Dionysus
Theatre Of Dionysus
Urge Records
By Discogs and Spotify’s reckonings, there are somewhere between sixteen and nineteen acts with the name Dionysus, so it might be best to look for the new Aussie post-punk band bearing that moniker by searching for the more distinct name of their EP. Nomenclature aside, the quintet sound tight and aggressive on much of Theatre of Dionysus, with tunes like “Blue Swan” and “Silhouette” adoring thrashing hardcore with just a touch of gothic repose and a vocal style sitting somewhere between The Shop Assistants and Xmal Deutschland. The dreamier side of things comes across well, too, with the opening and closing tracks conjuring wintry plains to mind more than Bachhich debauchery. Between the band’s dialled in approach to the darker side of post-punk and their core hooks and rhythms, they’re worth keeping a tab on.
Theatre of Dionysus by Dionysus

Harsh R
I WON’T WAIT
self-released
The arc of Avi Roig’s Harsh R material has taken him from the project’s early, extremely caustic electronics that bordered on power electronics to a kind of doomy, rueful version of synthpop. It’s one of those gradual changes that you you don’t see coming simply because it happened in gradual, but entirely deliberate fashion; the material on new EP I WON’T WAIT is even more melodic in its fashion than the doomy compositions of last year’s excellent LP SEEK COMFORT. Mind you that’s not to say there’s anything bright or *gasp* uplifting to be found here, moreso that the kinds of emotions that have always fuelled Roig’s compositions – uncertainty, anxiety, general disquiet – are now being expressed in softer if no less impactful fashion. Listen to the low-key bubbling bass, and the smooth edged-synths that float over them on “CAN YOU”, or the simple atonal sequence that pushes “BURY ME” along: minus Roig’s trademark howled vocals on the former, these songs capture the same feeling of the all out assaults that precede them in the catalogue, but with the bludgeon replaced by a very sharp knife, no less damaging in its way. It’s a remarkable roadmap in a project that we’ve followed since its inception, and whose constant evolutions in miserabilism have never failed to reward even as they afflict.
I WON'T WAIT by HARSH R

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Milan’s too sexy for his hat. Laibach live in 2019. Photo by Valter Leben

We’re looking back at specific live performances which left an impression on us in this episode of the podcast. Whether it’s the humanization of icons, extremities of sound or circumstance, or performances which changed the way we think about a particular style or music in general, it’s a very rhapsodic (but hopefully not too nostalgic) Pick Five episode this week. We’re also talking a bit about the tragic passings which hit Los Angeles and the broader dark music world last week. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, Google Podcasts, download directly, or listen through the widget down below. 

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yelworC
The Ghosts I Called
Metropolis Records

The idea of a new yelworC record in 2024 came as something of a surprise for fans of the formative early 90s dark electro project; while sole member Peter Schiffmann had emerged briefly in the mid-2000s with two LPs (2004’s Trinity and 2007’s Icolation), there have been no additions to the band’s catalogue since. It’s probably not surprising then that The Ghosts I Called is comprised of about a decade’s worth of material going back to 2013, some of which has the air of being dusted off and refurbished for the purposes of release.

Like the early 2000s LPs most of the compositions eschew the band’s rough-hewn charm for a more produced sound that builds out atmospheres and grooves via synths and tasteful sampled orchestration and dialogue samples. While largely instrumental, Schiffmann’s vocals wouldn’t necessarily add a lot to these compositions; tracks like “Babylon’s Code” are structurally more soundtrack-oriented from an arrangement standpoint, locking some heavy percussion loops, processed voices and a chiming dulcimer into a deep groove for four and a half minutes. The rhythm-oriented tracks are usually backed by a sturdy bassline, and range from more distinctly electronic (there’s almost, almost a big beat vibe to “Mutated Tongues” and the breaksy “The Inner Dialogue”) to almost rock-like (“Crucified with Revolution” and “Erased Name – Blind Life” apply guitars for riffs and melody lines to varying degrees).

While all of those variations on the record’s core sound have their charms, there are some moments that make one wish that the project had dipped more into its classic playbook. “The Way the World Ends” has a burbling 16th note bassline and bitcrushed snares that pair wonderfully with the spooky wind instrument that carries its melody, recalling some of the powerfully spooky atmospherics of the band’s early 90s heyday, and “Can’t You See….?” even conjures up some EBM through its bassline and rhythmic chant sample, albeit layering it with some vibrato’d riffing that gives the song a bizarre if not unpleasant a go-go surf rock feel.

Truthfully though, at nearly 80 minutes, The Ghosts I Called suffers from an excessive length that drags down it down. A tighter runtime might have allowed some more of the songs their individuality; as it stands there’s just too many tracks that are variations on similar looping arrangements of drums, synths and snatches of recorded voices. A return to the distinctive dark electro of classics like Brainstorming was never going to be in the cards, but the fact remains that even given some quite nice production and atmospherics, it feels far more like an odds and sods compilation of what yelworC has been up to for the last decade or so rather than a focused and crafted album.

Buy it.

The Ghosts I Have Called by yelworC

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I.X.XI
Not Enough To Survive
self-released

The debut proper of John Freriks’ I.X.XI project might be bookended by some Battlestar Galactica samples and begin with some Die Sektor-styled breaks and vocals, but it soon becomes apparent that Not Enough To Survive‘s handful of motifs and styles from the past twenty or so years of post-industrial club sounds are being used for a very particular effect. That the entirety of the project, from its name on outward, is meant to memorialize Freriks’ deceased sister, frames those sounds in a specific light, but even regardless of origin the variety and execution on display in Not Enough To Survive is impressive.

Grab just about any aggrotech or futurepop record from the mid aughts and you’re likely to find an intro track featuring the sort of elegiac fanfare which begins Not Enough To Survive, but rather than taking those softer orchestral moments to a mere prelude before club bangers, Freriks inverts that formula, with the record’s moments of aggression serving as interstitial moments between its quieter pillars. The slowly unfolding “Deep”, with a plaintive piano reaching out and over a quiet base of pads and percussion, feels far more of a centerpiece in the record as a whole than any of the more abrasive moments which precede or follow it.

In addition to its unlikely album structure, Not Enough To Survive benefits from canny stylistic selection and blending. Linking a NIN-like structure to the more stately and almost chamber-music styled sounds which came out of the post-witch house period, “Gone” is a reminder of how well suited that latter moment and style was to so many listeners’ first points of contact with industrial or goth music (that Brant Showers has production credits on the record is especially instructive with tracks like this). Elsewhere, aggrotech-cum-dark-electro grinds like “Guilt” sit alongside haunted post-rock chamber pieces like “Infinity”, which shifts from an almost “All Cats Are Grey”-like sequence into Mortiis-styled excoriation across its seventeen minutes.

Bringing deeply personal pain and grief to bear on record can have mixed results. For every successful piece which produces a moment of empathy and understanding, there are dozens which fail to communicate what was intended for whatever reason, or are simply so obscure or subtle in their delivery that their significance is occluded by the time they’re heard by outsiders. Regardless of the cathartic or therapeutic ends Freriks might be pursuing with the project, the emotion and strength of the material (not to mention its more unconventional approaches) should register with listeners, whether they know of its origin or not.

Buy it.

Not Enough to Survive by I.X.XI

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Tragic and difficult news coming out of Los Angeles over this weekend, with the deaths of The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez, Juan Mendez, aka Silent Servant, and the latter’s partner Simone Ling. While neither of us were friends with anyone involved, many of our friends in LA and around the world were, and are dealing with a tremendous amount of shock and grief. We’ll talk a bit about it on the podcast this week, but for now, having gone through similar experiences closer to home: carry narcan, test your supply if you can, and don’t use without people not using nearby.

Dermabrasion. Photo by Shelby Wilson.

Kontravoid, “For What It Is”
The new single from modern darkwave endboss Kontravoid brings together two of our favourite things to discuss; firstly (and most saliently) the way in which Cameron Findlay’s work has evolved while maintaining its atmospheric, foggy roots, and secondly the sneaky way some of what we’d recognize as futurepop sneaking back into scene music. Regardless of whether those little trancey arps that appear in “For What It Is” are a nod to the goth/industrial club sound of the turn of the century, its just exciting to have a new Kontravoid LP in the pipeline. Detachment drops March 1st on Artoffact, that should be an instant pre-order.
Detachment by Kontravoid

Dermabrasion, “Halberdier”
Keeping things in Toronto but on a very different stylistic tip, the forthcoming debut LP from Dermabrasion looks to be ready to put a fresh spin on the intersections between goth rock, post-punk, and likely hardcore. With far more pure riffage and weighty undercarriage than we ever got from the Bay Area post-hardcore/goth nexus decades back, tracks like this still have plenty of foreboding atmosphere while carrying over some of the most immediate appeals of styles of rock in which goths (mostly) fear to tread. Throw in some songs about goblins, D&D, and medieval weaponry and count us in.
Pain Behaviour by Dermabrasion

Cyberaktif, “Broken Through Time”
If you listened to the cuts from post-industrial supergroup Cyberaktif’s forthcoming comeback LP eNdgame and found yourself wishing for a bit more of the classic sound of the project (and its component members Cevin Key, Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber), here comes “Broken Through Time” to sort you out. While it’d be a lot to ask these artists to put all their contemporary musical ideas and inspirations on the shelf to do a throwback album, it’s nice to hear them dipping into the classic tropes like dialogue samples, rich melodic arpeggios and heavy hitting drum sounds straight from the playbook. Record drops Feb 2nd. watch this spot for our take.
eNdgame by Cyberaktif

Empusae, “Power Of The Eye God”
Between a high fashion tie-in and the reprisal of his celebrated collaboration with Shinkiro, Empusae’s been all over the map over the last few years, including Japan, as it turns out. Documenting the titular journey, Pilgrimage to Ganriki finds Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe leaning heavily towards the cinematic ambient/ritual side of his sound, though longtime listeners of his noisier fare will still find his deeply textured and evocative approach to sound design.
Pilgrimage to Ganriki by Empusae

Poison Point, “Mysteries in Fire”
Timothée Gainet’s work as Poison Point has been a strong example of how the French scene has been combining the rich history of European minimal, cold, and dark wave sounds into tight, DJ accessible but still song-oriented tracks. We were big fans of 2022’s Poison Gloves for its rich atmospherics and “Mysteries of Fire” from the forthcoming Wandering Echoes is giving us many of the same vibes; a metallic bouncy bassline and busy percussion gives it dancefloor appeal, but Gainet’s vocals and its minor key pads and leads make it gloomy and mysterious.
Wandering Echoes by Poison Point

Gallows’ Eve, “Oneirocide”
Collating and rerecording material from their initial singles and EPs plus adding some new tracks, the first LP from Swedish trad goths Gallows’ Eve gets their talents for arrangements and hooks across quickly. Avoiding the swampy morasses so many continental goth rock acts succumb to, things are kept pretty nimble on 13 Thorns with tracks like this grand and melodic but still reflective stormer. Should appeal to those still jonesing for a new record from Ikon, or for Marc McCourt to reactivate Snakedance.
13 Thorns by Gallows' Eve

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Quick refresher on this semi-regular feature here at I Die: You Die; A Game Called Echo is the thing where we recommend a more recent album you might enjoy if you’re a fan of a classic record. That’s it, basic as it gets.

Front Line Assembly’s Hard Wired (1995), and Kurs’ Muter (2021)

Look, if you’re reading this website you’ll know trying to summarize the importance of any one of the Big Four albums of Front Line Assembly in a single paragraph is a fool’s errand, so for the purposes of this particular column we’ll draw your attention to the balance and maturity held by the last of those records. Learning from some of Millennium‘s excesses, Hard Wired reigns in the chugging guitar and marshals it within Fulber’s propulsive programming, rather than allowing it to run roughshod. Between new styles of sample manipulation and ornamental programming, the record ushers in a whole new host of sounds used to conjure the cybernetic hellscape just on the horizon which FLA had been pursuing for half a decade (and which they’d never stop chasing), while still keeping the whole record’s feel within the brooding, gloomy ethos they’d had on lock for years. Your personal mileage may vary in terms of which Front Line record you feel to be their strongest, but few of them manage to reach Hard Wired in terms of equilibrium.

Hard Wired by Front Line Assembly

We come across a whole lot of records which like to tout their “cyberpunk” credentials, which sometimes amounts to little more than “we glued some old circuits to our guitars and sampled Robocop“. Thankfully, that’s not the case with the debut from Italian act Kurs. More than the narrative threaded through Muter or in the glitchy sounds which augment its classic electro-industrial programming, its the oppressive and menacing mood of the record which links it both to the origins of cyberpunk lit and to attempts to render it in aural form by the likes of FLA. It’s one thing to be influenced by the rhythmic swing of FLA’s basslines, it’s a whole other to tap into the murky grime and smog-filled nights which make up the setting of records like Hard Wired, and that’s where Muter ends up distinguishing itself from so many other cybershaded pretenders to the crown.

Muter by Kurs

Concrete Blonde’s Bloodletting (1990), and Rosegarden Funeral Party’s Martyr (2019)

Nobody really talks about Concrete Blonde’s role as a gateway band into the broader world of goth, largely because aside from the omnipresence of the title track from 1990’s Bloodletting, they didn’t release many songs that fit musically into the tradition of Our Thing. To wit, the Hollywood-based rock combo fronted by Johnette Napolitano were probably closer in spirit to bands like The Pretenders or Fleetwood Mac than Bauhaus or Siouxsie & the Banshees. That said, there’s an aesthetic argument to be made for the particular way Bloodletting‘s downcast mood and Napolitano’s powerful voice work together, taking the tropes of American hard rock and injecting them with a gravitas that is gothic if not strictly goth. And yeah, “Joey” remains a jam the world over (the chances of hearing it at any random karaoke bar you happen into remain high in 2024), but there’s some excellent deeper cuts too, like “The Beast” which isn’t dissimilar from the the rock chug of Vision Thing, or the folky “Darkening of the Light” which sounds kind of like what you’d get if Nick Cave covered REM circa Fables of the Reconstruction.

So if you’re one of the folks who holds a candelabra for that record’s particular brand of rock grandeur, good news, Rosegarden Funeral Party’s excellent 2019 LP Martyr has you covered. Sure the comparison could be made on the basis of frontwoman Leah Lane’s phenomenal singing voice and guitar playing, but there’s more to it; the Texas trio channel a specific mix of longing and ever-so-slightly theatrical angst that is a dead match for the energy that made Bloodletting resonate. Check the way Lane hits the all or nothing hooks of “Mirror’s Image” and the damnably catchy “Pills” out of the park, or how the band effortlessly jumps from the new wave bass and synths of “AMC”‘s verses to its anthemic chorus. Thats a band that knows how to walk on the gloomy side without being a downer, and who has classic rock songwriting on lock.

MARTYR by Rosegarden Funeral Party

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One goth rock record and one EBM record: not sure there’s a more down the pipe format for an episode of We Have A Technical than that! Sunshine Blind’s debut and Spark!’s most recent LP prompt discussion of production, vocal range, and all of the usual hair splitting Bruce and Alex are wont to get into. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, Google Podcasts, download directly, or listen through the widget down below. 

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Dead Voices On Air
:jamiel:spybey:
Re:Mission Entertainment

Industrial, drone, technoid, ambient, Mark Spybey’s had a turn with it all, whether through the Dead Voices On Air project which has been his primary focus since the early 90s or his innumerable collaborative projects with a sizeable percentage of any list of experimental/industrial legends one might care to scribe. In short, he’s absolutely nothing left to prove at this point, yet he’s also been on an incredible run of major latter-era releases, going back at least to 2009’s Fast Falls The Eventide (keeping up with Spybey’s interstitial and archival releases on Bandcamp is now a part-time job akin to being a Pink Dots curator). New LP :jamiel:spybey: might be the product of a relatively recent collaboration, but that only goes to show the equanimity with the broader world of experimental music in which Spybey now seems to reside.

Spybey’s work with psych-rock act The Drood’s Nathan Jamiel goes back at least to a joint Psychic TV cover a couple of years back, and is expanded upon here with both sharing compositional and vocal duties. Were Jamiel’s name not on the proverbial tin, it would be easy enough to chalk up the quavering, feathered post-rock textures of “Drought Stones” or the country-stoned strumming of “Skin Horse” to Spybey’s muse carrying him towards slightly more traditional rock instrumentation than usual, but there’s clearly an easy harmony between the two.

The unapologetically contemplative, autumnal, and dare I say sacred mood Spybey’s music’s tilted towards in the second half of the DVOA catalog remains in place here, with a sense of sanguine reflection running through :jamiel:spybey:‘s arrangements and sounds. This isn’t to say that there’s a willful naivete or desire to use ambience as a numbing narcotic; The straightforward cover of Gira’s “Blind”, presented here relatively free of ornamentation or showy transposition, just shows how well-suited the Dead Voices On Air aesthetic already is to that wounded, beautiful, and utterly haunted song.

It’s tempting to link the combination of earthiness, beauty, lamentation, and, well, basic decency and empathy which has marked the last fifteen or so years of Spybey’s work to his day job as a therapist. After all, it takes someone with a broad, unblinking, and yet ultimately hopeful view of humanity to follow a Swans cover and a piece called “Down With The World” with a straight-faced and optimistic interpretation of “We Shall Overcome”, rendered here as a medieval-styled hymnal. Regardless of the path he’s taken to arrive at it, Spybey now holds over the vast plains of sound explored by Dead Voices On Air with a canny grace and wisdom.

Buy it.

:jamiel:spybey: by Dead Voices On Air

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Varg I Veum
self-titled
SwissDarkNights

Where the last half-decade or so has seen electronic darkwave dominated by a distinctly bouncy and dancefloor oriented sound, there is still a significant number of acts plumbing the style’s icier history, especially in Europe where the cross-pollination of cold wave and minimal synth is palpable. Varg I Veum fit nicely into the latter category, and from their homebase of Naples the duo consisting of Alessandra Policella and Michele Mozzillo (ex of Hapax) have put together a solid collection of tracks for their self-titled LP, balancing both DJ-friendly programming, regal vocals, and some excellent textural and thematic ornamentation from their esoteric and historic influences.

While the promo copy for the album is quick to cite medieval folk as a touchstone, you won’t find any period instrumentation or synthetic recreations thereof here. Moreso it’s in the lyrics which are inspired by, and in some cases drawn directly from, the Norse epics where Varg I Veum explore that aspect of their sound. Whether you can detect that in a passing listen to a snappy dancefloor-ready number like “The Dim Glass” with its plucky synth hook and glassy pads, or through the hard snare hits and quantized bass of the melodramatic “Wolfsbane” is arguable – it’s more present in the stoic, deep-voiced delivery favoured by both members when singing. Those moments like the cinematic “Hoarfrost” with its tinkling synths and and deep pulsing bass contrasted against marshal sounding timpani and brassy synth horns do bring a more teutonic energy to the fore, it’s a shading more than a tangible dimension a casual listener will latch onto.

Not that that’s a detriment at all; Varg I Veum know their way around a darkwave tune, and the application of gothic melancholia and vague menace to give it some dimensionality. “The Seafarer” is an excellent example thereof; its forward momentum is brought to bear via effective rhythm programming, while its ominous electronic textures create a mood of impending disaster, never capsizing entirely, but never feeling far from doing so. That the song leads directly into the very pretty closing number “Briars” whose post-punky drum patterns and slightly more gentle vocals are no coincidence; where the former is building you up for disaster, the latter takes that tension and slowly unwinds it with a subtle but easily grasped resignation, smaller but not less catastrophic in its own sad way.

As more trad European electronic darkwave goes, Varg I Veum’s debut is an excellent example of the genre done right. No excessive drama, nor any straying too deeply into atmospheres that overwhelm effective songcraft, it’s an album that shows a deep understanding of its stylistic mother tongue, and the ways in which it can be both physically and emotionally moving by turns.

Buy it.

Varg I Veum by Varg I Veum

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