Observer: Adam Rå & Serpentskin

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Adam Rå
The Poisoned Chalice
X-IMG
Polish producer Adam Rå makes his X-IMG debut with the appropriately ominous The Poisoned Chalice, showcasing a lot more thoughtfulness than many of his peers in the waning techno-industrial crossover scene. Rå’s strength comes not only from programming solid rhythms and designing rich textures for his tracks, but in finding ways to make them musical, as opposed to being collections of loops and samples. The obvious examople is the title track, where a pumping bassline and percussion are overlaid by a ghostly vocal track, always lurking behind the thumping dancefloor arrangement and making the song feel compellingly haunted. Opener “Scars” does more with less, starting with a fairly standard techno-body setup, but subtly building up the surrounding atmosphere with a subtlety that stands in contrast to its kicks and synthlines. Especially great are the trance-like touches that set off “Cold Steel” and “The Smell of Rope”; the former building and breaking back down in organic goa-esque fashion, the latter using a gated vocal sound as a lead to tickle the ear, and matching the ducking and compression that push its groove to the finish line.
The Poisoned Chalice by Adam Rå

Serpentskin
Serpentskin
Serpentskin EP 1
Fleisch
While radically different from the last release we caught from Alison Lewis under her Zanias handle, the debut EP of her Serpentskin side project shouldn’t come as any surprise to those who’ve been paying attention to the programming flitting in the corners of the Chrysalis and Ecdysis LP, not to mention her work as a remixer and those she’s tapped to remix her own work. If Ecdysis took the reflective and spiritual themes of Chrysalis into the ambient/chill room, Snakeskin finds her not only making a beeline for the center of the main room dancefloor at peak hour, but also travelling back to the late 90s when trance, specifically of the euphoric blend, absolutely dominated clubs years before the dreaded “EDM” marketing ploy. The interplay between wordless, cooing vocals and the icy skiffs of programming on opener “Swallow The Flame Down” feel very much of a piece with the textural interplays we’ve seen in Zanias records for nearly a decade now, but with all of the galloping builds and crests of classic trance accentuated. Savvy heads who’ve noted Lewis’ collaborations with Alex Akers of the forever underappreciated Forces project will hear Lewis’ spin on Forces style rave anthems on pieces like the fantastically titled “Basking In The Light At Heaven’s Gate” (speaking of ’90s flashbacks). Both as a vocalist and as a producer it’s a milieu Lewis sounds incredibly at ease with, both reinaugurating the original era and records it pays homage to, and indicating just how much more she might have to show us even after the variety of her extant work.
Serpentskin EP 1 by Serpentskin, Zanias

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We Have A Technical 549: Baby Man

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Berndsen

We’re joined by a pair of Patreon backers, Gustav of Sturm Café and Eric of Everything Goes Cold, to talk about a pair of records: the throwback, funk-inflected synthpop of Berndsen’s Planet Earth and Babyland’s electronic junk punk swan song Cavecraft, respectively. We’re also chatting about a recent show by Vancouver’s own Devours. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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The Rorschach Garden with Neatless, “Neatless Voyage”

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Neatless Voyage

The Rorschach Garden with Neatless
Neatless Voyage
Rorschach Garden Records

Not content with expanding beyond his long-standing (mostly) solo project The Rorschach Garden to develop a host of other side hustles, Phillip Münch (who made his bones as one half of powernoise legends Synapscape) is now crossing the streams. The neat_less project, which made its debut two years back and showcased an icy and mean style of EBM and dark electo on last year’s solid Defeat The Monsters, pointed to a style that took neither from the dense noise of Synapscape nor the nostalgic synthpop commonly associated with The Rorschach Garden. Now, with Neatless Voyage, credited as a collaboration between those two solo projects, Münch splits the difference between neat_less’ more aggressive style and Rorschach Garden’s bubbling synths to produce an uneasy and cautionary listen.

The tension between the lithe bounce of opener “A New Edition” and the more grinding texture of its bassline and Münch’s foreboding vocals about the current age of uncertainty is a solid guidepost for the dynamic Neatless Voyage treads. Finding a middle ground between classic influences like Snowy Red and The Klinik, it points both to Münch’s comfort with soft and harsh synth sounds from across his career, but also the fact that forms like synthpop, EBM, and dark electro all have shared roots if you trace them far enough back and, moreover, have the chops for curation, editing, and sound design of someone with Münch’s pedigree. The sleazy, lo-fi Soft Cell synth horns on “Praying Mantis” only similarly serve to underline how much meanness there is in the rest of the track’s robotic EBM funk.

If those sorts of vintage callbacks are a good portion ofNeatless Voyage‘s music delivery, there’s certainly nothing vintage about its themes. The speed with which Münch turns out his solo work allows for him to address a plethora of historical moments and crises as they happen. When says “everything was normal, everything was safe until the last election”, it’s unclear whether he’s referring to the cascading shitshow of the second Trump presidency or the German federal election in which the Nazi-riddled AfD advanced its position…which happened literally one week before Neatless Voyage was releases. Regardless, the running theme of masses opiated into inaction as all manner of horrors unfold doesn’t have to be tied to one specific government or recent disaster; lord knows there’s more than enough existential dread to go around these days.

Lighter moments like “Get Physical” and “Just Drifting” ease up on both the musical and lyrical tension, but they’re the exception to the rule (whether or not their liquid arpeggios could fit into The Rorschach Garden’s existing remit or whether another moniker is needed is a question for another day). Regardless of the name(s) under which this particular iteration of Münch’s take on dark, quirky synthesis has been released, he’s once again shown himself to be capable of honing in on just about any point on that spectrum.

Buy it.

Neatless Voyage by The Rorschach Garden with Neatless

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Marie Davidson, “City of Clowns”

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Marie Davidson
City of Clowns
DEEWEE

Montreal’s Marie Davidson has been a well-known quantity in the world of techno and minimal wave via her releases on Ninja Tune and Weyrd Son, and as half of Essaie Pas, with her latest release City of Clowns feeling especially relevant to left of center outre forms of dance music. Expanding on Davidson’s oft-visited theme of feeling out of step with club culture and the broader world of popular electronic dance music, it’s an album that is rich with personality and charm, qualities that help the excoriatingly sardonic sentiment go down more smoothly.

Need an example of how City of Clowns can be both fun and acerbic at the same time? Look no further than single “Sexy Clown”, where Davidson matter of factly addresses the social game that artists play for advancement and for the benefit of their audience, her opening line “Am I full of shit?”, an admission of her own role in the charade. The song itself is a funky, shuffling slice of electro with a bouncy chorus that takes on a sinister edge as more and more atonal synth stabs poke through it, a perfect accompaniment to its lyrical discontent. It’s an approach that suits Davidson well, and she tweaks in interesting ways, as on the thudding and chattering “Y.A.A.M.” where Davidson asserts her control over the dancefloor with a whispered confidence that is completely convincing, or on the body-music inflected roll of “Demolition”.

As much as the record revolves around Davidson’s over-it outlook on the world of electronic music, there are plenty of songs which speak to her skill as a producer in the genre. “Contrarian” is as a fast-moving bit of uptempo techno that takes twists through numerous forms, working in breaks, acid and an intense peak that feels like it might derail if it slows for even a moment, its momentum carrying to the finish line. Conversely, “Statstical Modelling” is a nigh-perfect example classic electro, its skeleton reinforced by waves of shimmering synths and vocal stabs, deadly funky. Davidson cinches it with “Unknowing”, an anxious arrangement of keening klaxons and rapidfire kicks, slowly melting down to set the stage for her closing address to the audience, the critics, and everyone else who might be listening.

City of Clowns was no doubt a creative risk, simultaneously in danger of tipping over into cloying bitterness and cartoonish self-parody. It avoids those pitfalls through a preternatural self-confidence that comes through in its vocals, lyrics and production, which are too energized and sincere to ever feel like a put-on, even at their most arch. Like Davidson says, “Don’t get it confused, cuz I do it for me”, as succinct a summary of the album as you’d ever need. Recommended.

Buy it.

City Of Clowns by Marie Davidson

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Tracks: March 10th, 2025

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We’re looking forward to folks being able to hear this week’s episode of the podcast, which’ll feature some Patreon backers joining us to talk about records of their choosing. While we spend a lot of our spare time chatting with friends about music and hearing fresh perspectives on the music we cover here, that rarely happens in a semi-formal or considered setting (rather than just shooting the shit online or at shows), and so these episodes are a chance for us to break out of the common avenues from which we cover stuff here. Speaking of breaking out of common avenues, we hope folks dig some of the more left-field picks in this week’s batch of tracks.

How Bedless are these Bones we’re talking about?

Bedless Bones, “Jouissance”
This Bandcamp friday brought a nice surprise; a new double single from the insanely consistent Estonian darkwave artist Bedless Bones. That name should be familiar if you’ve been reading our Year End lists for the last half-decade, and if you were to take a peek at our setlists and personal listening stats, you’d seen a pretty healthy amount of BB in the mix. It’s not just the production, or the atmosphere, or the general charisma that gets infused into these songs that grabs us, it’s the fact that regardless of how electronic, how solid and dancefloor ready they are, they maintain a very specific, dignified grace that feels extremely rare and characteristic. Need an example? Hit play on “Jouissance” below.
Jouissance by Bedless Bones

Circa Tapes, “Haeded”
Experimental coldwave act Circa Tapes (the solo hustle of Adam Sieczka of the late, great Kill Memory Crash) has been firing the engines up again of late and yielding some interesting results, like the a-side of the plainly titled A / B single. Linking robotic funk and early electro breaks with industrial-strength post-punk grime, you’re getting a little bit of everything in this squalling, uncanny, but strangely addictive track.
A / B by Circa Tapes

SDH, “Threshold”
SDH have been teasing us for a while; since Semiotics Department of Heteronyms signed to Artoffact we’ve had numerous tastes of their presumably upcoming LP, highlighting a lot of the things that drew us to the Spanish synth act in the first place. If you like modern darkwave, but like spicing it up with unusual rhythms and melodies, the duo has you covered as on the slowburn of “Threshold”; this could have been a straight up 4 on the floor club banger, but they instead choose to draw it out, busying up the drums and tossing in little synth runs that keep it engaging through its run time.
Threshold by SDH

MODEBIONICS, “There Used To Be Life Down Here”
The latest release from throwback EBM/dark electro act MODEBIONICS is a far cry from what we might have expected. Effectively serving as the demo reel for a forthcoming gaming/musical hybrid project, the sampler for POPULATION19 is made up quick, cinematic stingers and spacey ambience like this (perhaps bringing the about face of Forma Tadre’s Automate to mind). Whether or not forays into this territory influence mainline MODEBIONICS material or not, getting lost in this sort of cosmic soup is a good time.
POPULATION19 soundtrack sampler by MODEBIONICS

SPC ECO, “A Love Like This”
We honestly don’t check in on SPC ECO enough; the duo of Curve’s Dean Garcia and his daughter Rose Berlin has been around for nearly two decades at this point, and has been putting out material pretty consistently during that time. Honestly we shouldn’t take them for granted, even leaving aside the family’s considerable legacy in the world of electronic music and shoegaze (and being one of the pioneering acts at bringing those sounds together), SPC ECO has been quietly self-releasing cool, textured music that is good to chill to. We’ll try to do better at keeping track of them going forward, and start by posting this lil’ two-track single they posted on BC Friday, which hit the spot on a rainy PNW weekend.
A Love Like This by SPC ECO

alienobserver, “You Got Me”
Trading in a similar vibe as SPC ECO though with radically different execution and instrumentation, the new EP from Orlando’s alienobserver is a chill but instantly engaging mix of electropop, trance, and ethereal sounds. Between the stuttering vocal samples and winsome synth sounds in a piece like this, it’s impossible to not drift off into daydream reverie listening to it, despite the short run time. If you’ve enjoyed Zanias’ recent solo work, still hold a candle for vintage Delerium, or just want to take a road less travelled when it comes to electropop and darkwave, you’ll dig this.
Metamorphosis by alienobserver

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A Game Called Echo: March 7th, 2025

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It’s the return of our “if you liked that, you’ll like this” feature A Game Called Echo, where we compare and contrast a genre classic with something a little more contemporary you might also enjoy but may not be familiar with.

Severed Heads’ Rotund for Success (1995), and Cyborgs On Crack’s 66D Mutations (2022)

Severed Heads’ 1989 LP Rotund for Success was the culmination of the Australian band’s flirtations with more digestible pop sounds up ’til that point in their discography. Somewhat controversial due to a turn towards a less openly confrontational and experimental sound than their celebrated earlier works like Since the Accident, or the more explicitly industrial sounds of the preceding record Bad Mood Guy, it’s a record that whose strengths have become more apparent with some distance. While Tom Ellard and Steven Jones (the latter of whom would departa few years later, making the band a solo project) traded off much of their confrontational weirdness, they gained plenty in terms of songwriting and production chops; once you set aside the fact that the Heads are less outright bizarre than they had been up ’til the release of the record, you can start to appreciate the still off-kilter way they approached making dance music. Indeed, the band had two songs (“Greater Reward” and “All Saints Day”) crack the Billboard Dance charts, quite an achievement considering that the material in question is still pretty strange by most standards. It’s partly the bright and pallette of the singles that gives the impression of this being the band’s sellout moment, but a careful listen to the the host of unusual samples and busy drum tracks that adorn even its most poppy moments, and the wryness in how Ellard delivers his affected vocals, and you can still clearly identify the bizarre, itchy and outlandish sensibility of the band’s heyday – this may be Severed Heads most straightforward record of the eighties, but that’s a conclusion that has to be taken on a curve with the band’s track record of weapon’s grade eccentricity. 

Rotund For Success by Severed Heads

For years we’ve touted the sneaky greatness of Croation producer Domagoj Krsic’s Cyborgs on Crack (along with that of his other monikers Mind Teardown and How Green Is My Toupee) as a great example of the intersection of industrial, EBM and art-pop, and no record by the now inactive project encapsulates that better than 2015’s 66D Mutations. Like Rotund for Success it’s a record that digs into late eighties pop and dance music tropes, but is still replete with its own offbeat sensibility, that even its snatches of house piano and orch hits start to take on an uncanny vibe. Listen to the sampled warbles and groans that undercut the balaeric vibes on “Hello There My Name is Bob”, or the way that Krsic laconically delivers his vocal on the New Order circa Technique summer jam “I’m Dissolving” to really nail the resemblance to the Australian legends. Whether this is a case of someone just too left of center to keep it from leaking into their most pop-oriented moments, or a deliberate attempt to subvert the sounds of the mainstream, it’s a record that sealed Cyborgs of Crack as a successor to the Severed Heads in our hearts and listening habits. 

66D Mutations by Cyborgs On Crack

In Slaughter Natives’ Sacrosancts Bleed (1992), and Treha Sektori’s Rejet (2021)

With some moments recalling the symphonic infernal majesty of previous LP Enter Now The World and others pointing towards a more stripped down and riotous industrial clatter, the third LP by Sweden’s In Slaughter Natives is something of a transitional record. But in Sacrosancts Bleed Jouni Havukainen found an equanimity between those extremes in which martial percussion, abyssal noise, and heady ambience swirled together to produce a sound which was too squalling to be dark ambient, yet too measured to be death industrial. To wit, it’s exactly the sort of immersive but confrontational experience industrial aficionados associate with the glory days of Cold Meat Industry. Full of processional yet staggering percussion and stretched samples which trill and contort yet never settle into pure drone, Sacrosancts Bleedreeks of charnel incense and ancient mystery as much today as in 1992.

Sacrosancts Bleed by In Slaughter Natives

Taking advantage of modern production and studio techniques, the most recent record from one-man French project Treha Sektori carries a subtlety and fidelity Havukainen could only have dreamed of nearly thirty years previous, but Rejet treads through much of the same liminal territory, caught between storming aggression and more brooding restraint. Sampling a wide range of voices and other sources, and then pitching and pitching them into the uncanny, Dehn Sora wrends a sense of unease both from the textural contrasts between Rejet‘s components as well as its nigh-shapeless malleability. While never reaching quite the same level of pure noise as Sacrosancts Bleed‘s most extreme moments, the swathes of atonal strings pitted against guttural groans and pulses on “Vehemah Mereh Tahermah” and the queasy inverted chants and gongs of “Obleh” resonate at the same unspeakable frequencies as that earlier record.

Rejet by Treha Sektori

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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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