Industrial band, FLEISCHKRIEG has unleashed their new single & video, ‘Eve’.
The song ‘Eve’ is based on the Gnostic tradition of Adam’s wife being the hero in the Genesis creation myth – rather than the villain. This second century Christian sect revered Eve as an early incarnation of the Divine Feminine, and if it weren’t for her courage to commit “original sin” – we’d still be trapped in a genetics lab known as the Garden of Eden.
The song is sung from Adam’s point of view – he praises Eve for delivering them from the tyranny of the Elohim. Though they are “thrown out the gilded cage”, Adam asks Eve to “make the thorns our home”, a poetic nod to human resilience in the face of catastrophe.
iItalian scholar Mauro Biglino and his research on the Biblical Apocrypha inspired the song’s themes and lyrical content. Mauro briefly translated for the Vatican – but was eventually fired when his published works revealed modern Christian theology was incompatible with the written texts of ancient Hebrew authors.
The song was produced, mixed, and mastered by Logan Mader (Machine Head, Once Human).
‘Pagan Synth’ duo, ESOTERIK has just unveiled their new single, ‘Mentor’ from the forthcoming EP, Archetypes.
For the next installment of the EP, ESOTERIK explores the insight and experience the ‘Mentor’ has to offer. Get lost in the hypnotic groove but heed the advice of the Mentor for it’s the end of suffering. It’s a beacon in the darkness calling you from the illusive world of form. It’s a voice that’s behind the incessant stream of thoughts; a gentle nudge with a firm but helping hand. The choice has always been yours all along. Will you be a listening ear, or will you flounder in the chaos?
On the upcoming EP Archetypes, the band examines the tropes that have weaved a thread across societies for centuries. “It’s such an interesting topic and really highlights the power of language whether written or passed down via word of mouth. The legends hold a commonality that span through time and culture. Before the world was connected by technology, these stories held the experiences and wisdom for generations to come. Whether they are steeped in symbolism or ritual, the lessons are still infused and if sensational that only ensures the survival beyond our limited life spans.”
TRELLDOM drop ‘Exit Existence’ as the next single taken from the legendary Norwegians’ forthcoming new full-length: …by the shadows… has been scheduled for release on September 13
TRELLDOM do neither comment on their music nor explain their art.
Throughout 2024, and marking three full moons, Harvestman (a.k.a. Steve Von Till) will be presenting his ambitious Triptych project, a three-part album cycle. This album trilogy is a distillation of a unique approach that finds a continuity amongst the fragmented, treating all its myriad musical sources and reference points not as building bricks, but as tuning forks for a collective ancestral resonance, residing in that liminal space between the fundamental and the imaginary, the intrinsic and the speculative.
Today, Harvestman share ‘Galvanized And Torn Open’ from the upcoming Triptych Part Two, which will be released on 21st July via Neurot Recordings to coincide with the Buck Moon. Part One was released on 23rd April on the Pink Moon, and Part Three will be coming on 17th October’s Hunter Moon.
Harvestman has also announced a listening party for Triptych: Part Two on the day before the album’s release. The session will take place via Bandcamp on Saturday, July 20th at 7pm GMT. Save the date and RSVP HERE.
The new visualiser for ‘Galvanized And Torn Open’ was created by Von Till, who writes of the song, “This track was composed entirely around a very simple beat performed by Dave French and I on an old steel water tank that I had accidentally destroyed with my snow plow during the Winter of 2019/2020. The following Spring when rolling it to my truck to take the scrapyard, I heard its rolling thunder and knew it was a piece of percussion magic. Shortly after, Dave came out to Idaho to visit for a while, and we worked together to compose three pieces based on its various sounds. This second piece is centered around giving space to its thunderous low end. A few simple guitar and lines and synth harmonies help give it movement, accentuate its natural breath, and let it guide us on a sonic journey to a few different internal landscapes.”
King Thief (consisting of members of Teenage Bottlerocket, This is a Standoff, Choke and ex-The Fullblast) have released their debut single ‘Gymposter Syndrome’ off the upcoming debut album, out this fall on Thousand Islands Records.
King Thief is:
Eric Neilson – Vocals (Change Methodical, Midnight Peg)
Ryan Podlubny – Guitar ( ex-Fullblast)
Shawn Moncrieff – Guitar (Choke)
Nick Kouremenos – Bass (Fire Next Time, This is a Standoff, TheJohnsons)
Darren Chewka – Drums (Teenage Bottle Rocket, Old Wives)
Perfection is a thing so rare it’s practically mythological. And yet LA post-punk act appear to have achieved it with ‘Never Say Forever’. While reprints of their bio abound, evidence of a back catalogue or previous work is impossible to locate, so it does appear that this is their debut single, which makes it all the more remarkable.
‘Never Say Forever’ is pure vintage in every respect – stylistically, it captures the essence of 1981-85, and I have no shame in saying that I’m an absolute sucker for that era which saw post-punk give birth to goth and dark pop. Sonically, too, they’ve got it down. There’s a certain sound, something that comes not only from the production but from the equipment of the time. Technology was advancing apace – it was around this time that drum machines and synths became widely available – and while the last forty years have seen substantial further developments, I can’t help but feel that something has been lost. That crystal-clear digital fidelity we’ve become accustomed to lacks something, a certain soul, perhaps, but also the sonic haze that defined the sound of the early 80s was absolutely integral to the music itself, and while many contemporary acts have tried to emulate it, they’ve simply fallen short. Not so Mirror of Venus: ‘Never Say Forever’ sounds completely authentic, to the point that it sounds like an archive recording. How have they done it? I don’t know. Time travel, perhaps.
Promo and visuals have increasingly become key to success. People of a certain age, in particular – that would often be people my age (and above) – bemoan the advent of style over substance and how it’s all snazzy videos and shit now, while conveniently forgetting that this came to pass in the 80s. But of course, the difference between major-label 80s and independent acts 80s was immense, and this was perhaps the time when capitalism and money really changed the shape of things: the majors would chuck megabucks at the big acts, which led to the slickness and ubiquity of the like of Duran Duran (who I do happen to like) and the low-budget values of all of the bands who weren’t signed to the likes of EMI. The video which accompanies ‘Never Say Forever’ captures the vibe of the era, and how we view them now, also: once affecting slick but now looking faded, it’s a perfect recreation of the VHS era, the pre-digital age. And yes, when I say a ‘perfect’ recreation, I really do mean it.
Everything about ‘Never Say Forever’ feels like it’s been cracked out of a time capsule. But none of this counts for anything if the material isn’t up to scratch, and that’s where ‘Never Say Forever’ really shines. It’s crisp, it’s catchy, it’s moody, broody, hooky, and nothing short of sheer shimmering magnificence. In other words, perfect.
Will they ever match this moment again? One would hope so – of course. It makes you crave more, so much more. But whatever the future holds, with ‘Never Say Forever’, Mirror of Venus have achieved more than almost any band ever does. Perfection.
German electro-industrial band, NEON INSECT has just unveiled their ambitious, & highly-anticipated album, LIBERTY FLOWERS.
LIBERTY FLOWERS sheds some light into different aspects of life in New Moscow, in times where unrest slowly settles in, even though everything is done to oppress its citizens. The ever-recurring concept of NEON INSECT’s music features the only habitable place in North America. It’s a dystopian version of New York in an alternative timeline, serving as a experimental playground for implants, cyborgs and indoctrination.
With this album, NEON INSECT also takes you on a trip sonically, with noises sounding like they’ve been taken straight from a dystopian nightclub, combined with analogue madness. The goal with this record was to rephrase the grit of old-school, early 90s electronic-industrial music, while not shying away to cross some boundaries. LIBERTY FLOWERS is a love letter to this era of music.
LIBERTY FLOWERS is currently available on CD and cassette formats as well as Bandcamp, digitally. It will be available on most major streaming services on August 30th.
Watch the video for ‘There is Beauty in Noise’ here:
NEON INSECT (Nils Sinatsch) is a dystopian storyteller, telling tales from New Moscow – New York in an alternative reality, where the cold war went hot and the soviets won. As a normal citizen somewhere in Germany by day and a rebel by night, NEON INSECT fetches the stories through the cyber web from his contacts in New Moscow. – he only habitable city in a nuked America, where cyborgs rule the streets, where lower Manhattan is a prison and the last bastion of the local rebellion.
The stories are told in an old-school industrial fashion, the sound of the cold war, enhanced with stutters and glitches, the sound of the cyber web – a soundtrack George Orwell would approve of.
Decline and Fall, a new Dark Wave project from Portugal formed by Armando Teixeira, Hugo Santos and Ricardo S. Amorim, is thrilled to announce the release of the music video for ‘Gloom,’ the haunting title track from their debut EP.
The ‘Gloom’ EP features four evocative tracks, each creating a dense and disturbing atmosphere with glimpses into the darkest corners of the human psyche. Armando Teixeira, a pioneer of EBM and Industrial in Portugal, brings his vast and award-winning experience to the project. Known for his influential work with Ik Mux, Bizarra Locomotiva, and Balla, among others, Teixeira’s return to his roots in post-punk, new wave, and industrial is marked by a matured artistic vision and evolved technical expertise.
Joining him is Ricardo S. Amorim, author of Culto Eléctrico and Wolves Who Were Men – The History of Moonspell, and Hugo Santos from Process of Guilt, whose exploration of heaviness and rhythmic intensity adds a unique dimension to the project.
‘Paint It All in Blue’ is the second taster from Norwegian band Mayflower Madame’s highly anticipated third album Insight, out on 1st November via Night Cult Records/ Up In Her Room/Icy Cold Records.
Following first single ‘A Foretold Ecstasy’, which refined their signature blend of post-punk, shoegaze and psychedelia into a sharper soundscape, the new offering instantly puts a spell on you with its throbbing bass lines, motorik drums and hypnotic guitars, until it opens up midway, leaving you drifting in a sea of dreamy melancholia.
The emotional intensity is heightened by frontman Trond Fagernes’ deeply reverberating lyrics about addiction and escapism when love is experienced as a drug. Combining the rhythmic grooves of krautrock and post-punk with the dazzling atmospherics of shoegaze and neo-psychedelia, ‘Paint It All in Blue’ is a profoundly dynamic song unfolding layer by layer.
Watch the video here:
AA
Over the past years, Mayflower Madame have gained a reputation far beyond their hometown of Oslo, Norway. Following the release of their debut album Observed in a Dream in 2016, which received rave reviews and earned them tours across Europe and North America, their 2020 sophomore album Prepared for a Nightmare firmly established their position as one of the continent’s leading purveyors of cinematic psych-gaze swathed in 1980s dark romanticism.
In 2022, the band returned to touring the UK and Europe, while last year it focused on writing and recording new music and releasing a Deluxe Version of Prepared for a Nightmare containing 5 new bonus tracks.
Their upcoming album has been mixed and mastered by renowned Italian engineer Maurizio Baggio (The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher, The Vacant Lots). It will be released digitally via their label Night Cult Records (Norway), on vinyl via Up In Her Room (UK) and on CD via Icy Cold Records (France).
Mayflower Madame is Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums). On studio recordings, they are joined by Kenneth Eknes (synths). "Paint It All in Blue" also features Rune Øverby (guitar).
London-based musician/composer Ian Williams has released a new single entitled ‘Chronopolis’ today. Taking its title from a J.G. Ballard short story, it is an edited version of a track from his current album, Slow-Motion Apocalypse.
An accompanying video was shot in Canary Wharf in London. It highlights the clock-watching and surveillance of the workforce (facial recognition, keystroke logging and anything else they can think of) that makes the vast multinational corporations located in this financial heart of the beast untaxed billions, leaving crumbs that the average worker is supposed to feel grateful for.
The epic soundtrack to this scenario perfectly encapsulates the colossal architecture and human hive of activity, with hyperactive sequencer lines agitating under soaring lead synths as towering piano chords and immense drumbeats propel the whole machine along.
Ian Williams began his music career in Edinburgh in the mid 1980s as a founder of Beautiful Pea Green Boat, whose ethereal, atmospheric sound pre-dated the vogue for dream pop by at least twenty years. Several collaborations with Lebanese choreographer Joumana Mourad and her contemporary dance company Ijad saw him fuse Arabic/classical/techno/ambient styles, following which he changed tack to work with singer Claudia Barton as Gamine, releasing two albums of dark, piano-led torch songs and lullabies.
Williams’ own releases include THE DREAM EXTORTIONISTS (2019), a debut solo album of dark piano and electronics; LES BLESSURES INVISIBLES (2019), an eclectic electronic soundtrack to a documentary film by French director Eric Michel, and ALL BECOMES DESERT (2021), an album of minimalist ambiences and warm analogue soundscapes.
Williams has also composed the soundtrack to Michel’s new WW2 spy documentary, LE MYSTÈRE LUCIE (Code Name Lucy), which will be released in July. Further details will follow in due course.
Aural Aggravation 