Hallowed Hearts, “Masquerade”

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Hallowed Hearts
Masquerade
Diffusion Records

Both Alex Virlios and Andrew Sega were mostly well-known for work in the world of synthpop before founding their Hallowed Hearts project; the former for his work with Provision, and the latter for doing the heavy lifting in Iris for most of that band’s existence. That the duo would turn to what is essentially goth rock for the sound of Hallowed Hearts was unexpected, but speaks to both of their artistic strengths, with Virlios’ vocal charisma and Sega’s skill as an arranger and instrumentalist really standing out on their new LP Masquerade.

There’s a pleasingly unreconstructed sound to the Hallowed Hearts material, which in turn gives it a timeless feel. Take for example the title track, which is driven by a simple kick-snare drum pattern and a nice combination of sharper riffing and spidery arpeggios on the verses, and big washy guitars on the verse, recalling any number of second wave goth rock classics of the 90s. The production is clean and modern, with the electronics mixed to allow the guitars to lead the way. To that point, Sega does a bang-up job of strumming, soloing and playing minor key hooks across the entirety of the record. He’s a tasteful player who knows when to play a support role (doubling bass and providing rhythm on “Dreams”) and letting it all hang out (check the shimmery delay on the chorus of closer “Waiting”).

Virlios has a voice built for this style of music and projects the right mix of gravitas and yearning. He makes space for himself in busier numbers like the chugging “Open Your Eyes”, and keeping sparser songs like the moody “Last Chance” lively thanks to some expert phrasing that plays well against the programmed drums and bass. The record’s best cut “Breathe” really gives him an opportunity to shine, singing in a higher register that plays off the chorus’ guitar attack, and leaning in on the the whoa-ohs that give the song its anthemic power.

With those strengths in mind, Masquerade is very much the kind of record that lives and dies by its songs, an area where it handily acquits itself. Numbers are built around getting their hooks and choruses over from the ground up, and make the most of breakdowns and changeups between sections to keep the momentum fast and fluid. Hallowed Hearts are obviously students of how to put a song together, and their expertise in doing so makes the full LP an easy, varied listen from front to back.

Buy it.

masquerade by hallowed hearts

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Tracks: October 28th, 2024

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Halloween falls on a decidedly unfestive Thursday this year, but we imagine plenty of folks reading this are still finding plenty of methods of observance. At our end, we have a bunch of DJ gigs happening on the weekends before and after, but in general the actual Halloween ragers of our youth have been slowly replaced by binges of classic thrillers and more off-beat recent horror fare. With a recent navel-gazing discussion on the nature of goth still at hand we feel it’d be a bit indulgent to go on at length about what Halloween does and doesn’t mean to those of us within darker music cultures, but that might be something we’ll stick a pin in for next year. On with this week’s tracks!

Devours riding the Skytrain, it’s a Vancouver thing.

Linea Aspera, “Mycelium”
Linea Aspera are hands down one of the most influential acts of the millennium when it comes to darkwave and the resurgence thereof. Alison Lewis (aka Zanias) and Ryan Ambridge’s self-titlted 2012 LP opened the door to the style for countless acts, and was especially important for bridging the world of minimal wave, appealing to fans of both that austere style, and classic euro darkness. Their 2020 comeback was naturally pretty welcome and acted as proof that their initial run was no fluke, they had the goods when it came to lush, mysterious tunes that had club appeal and atmosphere aplenty. Hence our excitement at seeing the unexpected release of the mellow if sad “Mycelium”; it’s a lovely tune no doubt, but if it also signals a third album on the horizon, well, all the better.
Mycelium by Linea Aspera

Devours, “Swordswallower (Zendaya’s Fortress)”
The new era of Devours kicks off with “Swordswallower (Zendaya’s Fortress)”, a track that presages darker things for Vancouver’s synthpop gaylien. For one thing, it takes the project’s typically sticky melodies and sharp lyrics and then weds them to an especially long and ambitious arrangement that exceeds 7 minutes, with a massive breakdown and tempo change, with the dense punky rhythm of the track giving way to a big open space where a minor key melody that recalls The Fragile-era Nine Inch Nails plays out. It’s unexpected, invigorating and exactly the kind of massive artistic swing that has made Devours our favourite local act for several years running.
Swordswallower (Zendaya's Fortress) by Devours

Involucija & Le Chocolat Noir, “Mit i iluzija”
There are a lot of different things to like on the new collaborative EP from West Balkan rhythmic industrial supergroup Involucija and EBM minimalists Le Chocolat Noir. Sure, you’re getting a couple of the tight and staticky basement rave TBM numbers you might expect from all these folks coming together for a release on a+w, but you’re also getting stuttering, processed industrial rock aneurysms like this, which are a reminder of just how far off the beaten track plenty of previous innovators from the former Yugoslavia have ventured.
Želja Mašta Strah by Involucija & Le Chocolat Noir

MeLLLo, “Stories Of Ghosts”
Marianthi of our beloved, semi-dormant Marsheaux is keeping her hot streak going, with track after track of dreamy synthpop/electro-pop hitting an irresistible hot spot between pop hooks and atmosphere. This latest little treat’s no exception, finding a balance between a proximal, intimate nostalgia and a big and immediate anthemic chorus, with a few little reminders of Book Of Love’s classic “You Make Me Feel So Good”.
StoRieS Of GhoSTs by MeLLLo

Die Selektion, “Mein Fundament (Club Edit)”
Last year’s Zeuge aus Licht offered plenty of club tracks to savvy body music selectors; no surprise given the quality control self-styled masters of prosecco wave Die Selektion have had on lock for more than a decade. Still, we’re always happy to be offered a few additional club reworkings, and this take on that LP’s closing track manages to keep the dynamics of tension of the original in place while also hooking clubgoers from the first beat.
Zeuge aus Licht (Club Edits) by Die Selektion

Majestoluxe & EMMON, “Blood on the Ceiling”
Two Swedish acts we enjoy come together on “Blood on the Ceiling”, highlighting their common ground and their differences. From Majestoluxe we get the dense, DIY electronics that feel both propulsive and claustrophobic, while EMMON brings the club appeal via heavy beats and smokey vocals. Neither act could do something like this on their own, and the addition of metallic percussion sounds gives the whole affair an appropriately industrial edge. This the second collaborative track from the two producers, which begs the question, is an LP in the works?
Blood on the Ceiling by Majestoluxe, EMMON

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Observer: Die Sexual & Yeun Elez

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Die Sexual
Electric
self-released
The Los Angeles-based duo of Rosselinni and Anton Floriano have been slow-dripping their take on the now familiar electro-darkwave sound for a few years now, with a small but solid catalogue of club-ready numbers, usually themed around S&M, and more broadly submission and domination. New EP Electric feels more strident and less sultry than some of their preceding releases, although no-less concerned with sexual matters. A big part of this is in how Rosselinni attacks these songs vocally, as on “Pulse” where she spits out the song’s unsubtle come-ons in rhythmically, matching the syncopation of the rhythm track. Similarly “Darkest Hour”‘s warbling synthlines and solid kick-snare patterns, reminiscent of Anton’s other project Black Light Odyssey, similarly use her voice as a rhythmic device, both via sampled stutters and the way she slides words into the thin space between its layers of programming. The EP also features a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Dressed In Black”, cutting words out of the lyrics to recast Rosselinni as the narrator, abandoning the submissiveness of the original for a message of dominance, paired with a dark, driving beat for maximum impact. It, and the whole EP, are another step forward for Die Sexual in terms of defining their sound and identity beyond their most obvious and identifiable markers.
Electric by Die Sexual

Yeun Elez
Yeun Elez
La Croix Des Cinq Chemins
Antibody
While the “neofolk” tag could theoretically be a limitless reworking of nearly any stripe of non-program music from around the world, so often what it means in practicality is “weak Death In June tributes”. That’s what makes La Croix Des Cinq Chemins, the latest tape from Hoel Von Helvet’s Yeun Elez project so rewarding. Sure, it’s rooted in European mysticism and occult murkiness, but every element of La Croix Des Cinq Cheminsfeels designed to connote the particular French landscape for which the project is named. Smoky vocals which seem to be recorded specifically to accentuate the sonorous elements of the French language slowly drift through stoic (but at times surprisingly jiggy) hand drums on “Le mirage”, and the quavering strings of “Gwerz ar game” trade off the spotlight with eerie pads and hurdy gurdy-styled drones on the rich and fully realized title track. And when Von Helvet elects to cash in the atmospheric chits he’s earned by building tension with the full-bore icy dungeon synth of “La Lune Rouge”, it’s a move that feels earned and puts the core elements of that style in a fresh light. To be sure, La Croix Des Cinq Chemins is a record which prioritizes mood and ritual over composition – there aren’t individual tracks which stand out by virtue of a particular hook or compositional tactic – but as an exercise in conjuring a particular atmosphere and place, it absolutely hits the mark.
La croix des cinq chemins by Yeun Elez

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We Have A Technical 530: Not Gonna

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Worms Of The Earth

Worms Of The Earth: Reptilian Splendour.

Keeping the momentum going from last week we’re sticking with a decidedly industrial pair of records to discuss from Worms Of The Earth and C-Drone Defect. We’ve also got reactions to the just announced line-ups of next year’s Cruel World and Dark Forces festivals. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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genCAB, “III I II (Third Eye Gemini)”

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genCAB
III I II (Third Eye Gemini)
Metropolis Records

The sheer volume of material that David Dutton has released since the reactivation of his genCAB project in 2020 is impressive; between EPs, singles and full-lengths, the Philadelphia based industrialist has more than made up for the decade or so where the project was largely inactive. The song oriented style that the project put forward on 2008’s II transMuter seems especially ahead of its time in retrospect, not only in terms of how it approaches grafting complex arrangements of melody to slick, highly-detailed production. Dutton’s efforts to push both his songwriting and studio skills further into new territory have had mixed results, with 2022’s Thoughts Beyond Words being one of the best records of that year, while 2023’s Signature Flaws suffered from a lack of focus if not ideas and creative energy.

III I II (Third Eye Gemini) is a collection of rerecordings drawn from the project’s pre-reactivation material, along with new songs inspired by the process of revisitation. The exercise finds a balance that the preceding LP lacked, with Dutton exploring the electro-industrial sounds that inform the project, without forgoing his ever more complex compositional ideas. Songs like “Appentence” make for excellent examples of his approach; it’s got numerous distinct sections, a chorus and a verse that morph into and out of one another, and Dutton’s own multi-tracked vocals providing something to latch onto amid the every changing musical landscape.

The record is almost proggy in its complexity, but hidden within it and numerous other songs are the basic tools of electro-industrial music; chopped and processed vocal samples, syncopated drum programming that spans four on the floor kicks to breaks (the “Self Image(s)” using both to good effect), with classic quantized synth programming at the center. The contrast between the record’s ambitious structures and its invocation of the familiar is one of its greatest strengths, lending a more straightforward number like “Perish the Thought” dimensionality without compromising its emotional core, and grounding the rapid-fire switchups on “Of Love and Death”.

The danger of a rerecording project, even when spiked with new songs, is that a newer version, no matter how improved in terms of production or performance, can lose the charm of the original. Similarly, sticking too close to the original can call the whole endeavor into question; why bother remaking your own song if you aren’t gonna do something new with it? A back to back listening exercise of these tracks shows how well Dutton walks that line; “DMT” in its original form is a fast moving bit of club fare with busy rhythm programming, while its new incarnation maintains the pace of the original while spreading out the mix, creating space for its melodic vocal hook to really take root in new ways that it couldn’t in the bricked-in original.

One gets the impression that III I II (Third Eye Gemini) is less tinkering with things that are already complete than a way of bringing older songs closer to Dutton’s original vision for them, coloured by his current sensibilities and abilities. In speaking to his past and present in the same breath, it’s a proper vision of David Dutton as a creator, the arc of his vision for genCAB as a project, and the ways both grand and subtle that he executes on it.

Buy it.

III I II (THIRD EYE GEMINI) by genCAB

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Mala Herba, “Wounded Healer”

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Mala Herba - Wounded Healer

Mala Herba
Wounded Healer
White Forest Inc.

Since Polish artist Zosia Hołubowska’s first demos as Mala Herba emerged seven years ago, the work under that aegis has never lacked for confidence or consideration. Its themes of folk wisdom and practice, not to mention fluidity between modern techno/body production, acoustic experimentation, and bracing vocals, have been there since day one, with the nature of individual releases has been determined by subtler choices in focus and refinement. New LP Wounded Healer is Hołubowska’s most varied release to date, but also gets as deep into Mala Herba’s arcane forest as has yet been ventured.

As with previous Mala Herba releases, newcomers and fans will both likely focus initially onWounded Healer‘s vocals, and the increasingly fervent incantation of opening track “Siemieniec” indicates the level of drama much of it is pitched at. With each track featuring contributions from other femme Eastern European artists (there’s no indication as to whether those contributions are musical, vocal, or both), there’s a range of registers and moods, with the vocals complemented by weighted kicks and and atmospheric pads and sampling. It’s tough to always know whether the vocals (predominantly in Polish but with some Ukrainian mixed in if I don’t miss my guess) are serving as wards, banishments, excoriations, laments, or some other form, but they’re almost always arresting even free of direct linguistic context (the album’s title alluding to the wisdom of Greek centaur Chiron leaves the tracks themselves open for a wide range of allusions and interpretations).

But in the corners of Wounded Healer are many moves made by Hołubowska and their collaborators which add depth and colour beyond its more bracing elements. The gradual chopping and sampling of the initially simple sing-song vocals of “Lipa” over the course of its run time could be taken as a drift into the uncanny abstraction of the human voice, or given the decidedly organic ethos which runs through the record, simply as a reflection of natural decay and the degradation of recordings and bodies. The rising and falling harmonic rondo of “Nikt” is similarly softer than much of the record, but the shape of the pulsing kick which runs through it finds a textural contrast in both the heavily processed and naturally recorded vocals which alight through it.

Wounded Healer is a stark listen which gets Mala Herba’s appeal and power across in as strong and direct a manner as we’ve heard, but also offers depth both through its collaborators and Hołubowska’s subtle but adroit flourishes. You don’t need to speak Mala Herba’s language to know that they trade in strong medicine.

Buy it.

Wounded Healer [WFI005] by Mala Herba

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Tracks: October 21st, 2024

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The Hallowe’en weekend is nigh, which is of course an exciting time of year for folks of our particular stripe, although as we’ve discussed a few times in the past, we have a hard time getting quite as excited for Samhain is we did when younger. It’s certainly a function of us being old, and tired, and over-committed in all aspects of our lives, but there’s also a weird amount of pressure (you know, the kind that used to be reserved for Family Christmases) surrounding the whole thing that makes opting out feel like the right option. Does that mean we won’t be costuming up and DJing various parties in the coming weeks? No it does not. Does it mean we’ll probably spend some time chewing over how our relationship with Gothsgiving has changed in recent years on the podcast at some point? PROBABLY. Tracks ahoy!

Normal Bias

Normal Bias

Normal Bias, “Falling Down”
Sick new joint from the duo of Matt Weiner from TWINS and Chris Campion of Multiple Man in their Normal Bias guise, in advance of their first full LP, Kingdom Come which drops this week. You’re getting a lot of the same musical ideas you would associate with each act, like Weiner’s smokey, low-voiced vocals, and Campion’s body-funk, but there’s something very specific in the way these two artists collaborate that makes the sound much more than the som of its parts; wistful, groovy and above-all danceable.
Kingdom Come by Normal Bias

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, “Driving Black”
Say, did you happen to catch our Red Lorry Yellow Lorry commentary podcast yesterday? We didn’t have time to mention it, but by complete accident that historical deep dive coincides with news of the first proper new Lorries record since 1992. While reunion gigs and a handful of new(er) tracks have come and gone over the past couple of decades, the prospect of a full EP’s worth of new tunes from Chris Reed & co. is an exciting one. Folks who recall the band heading in a ‘leather and Americana’ direction similar to that charted contemporaneously by the Mary Chain at the tail end of their original run will hear that thread being picked up again here.
Driving Black by Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

Skelesys, “The Answer”
Berlin’s Skelesys has been accruing a bit of buzz in the darkwave world with a handful of bootleg mixes and an EP on Oraculo (plus a hot take on a Zanias cut a few months back), but based on the preview tracks for its debut LP, that buzz should be heavily amplified quite soon. Tunes like this stake out a prime spot smack between the chilly minimalism which drives a lot of current darkwave and the warmer melodicism which can be found in subtler expressions of it, and are very well arranged.
Fading Echoes LP by Skelesys

Cardinal Noire, “Gun Metal”
Hell yeah, more teasers for the upcoming Cardinal Noire LP via Artoffact. We’ve written at length about the Finnish duo’s work in the classic post-industrial style (not to mention their various side-projects in adjacent styles), and the reason is simple; in a genre that has lots of bands that mine the classic Vancouver sound, very few have ever done it better or with more conviction. Just hit play on “Gun Metal” for a proper slice of acid-vocalled, orch hit beating, sample mangling excellence if you need an example, and then go pre-order Vitriol while you’re at it.
Vitriol by Cardinal Noire

Neurowulf feat. Stefan Poiss, “All This Life”
The heavily trance-driven style of Slovenia’s Neurowulf isn’t the sort of thing we find ourselves regularly reaching for, but we’ll admit it – a Stefan Poiss feature is enough to grab our attention. The mind.in.a.box main main sounds right at home riding a very futurepop friendly kick and some stabby arpeggios which should have folks of a certain vintage flashing back to mid-00s dancefloors, and Neurowulf does a bang-up job of framing his immistakable vocals in the proper light.
Kolaps by NeuroWulf

Static Ghost, “Corpse Code (Qual remix)”
Pacific Northwest underground techno-body producer Static Ghost has impressed us greatly, both via this year’s excellent Depatterened EP, and the times we’ve seen them perform live. The appropriately titled REMIXED gets added to that resume, featuring new takes on the hard-hitting cuts from the EP by the likes of Dildox, Poison the Vicar, Damascus Knives, and this thudding slice of club-bait from the ever-solid Qual. Great stuff, and an easy add to the Bandcamp wishlist in advance of its October 25th release.
REMIXED by STATIC GHOST

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