one that set the whole songwriting process in motion. Deborah’s vocal lines were written almost on the spot, we found them when we first listened to the base in the practice room and they immediately seemed to work well in the song.

The lyrics match the story of the video, the central theme is people’s incommunicability, and the song title seems to sum it up quite well.
I have to admit that I struggled to finish the arrangements of “Isolation”, but I perceived its great potential right away and I didn’t want to set it aside. Thanks to Simone Piccinelli, who contributed to the production of the EP, I got to find the balance between all the elements in this song.

I am satisfied with the outcome and I hope listeners will appreciate it too; personally, I like the atmosphere it evokes, that slightly “retro” touch; it plays along within a mix between darkness and positive feelings."

The EP "Continued Survival", produced by Souvlaki and Simone Piccinelli at La Buca Recording Club and mastered at Woodpecker Mastering will contain 6 tracks, including the single "Isolation" and the previously released single "7LUNGS" and will be available on all main digital platforms starting January 15th.

Watch the video here:

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New Tendencies – L5

Posted: 7 September 2018 in Albums
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Forking Paths PF0013 – 13th July 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

With a title referencing William Gibson’s Neuromancer, L5 finds maker of experimental minimal electronica New Tendencies explore an array of textures and tones with a real focus on the space around the sound. Sonar bleeps warp into whistles of feedback, consumed by underwater monsters and sonic detonations that linger like a heavy cloud of smoke, dust and rubble.

The shifts aren’t always delicate, the tones rarely gentle: the listener is dragged and hurled from high to low, abrasive, serrated edges sharpening the intensity of upper frequencies juxtaposed with rumbling, muffled lower ranges which pull at the pit of the stomach. The album’s ten compositions – which, given the way New Tendencies pull, drag, stretch, twist, and manipulate, are perhaps as well described as decompositions – are affecting by virtue of the physicality of the sound, and this in turn provokes a cerebral response.

Ordinarily, I find abstraction gives rise to an analytical rather than emotive response, but L5 is a different beast. The beats and rhythms – however diversely they manifest (and they range from distorted, crunching poundings to EQ-tweaked whiplash cracks via blasts of static) – create a sense of structure, however vague, a frame on which to hang the infinite varieties of noise, and thus draw the pieces back from absolute abstraction. And with the combination of structure and sonic impact comes a different type of response. Instead of seeking to analyse the technique, L5 invites the listener to feel the effects. And the effect becomes emotional on a certain level: the rippling waves and vibrations test the tension levels, pushing the up and pulling them down. Tense, intense, and at the very least, interesting.

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New Tendencies – L5