We Have a Technical 558: Verboden 2025 Recap

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Psyche

With Bruce off to the highlands and Alex recovering under a pile of coats in a hall closet somewhere, this week’s episode is a hastily recorded recap of this year’s Verboden Festival from right here in Vancouver. You can hear the strain in the quality of our voices at the time of this recording, as we did plenty of chatting with artists, attendees and assorted friends and well-wishers while taking in an excellent lineup of artists across two venues, representing for the past, present and future of darkwave, EBM, industrial and several related genres. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Observer: E.T. & Nuxx

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E.T. - Full Anarchism
E.T.
Full Anarchism
self-released
ID3 tagging their latest work as Egalitarianism Today (much like early Foetus records the literal name always changes even if the brand doesn’t), Minneapolis synthpunk duo E.T.’s new LP is a direct and refreshingly irony-free statement of irritation and rage at the current state of things from, as the title not-so-subtly hints, an anarchist perspective. Putting out records since 2018’s fantastically titled Phone Homo‘s given them a sense of confidence and purpose both thematically and musically which pays off well, with their rough and tumble production style takes precedence over specific sub-genres and styles here. The scrapy programming and muffled bass of “Bow Down” feel in-line with “Larva Leaks”‘ over-caffeinated kicks, even though the former is structured far more like a modern TBM banger than the latter’s more classic approach to jumped-up synthpunk. Most of the lyrics do a solid job of framing E.T.’s critique as a matter of personal feeling and larger historical truth, while “Someone Else” interrogates the ways in which capitalism makes each of us small cogs in its larger death engine. Those themes are bracketed with a mix of samples left as voice-mail styled bumpers; in addition to the usual suspects like The Fly, Aliens, and Terminator 2, you’ve also got BLM activists, Reservation Dogs and the immortal Ursula K LeGuin popping in to drop bombs. Solid stuff from the liminal edge between all our dystopic todays and tomorrows.
Full Anarchism by Egalitarianism Today


Nuxx
Bird Brain EP
Synthicide
As noted in the bandcamp liners, NYC electronic artist Nuxx’s new EP for Synthicide Bird Brain is all about reinvention. Aside from shortening the project’s name from Nuxx Vomica, the five whipsmart tracks here are louder and more compact than they’ve ever been before, and find Nuxx stepping out from the layers of reverb and disaffection in her delivery to stand directly in the spotlight. Musically the songs find a bracingly uneasy middle ground between rapidfire half-shouted, half-rapped delivery, raw electro and chopped up rave synths and breaks with results both hypnotic and menacing. The atonal groove of “Break Me” screeches and squelches but is instantly tamed by Nuxx’s bitten-off “I don’t care/I like it” vocal chant, while opener “Bad” finds her riding a raunchy bassline into the ground, acting as her own hypeman, tossing off distorted ad libs while sirens wail around her. The songs are short and sharp by design, allowing for “Done”‘s litany of sick-of-this-shit complaints to land at high impact speeds even before the distorted screeches crash into the mix – just like the refrain on the title track lets you know, Nuxx isn’t fucking around.
Bird Brain EP by Nuxx

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We Have A Technical 557: Budgie’s Over-Under

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Gary Numan

We’re talking about records by electronic pioneers who need little introduction in Gary Numan and Uwe Schmidt’s Lassigue Bendthaus, but while the latter’s Matter is an undisputed, hugely influential masterpiece, Numan’s Berserker has a more mixed legacy, hinting at the rough sledding ahead. We’re also chatting loads of festival news (real and hypothetical) on this week’s episode. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Ships In The Night, “Protection Spells”

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Ships In The Night
Protection Spells
Metropolis Records

There’s a sense of warmth to the music on Ships In The Night’s Metropolis debut Protection Spells, and a pleasing familiarity in its song-driven electropop and witchy darkwave. While Alethea Leventhal’s project has existed for a decade at this point, Protection Spells represents a level-up in the Virginia native’s material; the reverie and the hopeful melancholy of the preceding records and assorted singles is still here, but the actual songcraft and production feels tighter and more considered, bringing out the strength of the material and of Leventhal’s own performance as a vocalist.

The change is apparent from lead-off track and single “Blood Harmony”, with its helixes of synth arppegios and simple drum programming, leaving the spotlight Leventhal’s understated vocals. The retiring confidence in her voice grabs the ear, making the most of small changes in tone and mood, never showy, but also never shy or obscure; when she lifts her voice to a slightly higher register during the bridge to the final chorus, the whole song blossoms into a new form without a need for dramatics or vamping. It’s a record full of those kinds of subtle but impactful moves, such as the shifts in phrasing that usher in the chorus of “Inside”, or the choice to perform the lush “Wells of Pain” in a matter-of-fact delivery that still manages sweetness and succor. The trick is in making those canny choices sound natural, which Leventhal does with admirable skill, tasteful and playful in equal measure.

The other obvious change is in the nature of the songs themselves, which feel more solid that any point in the project’s history. Ships In The Night’s preceding releases often suffered from an excess of atmosphere, where despite having some nice melodies, the instrumentation was either too sparse or too wet with reverb to latch onto. Protection Spells keeps it simple and present, adding to the record’s appealing coziness. It does feel a bit strange to call a record this dependent on soft-edged pads and multi-tracked vocals, but the economy of the arrangements and especially the presence of the drums have a grounding effect; “Some of Those Dreams” pulses where it could have laid fallow, and sleeper highlight “No One is Coming” makes a total meal of its opening bassline and kick-snare rhythm track, squeezing every ounce of life out of it before switching to a double time shuffle that brings the song home.

Protection Spells‘ strength is apparent even in one of its few missteps: the wholly unnecessary cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” isn’t unpleasant by any means, but feels like the move of a less confident, less complete artist and ends up highlighting how instantly familiar Ships In The Night’s own material is. It’s an imminently listenable record with a broad pop appeal, brimming with a likeable and unshowy charisma.

Buy it.

Protection Spells by Ships In The Night

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