We Have a Technical 548: Hellraiser First AD

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Cardinal Noire

Cardinal Noire

On this week’s podcast, we’re talking about an everything and the kitchen sink industrial crossover record reflective of its late 90s era in Pail’s Epidemic, and the now decade-old statement of arrival from Finland’s Vancouver-school electro-industrial act Cardinal Noire. We’re also running through the just announced line-up of this year’s Terminus Festival. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Synthetische Lebensform, “Current Profile”

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Synthetische Lebensform
Current Profile
self-released

It’s been five years since Synthetische Lebensform’s last full LP Symmetry, which served as our introduction to the Russian duo’s take on the classic post-industrial sound. The appropriately-titled Current Profile is still indebted musically to their influences – largely Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly – but demonstrates the band’s increased skill in musical design and arrangement, and the commensurate growth in the strength of their material.

If you had to summarize briefly summarize Current Profile, a term like ‘snappy’ would apply; songs come out of the gate swinging, get to the point quickly, and don’t overstay their welcome. The record’s first proper track “Hunter” kicks off with some properly rivetted percussion and samples, cruises through the first verse into the chorus, switches things up with some vocoder, tosses in a bridge that bleeds into the final verse and then bows out, all in three and a half minutes. That approach to getting as much into the songs as possible without bloating them applies equally to their sound design; “Synthetic Parasite” is very in your face with its warbly and wormy synths and thudding drums, seeding the chorus and putting it over the top with each repetition, but never feels cluttered or lacking in focus.

While the Vancouver sound is still very much their guiding light, there’s a noticeable improvement in the band’s hooks and melodies. Standout “Mystic Visions” will definitely recall FLA in its vocal phrasing, but also takes lessons from the classic Leeb/Fulber bassline-as-hook school of songwriting, accenting its punchy rhythm some percussive breakdowns and a spare lead, an approach that works especially well on when applied to their EBM-leaning moments like “Crime” and “Dust”. The album climaxes with “Distance”, a melancholic anthem that recalls the widescreen sounds of :SITD: and Necro Facility as much as it does their more obvious influences and serves as a consolidation of their approach to electro-industrial.

Current Profile is a true calling card for Synthetische Lebensform; there’s certainly no shortage of bands drinking from the same creative well, but only a few ever figure out how to put their own stamp on those ur-sounds. It’s not a reinvention of the band so much as it is a considerable level up, taking what they already had dialed-in and then tuning it to be most effective in each individual song, a thematically appropriate technical approach to the creation of their cybernetic sound. Recommended.

Buy it.

Current Profile by Synthetische Lebensform

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Sleep Forever, “Alter Ego”

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Sleep Forever - Alter Ego

Sleep Forever
Alter Ego
DKA Records

Swiss duo Veil Of Light have gradually moved from a harsh and bombastic combination of darkwave and post-punk to a far easier going presentation of classic synthpop. But that shift evidently hasn’t been enough to sate one half of that duo, Markus Weber, who’s been moving his solo Sleep Forever project in a similar direction. By colouring in the corners and tightening up the songwriting, second Sleep Forever full-length Alter Ego improves upon the style set by its predecessor, Boyhood.

While lead single “Shine A Light” hinted at a slightly more raved up style of synthpop vacationing in the Balearics or Ibiza, conjuring memories of New Order’s Technique, the meat and potatoes synthpop anthem “Keep On Pretending” is more reflective of Alter Ego‘s overall sound. It’s made up of chiming synth leads which play well with one another and nuanced if not needlessly complex rhythms, blending in with Weber’s silky high tenor. Alter Ego is at its best when those elements set each other up for success – the filigreed arrangement and bubbling instrumentation (well ornamented but not cloying) of “Head Over The Heels” frame Weber’s vocals for a big and winning chorus, dropping the detail for broad strokes at just the right time.

The line between material subtlety and being underwritten can be a fine one, and there are likely a few points on Alter Ego where Sleep Forever drifts from the former into the latter. But even in those cases, if you have a yen for the sort of throwback synth patches and vocal stylings Weber is using, you’ll still be able to enjoy the easy-going confections of “Indifference” and “Pillar To Post” as they drift by.

Alter Ego finds Sleep Forever drawing the line between original classics by the likes of Duran Duran or Heaven 17 and the arch revisiting of that era we recently caught from Body Of Light or from Riki on her Gold LP. It’s a style which requires a delicate touch and on the whole it’s executed quite well here. It might not be the most insistent or hook-driven synthpop record you hear this year, but if you want some light elegance with which to acknowledge your melancholy without wallowing in it, you’ll find an affable listen here.

Buy it.

Alter Ego by Sleep Forever

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Tracks: March 3rd, 2025

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It’s Monday, March 3rd of the year 2025, and at the time of this writing, a time of year that usually presages a lot of big releases, news and festival announcements. We should be hearing something about some of our favourites in the coming weeks and days, but it’s also a good time of year to collect ourselves and start to chart out the coverage of upcoming releases we’re keen on. We’ve of course got our eyes on faves like Devours, Minuit Machine, V▲LH▲LL and Seeming, but there’s an equal thrill in having something come out of the blue and take us completely by surprise, be it a new act or a familiar one with a surprise release. If you have a record you’re anticipating in 2025, put it in the comments, in the meantime we’re on to Tracks!

Laibach

Laibach, “Fedayeen (feat. RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Gallina Vocal Group, Navid Gohari)”
Hey guys, Laibach are doing a concept album about Hassan-i Sabbāh that includes poetry from Omar Khayyam and Mahsati Ganjavi, because of course Laibach would do something like that. Whether or not you want to get into the conceptual underpinnings of Alamut (and believe me, we will be when it comes out), the sound of “Fedayeen” is a compelling mixture of symphonic and classically industrial sounds, that aligns nicely with the more recent excursions the band has made in both directions. Considering their last single was a cover of dad-rock anthem “I Want to Know What Love Is”, this is basically prime Laibach, unpredictable as ever, and never staying in one place creatively.
Alamut by Laibach

The Rorschach Garden with Neatless, “A New Edition”
It’s no small task to kee up with all of the work Philipp Münch cranks out both as half of Synapscape, his Rorschach Garden synthpop project, and about a dozen other irons he has in the fire at any given time. Still, even taking that pace of productivity into account, we’re not exactly sure how to parse Neatless Voyage, supposedly a collaboration between The Rorschach Garden and Neatless…both Münch solo projects. However you want to parse that, a middle ground between the former’s rubbery synthpop and the more menacing minimal wave and proto-dark electro of the Neatless project can be heard on a boisterous but still cutting track like this one.
Neatless Voyage by The Rorschach Garden with Neatless

The Birthday Massacre, “Sleep Tonight”
The Birthday Massacre are paradoxically something of a institution in the dark alternative scene of 2025; they emerged in an explosion of youthful exuberance way back in the early 2000s, and since that have time have evolved their pop-darkwave styles in numerous directions. Latest single “Sleep Tonight” from the soon to be released Pathways suggests they may be revisiting the heavier, metal influenced sound they explored in the 2010s, albeit with the same melodies and dreamy production that have always been their stock in trade. Whether the whole album follows suit, or whether, as the name suggests, it’ll examine a few different approaches, we’ll be keen to hear it.
Sleep Tonight by The Birthday Massacre

Blokkontroll, “Zerkala”
We only caught wind of the debut EP from Ukrainian EBM producer Blokkontroll a month ago, but there’s already a follow-up. Blok 2 picks up where its predecessor left off, delivering speedy, stripped down, and pleasantly lo-fi rhythmic-focused EBM. Blokkontroll’s interest in the earliest progenitors of EBM was present in that release, but nowhere as much as on this new cut, which is as down-the-pipe (in the best way) as it gets.
Blok 2 by Blokkontroll

Saberblood, “Blood Stains”
Here’s some solidly grinding darkwave out of Sweden which doesn’t skimp on the drum and synth programming you’d expect out of the current iteration of the genre, but which adds some seriously dark and distorted guitar. This (and the slightly more lithe A-side from which this track is pulled) is a solid enough tune that even with all the drama and effect you never feel as though the newcomer duo is opting for style over substance.
Bloodcult 52 by Saberblood

At the Heart of the World, “Not Worth Having”
A strong return from Portland post-industrialists At the Heart of the World, who we haven’t heard from since 2023. Their new 3 track EP Quaquaversal is all hard-hitting, harsh-vocals and nasty sound design, wrapped up in pulsing mutant textures, simultaneously classic and new in equal measures. We’re pretty much always on board for PNW industrial bands speaking to the region’s tradition in the style, and damn if this doesn’t hit the spot. Welcome back, we missed y’all.
Quaquaversal by At The Heart Of The World

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Observer: Rosetta Stone and Agony & the Middle Class

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Rosetta StoneRosetta Stone - Nothing Is Sacred
Nothing Is Sacred
Cleopatra Records
From Aretha Franklin to obscure German psych act The Rattles, covers have been part and parcel of Rosetta Stone since day one, and with a full two LPs of original material on record since Porl King’s formal reactivation of the legendary goth rock project, it’s perhaps not surprising that we have a nominal sequel to 2000’s Unearotica. But while that release focused on new wave and synthpop sources (that disc’s read on “Synchronicity II” remains underrated), it’s a swath of classic rock, predominantly from the 70s, being taken up here. Like most cover records, Nothing Is Sacred falls flat when it doesn’t offer a fresh read on well-worn material and picks up when it finds something new to say about songs you’ve heard a hundred times. The line between Cream’s “White Room” and BOC’s “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and the liquid picking of early Rosetta Stone material is easy to see, but was already drawn with much more verve on the cover of “The Witch”. That King’s instrumentation has become far more sparse since those days thus becomes the metric for delineating missteps like the above from some surprisingly effective and understated moments. Of all things, Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” feels pliant and vibrant under the chill, shimmering ministrations it’s given here, and the surprisingly light and sentimental take on Hawkwind’s bicyclic psych odyssey “Silver Machine” pays off just as well, almost alluding to that band’s dalliances with new wave in the late 70s. (Side note: Between this and the recent Leaether Strip covers record, Cleopatra continues to do its new releases no favours by shoving them out the door with appallingly generic and soulless AI art.)
Nothing Is Sacred by Rosetta Stone


Agony & the Middle Class
Pig Cheese
Trigger Warming
Agony & the Middle Class is the industrial project of Antoine Kerbérénès (Chrome Corpse, Dague de Marbre) and Dana Mukanova, who ply a sound between mutant EBM and the weirder strains of modern screwball industrial. The songs on Pig Cheese are chaotic and frequently change directions on a dime, but that doesn’t mean they’re careless; witness how the groove of “Wholesale Guilt” reinvents itself several times via switch-ups in its manic drum programming and FM bass sounds, never losing a step even when the individual beats have sped up to glitch speed. The title track establishes itself quickly with panned samples and a straightforward bassline, then ramps towards a chorus of squealing synths, returning to the verse which has metastasized with still more beats and samples, almost unsettlingly so. In the midst of all that Pandemonium there’s still some pretty excellent songcraft; “Addiction” forgoes the madness for a lovely twinned vocal and noirish melody, classic post-industrial that recalls the Vancouver sound, albeit deconstructed and redesigned, with chattering synths and the gated snares and open hats that meld and melt into the soupy reverb. It’s good and weird as you might expect from the principles, territory that beat-driven industrial could stand to visit more often these days.
Pig Cheese by Agony & the Middle Class

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We Have a Technical 547: Pineapple X-Mas Movie

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Encephalon

Ottawa’s Encephalon join the podcast for the first time in nearly a decade to discuss the Ottawa act’s latest high-concept, high-def electro-industrial LP, Automaton All Along. Alis and Matt chat with us about process, influences, and all of the various post-human and philosophical threads to be found in the record. We’re also discussing the news of Mentallo & The Fixer returning to live touring. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Dead Voices On Air, “dadu: tutu:”

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Dead Voices On Air
dadu: tutu:
self-released

From Download to Beehatch, from Gnome to Jamiel, Mark Spybey has never been gunshy when it comes to collaboration, within or beyond the Dead Voices On Air name under which the English experimentalist has been using for more than three decades to explore ambience, pure noise, or fractured approaches to dance, techno, and industrial. Now, coming off the heels of a groove-driven collaboration with undisputed legend Graham Lewis, Spybey returns with a second release done in concert with Martin Harvey and Stephen Weatherall operating under the mysterious moniker DADU (a collective? an obscure acronym? an incantation?), with Gary Widdowfield added to the fold for dadu: tutu:. A sprawling, chaotic affair stretching out more than two hours, it ushers a revelry of psych, krautrock, and garage rock into Spybey’s already big tent.

A piece like “Infenesation” gets the remit of the album across as well as anything else; a fuzzing yet oddly slinky interplay of squalling guitar and nodding bass flares up only to be drawn down into the murky undertow of shimmering synth ambience, and even further into abyssal feedback after resurfacing midway through. It’s a striking amount of movement and mood to be cycled through in less than four minutes, but that sort of structural experimental is part and parcel of dadu: tutu:‘s ethos (I’m not nearly enough of a Can aficionado to be able to pinpoint specific allusions, but they seem to hover about as muses throughout); some pieces are quick, slapdash riffs seemingly recorded off the cuff, others are glacially shifting tone poems of noise and feedback. Sure, both of those modes can be found in the earliest of DVOA work, the extra colour and texture added through the rock instrumentation places that freeform chaos in a new light.

Lo-fi and noisy yet structurally traditional covers of “Jeepster” and “Low Rider” (yes, that “Low Rider”) act as even more puzzling ingredients in the stone soup of the record, though the transposition of “Glassblower”, that immortal industrial club classic from another era of Spybey’s work, over to the rough and tumble rock that guides so much of dadu: tutu: makes for especially fascinating listening. Speaking of Download flashbacks, the daydreaming stream of consciousness which frames “Towards You In Your Silence Glide” as it shifts from pure ambience to space truckin’ grooves feels like an inversion of The Eyes Of Stanley Pain‘s “Suni C”, in which a clear-skied vision of utopia emerges out of a panicked and glitchy opening.

In contrast to the elegiac and crepuscular mood which has guided the last decade-plus of DVOA works, there’s an unmistakable sense of play and experimentation purely for fun and their own sake on dadu: tutu:. That isn’t to say there aren’t poignant and affecting moments – the Neu!-like interplay between choral pads and plaintive guitar on “Die Waschmaschine” has an emotional hook which belies its title’s wink at the thudding industrial percussion beneath it all. There’s also a reprise of “We Shall Overcome”, which recently appeared on :jamiel:spybey: but which cuts even deeper a year on given, well, everything. That those moments can find company with 70s AM Gold covers and the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink chaos is all part of the riddle and charm of Spybey’s approach to Dead Voices On Air, the door to which is still inviting and open after all these years.

Buy it.

dadu: tutu: by Dead Voices On Air

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Majestoluxe, “Wretched Conditions”

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Majestoluxe
Wretched Conditions
Icons Creating Evil Art

Conny Fornbäck has often used industrial-pop to describe his work as Majestoluxe, a tag that suggests something a lot less abrasive and nasty than his work tends to be. Indeed, new album Wretched Conditions is a mixture of gritty analogue synthwork, growled vocals and tightly wound sequences that have little in common with crossover sounds of any kind. However you’d care to define it, Majestoluxe’s creepy and idiosyncratic music has plenty of personality, albeit in the way where most listeners will need some time to acclimatize to the project’s lo-fi sound design and simmering intensity. 

Per Fornbäck, the record is divided into halves, with the a-side presenting his more accessible style, and the b-side digging into noisier and more textural material. That distinction might not be obvious even on multiple listens; tracks like opener “Money Mules” have more than enough fuzz and menace to unnerve, and don’t seem especially different from late LP cuts like “30 Wild Horses” which evoke the Klinik’s woozy, seasick momentum. Even if you can’t necessarily put your finger on the intended division between each portion of the record, there’s still plenty to dig into; songs like “Assertive Indifference” or “Mass Distraction” make a meal of fuzzy basslines and clanging percussion, tossing in the occasional changeup in groove to keep you from getting too comfortable. Alternately, Fornbäck often leans in on his sneering vocal delivery to add a layer of caustic cynicism to the proceedings, so even the minimal squelchy tumble of “Well Well Well” or the elevator-music-from-hell minimalism of “Sex and Surgery” have a certain misanthropic charm.

Notably, there are plenty of collaborations in the mix, with some notably interesting wrinkles as the net result. Electro and body music maven Emmon lends her talents to the gradual ramp of “Blood on the Ceiling”, sounding confident and collected on vocals even as eruptions of metallic percussion and synth filters modulate around her, a contrast to the gusto with which original à;GRUMH… vocalist J△3 sEUQCAJ spits and screams his way through the squeaks and squelches of “Humanity is Vile”. Perhaps the record’s most unsettling moment comes on the team-up with drone and ambient artist LIVMØDR, “Scylla & Charybdis”; the atonal song sounding alternately like it’s being played at the wrong speed, is melting, or both.

Wretched Conditions doesn’t shy away from being unpleasant in both form and content, and there’s a very genuine appeal to it; in an age of shiny artificial perfectionism and rote replication of whatever is popular in any given artistic field, the honesty it takes to be genuinely mean and ugly is paradoxically refreshing. That it manages to find a variety of ways to present pessimism and stinging rancor without ever becoming cartoonish or repetitive in the effort is impressive; Majestoluxe hones rancor to a sharpened point and isn’t afraid to stick you, or anyone else with it.

Buy it.

Wretched Conditions by Majestoluxe

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Tracks: February 24th, 2025

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The Senior Staff had a fun time not only DJing out at our long-standing gig as part of the Restricted Entertainment crew out here in Vancouver, but playing both the electronic and the goth-ish rooms at said party. We’ve waxed philosophical a lot over the years about the ins and outs of what city and what size of scene you cut your teeth DJing in, but a city like Vancouver where people are going to want to listen to heavy industrial beats as well as get lost in some swirly darkwave (or stomp and swoon as we like to call it) keeps you on your toes in terms of format and vibes, and we’d like to imagine we’re more well-rounded DJs for it. Let’s see what sort of range emerges on this week’s crop of tracks…

NNHMN

NNHMN

Sextile, “Freak Eyes”
Dude, Sextile have had a real renaissance since reuniting a few years back. Maybe it’s the work that Melissa Scaduto and Brady Keehn did while not working together as S. Product and Panther Modern, or maybe it’s just one of those weird moments when the sound of a band coalesces into it’s final form after a lengthy period of time, but the band’s profile has notably been on the rise for a few years now. Weirdly, that doesn’t seem to be a function of hitting on some magical musical formula, as the duo remain pretty genre-fluid, mixing in electro, industrial, rave, body music and more with a casual ease that impresses even as it moves bodies at clubs and in crowds at their wild-ass shows. New one “Freak Eyes” from yes, please (due May 2) is one such example, you’d hard a hard time pinning it down, but can’t deny it goes hard from the first beat drop.
yes, please. by Sextile

Vacíos Cuerpos, “Entre Sombras”
We were first drawn to Vacíos Cuerpos by the one-man Mexican act’s ability to conjure and maintain classic misty and evocative darkwave atmospheres while ratcheting up the speed and bounce of his compositions to a level simply not heard in contemporary gloomy fare. That’s a rare quality he continues to cash in on with this latest single, which packs a host of drama and movement into a short timeframe and never lets the dancefloor pulse dip for even a second. Deceptively well-arranged stuff here.
Entre Sombras by Vacíos Cuerpos

Minuit Machine, “Party People”
There’s been an undeniable change in the sound of French darkwave project Minuit Machine over the last couple of years; even before the retirement of founding member Hélène de Thoury due to Covid-related illness, the band had been exploring a harder, more techno-influenced sound, with recent singles for the upcoming Queendom – the first LP for Amandine Stioui as a solo act – following in suit. That said, the latest taster “Party People” is something of a throwback to the darkwave of records like Violent Rains, combining clubbable programming with Stioui’s intensely charistmatic vocal delivery and a plaintive melody that hits just so. Definitely a record we’re hotly anticipating the release of in a few weeks.
QUEENDOM by Minuit Machine

Adam Rå, “Cold Steel”
Polish producer Adam Radziszewski has roots in industrial club work going back more than a decade through projects like Orbicide and Uncarnate. The arrival of his solo work as Adam Rå on X-IMG might prompt listeners to approach this first tune from the Poisoned Chalice EP from a dark techno perspective, but pay attention to both the gallop of this number and the flurry of sampling its delivered within and the seasoned club-goer will be flashing back to millennial industrial clubs, with a heavy amount of dark electro atmospherics. Should appeal to fans of vintage Project Pitchfork or Kant Kino.
The Poisoned Chalice by Adam Rå

AXGGAA – Lust & Pain
There’s a nice balance of EBM fundamentals and general “wave” atmospherics and melodies on this cut from Argentinian producer AXGGAA, perhaps recalling the spirit if not the literal execution of early Kas Product – nicely jumpy and kicky without forsaking harmonies and hooks. While you’re at it skim through the rest of the cuts on Bloody Electronics’ latest Blood Selections comp; those releases are always a great way of keeping up with what’s happening in South America.
[BE003] Blood Selections Chapter 3 by Bloody Electronics

NNHMN, “The Secret”
Is electro-darkwave still a dominant club sound in your town or region? Nothing has necessarily taken off as a replacement for the ubiquitous genre that sprang to life in the wake of Boy Harsher’s success, and there’s no question that plenty of quality tunes are still coming out that fall squarely into that hazy, beat-driven rubric, such as the latest from the dependable NNHMN. “The Secret” is a down the pipe club number, featuring some straight-ahead drum and bass programming and a minimal melody, allowing vocals and general atmosphere to carry the song, which moves at a nice clip and will easily slide into DJ setlists.
The Secret by NNHMN

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DJ Surreal – February 23, 2025

Descent Sundays -

MSI – Shut Me Up
And One – Military Fashion Show
Assemblage 23 – Disappoint
Covenant – We Stand Alone
VNV Nation – Retaliate
Suicide Commando – God is in the Rain
Helium Vola – Omnis Mundi Creatura
Wumpscut – Christfuck
Brvmes – Haute
Repo! The Genetic Opera – Zydrate Anatomy
Puscifer – Undertaker
In This Moment – Roots
A Perfect Circle – Counting Bodies Like Sheep

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