"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedriech Nietzsche
Believe it or not, there was a lot of fantastic dark underground synthesizer-based music this year that didn't sound like the musical equivalent of being stoned out of your gourd on cough medicine. So, in no particular order, here is the music that not only inspired my dreams and nightmares this year, but also made me move my body. All the artists on here make me really excited about music again.
//TENSE// - Escape, EP. If it were possible to cut open my brain and record what was going on inside, it's a sure bet that it would sound exactly like
Robert Lane's music. It's a throwback of sorts to a time before post-industrial bands became either macho retarded jock rockers with drum machines or bad techno. Yes, the comparisons to classic
Front 242 and
Ministry's
Twitch are obvious and inevitable. But
Lane, along with
Mariana Saldana on drum pads and backing vocals, makes a highly personal sound that loving acknowledges the sounds of the past while injecting a healthy dose of allusions to apocalyptic cinema that function as a profound metaphor for his own personal angst. The
Escape EP continues
Lane's deep sweaty love affair with first wave EBM and mid-80s industrial-synth which began with their
Memory LP, but this time there's a lot more bleakness to the sound. You can taste the radiation coming out of the speakers.
//TENSE// are an inspiration. There's no other word for it. I want more
//TENSE//...No, I NEED more
//TENSE//!
Frank Alpine, LP. Along with
BRANES,
Frank Alpine is by far the most explosive performer of the underground neo-synth scene movement right now. It may come as a bit of a shock to people who are only familiar with
Frank Alpine (
Rich Moreno) from his unforgettable stage performances that his actual music is really good! Savage, bleak, nervous...
Alpine's clanking, relentless, synthetic high hats, hand claps, and snares fly at you like rapid wasps. Swirling synth-lines explode in your face like an
Argento murder scene as
Alpine's vocals bellow and shriek through the terrifying atmosphere that's oozing out of his Casio. His debut album on
Wierd Records is a landmark for
Alpine, leaving behind the cinematic instrumental synth work that gained him a cult following for a more vocal emphasized sound. I love his early soundtracky stuff, but his new work is unforgettable, every bit as atmospheric and eerie as one could hope for. It's an awesome record.
By Any Means Necessary, LP. Jesus! Where do I even start with
Sam Witherspoon's epic, snarling, grandiose, apocolyptic industrial-synth project to end all apocalyptic industrial-synth projects? Very seldom am I left speechless, and
Witherspoon's music leaves me speechless. I had the same reaction when I first heard
//TENSE//. Tears of joy literally welled up in my eyes. I took a deep breath and mouthed the words "OH MY FUCKING GOD!", but I was so stricken that no sound came out as I uttered them. Both
//TENSE// and
Witherspoon make the music of my dreams: driving, agitated, creepily melodic synth arpeggios; muscular, explosive drum patterns; dramatic, almost inhuman sounding vocals all done without a single shredding electric guitar in sight. I'm still picking my jaw up off the floor after hearing
Witherspoon's music. I certainly hope that in the months to come he's embraced in a way that is deserved. I can't wait to hear what this demonic synth lord from Asheville, North Carolina has in store in the future. And I'm dying to see him perform live.
Animal Bodies - Kiss of the Fang, EP. I got to admit, when I first saw images of
Animal Bodies (such a brilliant name)
I got a little worried. Figures wrapped in white cloth with their faces obscured, upside down triangles, etc... Boy was I wrong! With a sound that evokes both
Bauhaus's classic album
In The Flat Field and
The Virgin Prunes' masterpiece
If I Die, I Die, this duo from Vancouver, BC kick you in the teeth with their dark, quirky, dangerous sound. Spiky, freaky, and electrifying,
Animal Bodies (on the amazingly consistent label
Sweating Tapes) are fearless, even incorporating a sassy sax amongst the arpeggiating 101 baselines and cracking drum machines that's both insanely silly and utterly inspired . It warms my cold cybernetic heart that there's a band that sounds like
Animal Bodies are out there making this kind of sonic debauchery. And their album cover is one of the most striking I've seen in a while. My only complaint is that I wish
Kiss of the Fang was twice as long. I want more
Animal Bodies, dammit!
Violet Tremors - Time Is The Traitor LP.
Jackie Kennedy: I'm sorry you aren't feeling well.
Rosemary: It's just a mouse bite...
Jackie Kennedy: Perhaps you'd better have your legs tied down.
Rosemary: Yes, I suppose so. If it was rabid.
Jackie Kennedy: If the music bothers you, please let me know and I'll have it stopped.
Rosemary: Oh, no, no, no,
no. Please don't change the program on my account.
Violet Tremors are special. *Click here for more info.
Balaclavas - Snake People, LP. This band rules! From Houston, Texas, Balaclavas are making some of the edgiest guitar driven post-punk meets early Krautrock sonic alchemy I've heard in a long time. Just imagine if The Fall met up with Amon Duul II. If that alone doesn't make you want to run out and buy their LP, then you are hopeless. Balaclavas sound is beautiful: moody, aggressive, even swooning at times. I hesitate to use the word "psychedelic" when describing their music, but Balaclavas are psychedelic in the best sense of the word. They even incorporate a twangy noirish guitar into their sound that wouldn't seem out of place in an old Ennio Morricone score. Balaclavas are true virtuosos in a world filled with too many posers. And I hear they kick some major ass live too. Watch for them.
Goitia Deitz - Romance/Coma, 7" Sometimes a new artist that you fall in love with kills you because they leave you wanting more. Take the analog purests Goitia Deitz from Brooklyn, for example. They make a sound that's so exquisite, that's such a perfect tribute to The Berlin School of the 70s, that you literary want to have an entire album of their work in your hands immediately. Performing everything live with analog gear, the comparisons to 70s Virgin Records period Tangerine Dream are inevitable, especially on Coma with it's motorik beat and hypnotic, non-stop main synth passage. But the track Romance suggests another sonic world altogether. Containing a bouncy beat and playful floating synth tones, it sounds in a way more like something from one of Richard James's early ambient pieces or Autechre's Slip from their seminal album Amber rather than a Kraut throwback. The Romance/Coma 7" also has one of the coolest cover images I've seen all year. Get this. On DiscError Records.
Jewels of the Nile - Pleasure, LP. Jewels of the Nile make surreal, crepuscular soundscapes for the greatest opium delirium that Shelly and Byron wished they could have experienced. We can see midgets speaking through interplanetary translation devices, conjoined twins dancing naked with giant prehistoric snakes, submerged ancient cities rising out of a black sea when we're listening to Pleasure. Hazy, dense, even weirdly loungy at times, Jewel of the Nile are like the Tess or Projekt Records band of our dreams, reminding us of synthier versions of Trance to the Sun and Lycia...bands that saved the 90s for many of us while we stood in disgust as "goth" became a sad joke throughout shopping malls across America. Allusions to exotic explorations through thick primordial jungles and encounters with bizarre aboriginal sex cults are ever present in Jewels of the Nile's ominous, synth-heavy sound. And just as the totemic bird-headed humanoid who rules the dusk begins to mutter the darkest secret of the universe to us, we are jolted awake in our sensory deprivation tank, realizing it was all a hallucination...or was it?
Soft Metals, LP. If Jewels of the Nile are the Stygian sorceresses of the synth world, then Soft Metals are certainly the champions of light. Their music has a sweetness and airy quality to it as if it were a Tiepolo painting turned into sound. Their first full length album showcases them at their most elegant. Unabashedly danceable, undeniably catchy synth effervescence from start to finish, Soft Metals have layered their sound with a late-80s 4AD dream pop aura, moving slightly away from the moodier atmosphere of their previous EP yielding magical results.
Primary Colors - Feral Scriptures, LP. Sparking, clanging, clanking, pounding, exploding, ripping, banging, smacking, ramming, electrocuting, lobotomizing, smashing, blasting, rupturing, shattering, quaking, cracking, devastating, hysterical, shrieking, screaming, pummeling, ravaging, trashing, crushing, pulverizing, trampling, rioting, revolting, stabbing, burning, ecstatic, unrelenting, blazing, amazing, geological, melting, smelting, disintegrating....Primary Colors are total, unimaginable, honest-to-God industrial geniuses, period.
Bestial Mouths - The Hissing Veil, LP. Along with Primary Colors, Bestial Mouths are the sonic neo-pagans of our time. Like Primary Colors, they dispense with melodic conventions favoring instead a stampeding wall of primeval drumming and rhythms with intense feral vocals wailing through it all, penetrating our very souls. Their sound is both majestic and terrifying. Christopher Myrick plays lurching, demonic synth lines as Lynette Cerezo howls her tormented vocals while a ruthless cacophony of rampaging drums hammers away over it all. The sound they create has a prehistoric fury to it.
NTRSN - Hardlines, LP. Just what is it about Belgium? So much gorgeous stuff has come out of there over the past 30 or so years that's profoundly close to heart. Like //TENSE// and By Any Means Necessary, Belgium's NTRSN (Paul Mommers and Pieter NTRSN) make EBM/industrial the right way: cracking snares, tough rhythms, thick synthesized arpeggiations, snarling vocals, zero guitars...Oh yeah, I love it all! In Hardlines, NTRSN's indebtedness to mid-80s period Cabaret Voltaire is apparent with it's syncopated beats, sinister chanting vocals, funky synth-lines, and choppy slogan-like samples. Trust me, it's all great.
Sixth June - Back For A day, EP. It's become a cliche that if you're going to put together a neo-minimal synth band that a.) you've got to be a duo, and b.) you better be freakishly photogenic. The quality of the music, unfortunately, is often times secondary to these two requisites. Sixth June, however, make music as powerful and heart-wrenching as they are beautiful to look at. Their sound is more than suitably dark and melodic. Lydja Andanov's smokey, heartbroken vocals beautifully match Laslo Antal's soaring, even operatic, synths and rhythms, sounding like a synthed up version of The Eurythmics' first album In The Garden crossed with DM's Black Celebration. But it's also their production values that are really noteworthy. The sound recording on Back For A Day is some of the most dynamic I've heard on any album this year.
Branes - Anatomically Correct, 7" EP. Branes! Branes! BRANES!!! Like a lot of people, I fell in love with Branes when I saw them live. Yes they are a duo, yes they are synth-based, yes they are adorable. But where so many synth heads try to find not-so-new and not-so-interesting ways to make opaque drabness chic and cool, Ivy Slime (on vocals) and Susan Subtract (on synths) are a splash of fresh water in your face...or fresh acid, you be the judge. Ivy is an unstoppable ball of agitated atoms bouncing all over the place as Susan, the striking synth-lord, stands close by on the controls. Together they make a sound that would feel right at home at the old Batcave in London with the likes of Alien Sex Fiend, Sex Gang Children, and Specimen. With only 3 songs officially released to their credit on the Anatomically Correct EP, I can't wait for more Branes. They are insane road dogs, touring regularly all over the US, so there's really no excuse if you haven't seen them live yet. Now that they've made a name for themselves as a must see live act, I think it's time they settle down for a little while, geek out with their synths, and deliver us an entire album of awesomeness.
Zombi - Escape Velocity, LP. Zombi are the kind of band that really get our imaginations going. They make soundtracks for the 3-D IMAX films in our heads that have yet to be made. Silver CGI cheetahs galloping in slow-motion on a laser grid stretched out as far as the eye can see, astronauts exploring an enormous cavern of alien crystals on a newly discovered moon of Saturn, dolphins rescuing the crew of some deep sea research station...The scripts and storyboards are right their in our heads, perfectly formed. The brain child of A.E. Paterra and Steve Moore, Zombi are entirely instrumental, implementing synths along side live drums. The sound they create is awe-inspiring; a travelogue of the imagination. On Escape Velocity, they further develop their precision leaving behind some of the proggier elements of their equally stunning previous release in favor of more hypnotic Berlin School inspired electronic sounds.
Funerals - Marae, EP. Thumping, thundering, futuristic...Funerals have hardly a trace of nostalgia in their sound. If they evoke anything, it's of a type dance music that came of age in 90s. We don't so much recall 90s raver kitsch (glow sticks, mickey mouse hands, DJs in over-sized fuzzy Dr. Seuss top hats, girls with dreadlocks dancing with their naked midriffs showing) as we experience that spectacular feeling when we first heard Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman or Leftfield's Leftism while we listen to Marae. Funerals (Casey Immel-Brown and Mollie Wells) call their sound "Midnight Techno", which is a perfect description. Though Funerals fully and proudly admit to not adhering to the rather ridged constraints of a lot of dark underground synth music being made today, there is a genuinely gorgeous and sinister romantic atmosphere to their music that sounds perfect when played among artists like Sixth June or The Present Moment. From the opening escalating sounds of Marae, to the epic show stopper Out There, Funerals master the lost art of making compelling electronic music for our brains and the dance floor.
The Present Moment - Loyal To A Fault, LP. Scott Milton's The Present Moment is an anachronism, and I mean that in the very best way. I hope you're setting down when you read this, but TPM's beautiful new album Loyal To A Fault has actual songs on it. And get this: they even have intros, verses, choruses, bridges, and outros (remember those things?) Not only that, but Milton can really sing, and I mean REALLY sing! Plus he can write penetrating lyrics to match his big soaring vocals and melodies. Yes, The Present Moment harkens back to another time when people like Dave Gahan, Morrissey, and Ian McCulloch sang the songs that calmed our anxious lonely hearts. Deeply melodic, unashamedly romantic and melancholy, even ironic at times, Loyal to A Fault follows a course first set by TPM's previous album The High Road, but with noticeably more polished sound production as well as tighter song writing. From the forlorn and slightly bitter The Distance Between Us with it's edgy Peter Hookish bass line, to the gushing and soulful A New Day, to the bouncy, deliriously classic synth-pop of the title track, Loyal To A Fault is in many ways, well, perfect. If people have a problem with its surface nostalgia, if Milton's obvious tip of the hat to the greatest decade of music that mankind has ever produced turns them off, then they have a lot of other problems that go beyond their shitty taste in music.
"When things fall apart, follow your heart..." - Scott Milton
OCTAVIUS is the brainchild of William Marshall and Dre Robinson. Dense, paranoid, brooding, and futuristic in the truest sense of the word without nostalgia or postmodern irony, OCTAVIUS are the sonic equivalent of the greatest cyberpunk novel ever written. If we were to take a stroll down William Gibson's Sprawl, it's a good bet it would sound exactly like OCTAVIUS's music. Or what if Franz Kafka decided to make electronic music instead of making all too true fiction about the age of anxiety? That's OCTAVIUS. Through the sonic fog of the stocking bass lines, the thumping beats, and the hyper-programmed swirling and buzzing that weaves in and out of tracks like Apartments, to the cybernetic hip-hop of The Gun In White Silhouette (Warning), the aural universe of OCTAVIUS is haunting and unforgettable. Check out their stunning album LAWS, and be sure to catch them whenever and wherever humanly (or inhumanly) possible. 
The Secret Society of the Sonic Six. W.D. Chadwick (on synths and guitar) and vocalist Astar Ivanka are wonderfully all over the map stylistically. What are they exactly? Neo-film noir synth? Futuristic Berliners starring in the greatest anti-fascist science fiction film of the 1930s that was banned and destroyed by the Nazis? Electro, hyper-stylized absurdists creating a breathtaking sound that is both obtuse and darkly romantic at the same time? All of the above. Then throw in some pre-synth funk era Cabaret Voltaire, add some sinister yet sexy female vocals, then mix in some of the greatest musical sophistication of any contemporary underground synth act working today, and you have a very special band indeed.
The Secret Society of the Sonic Six. W.D. Chadwick (on synths and guitar) and vocalist Astar Ivanka are wonderfully all over the map stylistically. What are they exactly? Neo-film noir synth? Futuristic Berliners starring in the greatest anti-fascist science fiction film of the 1930s that was banned and destroyed by the Nazis? Electro, hyper-stylized absurdists creating a breathtaking sound that is both obtuse and darkly romantic at the same time? All of the above. Then throw in some pre-synth funk era Cabaret Voltaire, add some sinister yet sexy female vocals, then mix in some of the greatest musical sophistication of any contemporary underground synth act working today, and you have a very special band indeed.
