Gothic BC

Friends, it’s been a fucked up years thus far, both for those of us not in the US watching an our of control clown car catch fire and endanger everyone else on the road, and those unwillingly trapped in it. There’s nothing we can say here that will alleviate the dread and fear that folks are feeling at the moment, or any amount of sympathy that will be a salve on the gaping wounds that we’ve all sustained psychically, emotionally and socially. We’re as lost and horrified as you are, and don’t have any answers. We’re here and will stay doing what we do, and we hope that it can at least be a distraction from the daily horror-show, and maybe help your week start off a tiny bit better, or at least with some fresh new music you might not have heard otherwise.

Camlann

V▲LH▲LL, “Calling For Storms”
It’s been nearly four years since we’ve had a new record from everyone’s favourite Swedish Mystery Vikings, but we’re now just a month and a half out from the release of Skymningsdjur, the fourth V▲LH▲LL LP. Preceding teaser tracks have ranged from heavily cinematic atmospheres to some suprisingly poppy beats, but on this new cut they’re connecting their roots in witch house with some classically charnal and chilling but still beat-focused dark electro.
Skymningsdjur by V▲LH▲LL

Xenturion Prime, “Leviathan Alpha”
Few bands in the synthpop end of the general European electro world could be said to be as maximalist as Xenturion Prime. Hell, even the name of the lead single from their forthcoming fifth LP, “Leviathan Alpha” is over the top, and the loping grandeur and vast vistas the track itself conjures delivers on the band’s high-gloss, high-drama ethos. Come for the grandiose, Tron-esque pads blended into some classic Swedish pop harmonies, stay for the Kansas cover on the B-side.
Leviathan Alpha by Xenturion Prime

Camlann, “Jungle Terror”
Our favourite Indonesian darkwave act Camlann has been on an absolute tear with their singles of late, venting serious spleen at industry creeps on “Ronny (Burn in Hell)” and working their best electropop instincts on “Numb and Hollow”. Their new one “Jungle Terror” is simultaneously one of their best pop-rock styled compositions and one of their most politically strident (and given their serious Marxist leanings that’s truly saying something); “Jungle Warfare” is a directly addressed to imperialist nations that have conducted wars in Southeast Asia, delivered with a kind of rare righteousness that is almost incongruous with how catchy it is. Camlann remain one of the most interesting acts we track simply by following their muse musically and speaking their minds plainly.
Jungle Terror by Camlann

Nghtly, “Timeshifted”
The Flowtape label’s still quite wet behind the ears, but they’ve assembled a solid roster of modern EBM talent for their second compilation, reaching from Bangkok to Glasgow and featuring names like Anti Yo and Filmmaker which should be very familiar to regular Tracks readers. We’re especially digging this new cut from Italy’s Nghtly, fresh off an appearance on an equally infectious Kindcrime tape. There’s a nice mix of chewy basslines, throwback rave colour, and plenty of lo-fi grit.
Survivors vol.2 by FLOWTAPE

Agony & the Middle Class, “Pig Cheese”
Agony & the Middle Class is the international industrial team-up of Dana Mukanova of Null Split, and Antoine Kerbérénès of Chrome Corps and Dague de Marbre. It’s got exactly the energy you might expect considering the folks involved, which is to say that it’s a combination of fast-moving chaotic EBM and some very classic eighties post-industrial weirdness. Just the name of the EP Pig Cheese summons some pretty odd images to mind, a fine match for the title track’s FM bass bounce and swooping detuned synths and samples, bringing the works of Cyborgs on Crack to mind. We’re always up for this sort of off-kilter strangeness in our industrial, it’s a vibe we don’t get nearly enough of in this day and age.
Pig Cheese by Agony & the Middle Class

Hugo Dirac, “Vein (Alen Skanner remix)”
We joked a little while ago that Mortal Kombat was a music genre unto itself, and that the number one artist currently producing it is Alen Skanner, but don’t take that as either a dismissal of the producer. Fact is that between a host of amazing originals and some choice remixes, Skanner has become one of our go-tos for music that perfectly lands between 90s techno/nrg and EBM, real Cyberpunk 2020 TTRPG shit in the best way. If you need an intro you can go to this recent remix for Hugo Dirac, taking the speedy hard-hitting original and taming it and punctuating it with just the right amount of sampled hits. Music to enter ABACABB on the title screen if we’ve ever heard it.
Hugo Dirac – Veil by Hugo Dirac

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éstudy
Wave of Resilience
Wie Ein Gott
Brooklyn-based producer éstudy has been all over the place in the last couple of years, putting out releases with Pildoras Tapes, Mosaique, Miseria and several others. The project’s first release on Wie Ein Gott Wave of Resilience is as good a place to familiarize yourself with the project as any, providing handy examples of the various styles and modes that éstudy has touched on. Opener “Watch Your Step” is a hefty slice of industrial techno that doesn’t skimp on the industrial part of the equation, reinforcing its lockstep cymbals and kicks with machinegun snares, metallic percussion and manic 16th note sequences that cinch the tension early. Alternately “Tip Toe Around” is a more straightforward techno number, propelled by a simple kick-hi-hat-snare pattern and atonal synths, with ghostly and menacing ambience that surrounds it’s stuttering vocal samples and warbly bass. As a change of pace “Feel the Wave” goes for a more rocklike arrangement, with the bass and drums feeling more loose and elastic, the addition of more rigid and mechanical passages throwing the song’s contrasts into sharp relief. Intriguingly, “Don’t Press that Button” forgoes most techno markers but keeps the atmospherics, landing somewhere in body music territory, albeit with some tweaky synths and syncopated drums to offset the minimalism of its melody, a balancing act that points to éstudy’s studied approach to production.
Wave Of Resilience by éstudy

Dr. Oso
Hooligan Beat
self-released
The elevator pitch on the new EP from Dr. Oso couldn’t be better suited to grab our attention if someone spent years poring over the ID:UD archives in order to target a release just for us: Argentinian body music with a heavy new beat influence which draws upon the intoxicated violence of football hooliganism. Niche? Of course. Immediate and playing out exactly like what you’d expect something with that pitch to sound like? Definitely. Lo-fi, dead-simple, and speedy EBM rhythms with some icy new beat pads and a healthy dollop of acid make up the lion’s share of Hooligan Beat. Eschewing both anhalt and mutant EBM for a decidedly swampy and burpy sound, tracks like “Trench Fight” and “Lager Dance” get a good amount of mileage out of heavy sampling and rapidly arpeggiating bass. Sure, some of the tracks here feel a bit long and underwritten, but when you have Millwall FC’s infamous “no one likes us, we don’t care” chant being chopped up and stabbed in between staccato, rubbery basslines which sound straight out of 1993, who cares? Factor in an on-brand remix from Chrome Corps & Einhander, projects definitely in sync with Dr. Oso’s ethos (and for some reason a remix of Gang Of Four’s “To Hell With Poverty”?) and you’re just a few tins of Carling away from a riot.
HOOLIGAN BEAT by Dr. Oso

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Carter Tutti Void are reading you for those shoes.

It’s time for a Pick Five episode, dear listener, and as luck would have it it’s also time for a particular time, or at least records suited specifically to 3am (eternal). What is a 3am record? We have a few different reads on that as you’ll find out, as well as some comments on Ministry and And One tour news. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Ye Gods
The Arcane & Paranormal Earth
self-released

Antoni Maiovvi has operated under many musical guises since his emergence in the late 2000s as one of the pillars of the italo disco revival. Amongst his numerous projects, the last several years have seen the UK-born, US-based artist working as Jason Priest, an alias for his tuneful post-punk material, Pleasure Model for his conceptual techno works, and as Ye Gods, an outlet for ambient ritual electronics. Distinct from Maiovvi’s other endeavours, the material on The Arcane & Paranormal Earth is meditative and trancelike, with subtly articulated layers of noise, synths and hypnotic percussion that produce both dreamy detachment and conscious stimulation. 

Maiovvi states in the liners for the album that Ye Gods is him at his most sincere and least veiled as a artist, and despite the record’s abstract nature that holds true in the listening; while certainly esoteric in nature, these ambient and occasionally glitchy compositions do have a real directness, always materially present and never fully inscrutable. Like Coil circa Musick to Play in the Dark (one of the closest points of comparison musically), and as suggested by the title of the album, the arcane is kept in balance with earthly concerns. Hence, although opener “Darashim” is made up of intersecting layers of static, rising drones and a simple repeating rhythm loop, you have Maiovvi’s voice repeating “Let the light pour from your skull” in mantra-like fashion, varying slightly in delivery to anchor it and offset its abstraction. 

It’s not just the vocalizations that maintain the balance between the transcendental and somatic sides of these records, but the actual construction of the numbers themselves. “Aksum” foregoes any kind of identifiable percussion and rhythm for pure textures, but the static that shapes the song’s structure provides a tangible means to navigate its vast reverbs and distant pads, the feedback recalling the measurable and predictable qualities of pure sound as an instrument unto itself. Similarly, the sinister whispers of “Of Venus & Adonis” and its hissy, liquid percussion are accompanied by almost imperceptible snatches of bubbly programming that subconsciously connect its unfolding and twisting electronics, reinforcing Maiovvi’s repeated question “Of what substance are you made?”, and rendering it non-rhetorical. 

If all this sounds a touch metaphysical, well, it’s a record that deliberately addresses the very human experience of interacting with the intangible from the corporeal world. The success of The Arcane & the Paranormal Earth lies in how it involves the listener in that discourse, and while it’s certainly rooted in Maiovvi’s own interactions with those broad concepts, it has an ease of listening that keeps it stimulating through repeated listens in and out of order. Apparently the first of three comparable releases from Ye Gods in 2025, it’s a foundational release that establishes a vast landscape of musical ideas to explore, and the ways innumerable ways we can engage with them. 

Buy it.

The Arcane & Paranormal Earth by Ye Gods

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grabyourface
Sadgirl Mixtape
self-released

grabyourface, the project of French producer/singer Marie Lando, has been many things: a noisy outlet of emotional catharsis, a poised and swaggering portrait of pure industrial cool and charisma, and an instantly recognizable and distinct personality on collabs with the likes of Covenant and Caustic. But nothing in the past six or seven years in which we’ve been tracking grabyourface prepared us for the arrival of Sadgirl Mixtape, a bracing listen whose musical variance is only matched by its brutal, raw wrestling with depression and despair.

“You Will Never Be Happy” was a warning shot we all should have heeded – when a song featuring the refrain “Nothing has made sense for years now/ Only death will set me free” is chosen as a single, it might be because there simply isn’t any cheerier fare to be found on a record which walks the walk its title points to. There’s nothing here but bad road, from breakups (“If you wanna hold my hand you’re gonna drown, too” Lando warns on “My Last Act Of Love”) to existential despair (on “Rain On The Car Roof”, she reasons her way towards the impossibility of day to day life: “You live with the dread, but act like you don’t, and above all be thankful, people have it so much worse than you”). Lando’s vocals, ranging from pure exhaustion on “Car Roof” to an abused numbness on “I Dream Of A Future Without You”, never fall into repetition or cliche; throughout the gruelling hour-long affair there’s never any doubt that they’re a pure rendering of something real, something intimately felt.

That sense of immediacy and conviction is carried over to the musical side of the record by virtue of its origins and construction. The “mixtape” in the title isn’t just a clever nod to the idea of distilling every emotion music can produce within you into a dense package – it’s an acknowledgement of the piecemeal construction of the release, having been written and recorded at separate intervals over the past seven years. That gestation period hasn’t just provided Lando with the emotional reserves needed to write and record these pieces, it’s also allowed each individual track to build up its own aesthetic edifice and interiority. The pitting of confessional singer-songwriting strumming against cinematic bombast on “The Black Of My Hoodie” has precious little in common with the dissociated darkwave of “Bubbles Of Me”, in which Lando’s narcotized voice drifts through liquid, waltzing synths. In recording, structure, and influence, Sadgirl Mixtape is genre-fluid (like any good mixtape should be), touring through electro, metal, hyperpop, downtempo and, yes, emo.

If you were drawn into darker music as a teenager (and are old enough to have experienced full albums as your primary musical medium), you probably have memories of records by your favourite artists – be they Joy Division, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, or My Chemical Romance – which concluded with depressing epics which were intimidating in both their grandeur and their intimacy. To listen to those records all the way through to those closing tracks meant voluntarily signing up for an emotional gut punch you both dreaded and needed to feel in order to know that someone, somewhere, had felt the way you did. Lando might be being arch by describing Sadgirl Mixtape as her “emo offering”, but she’s also well aware that she’s delivering an experience made entirely of those resonant, harrowing epics from start to finish with absolutely no respite. Sadgirl Mixtape is pure, uncut pain, but the strength of each individual, self-contained jewel of miserablism makes it the first truly great record of the year. Highly recommended.

Buy it.

Sadgirl Mixtape by grabyourface

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Another Bandcamp Friday’s come and gone – we’re not sure if it’s just us but it seems like the rush on artists’ part to get some sort of new material out the door each and every time BC Friday comes up has died off. The fact that charity initiatives are still a part of it is nice, though truth be told we’re just thankful that, touch wood, BC’s new owners haven’t messed with the platform much since the 2023 layoffs. On with this week’s tracks.

John McKay

HIDE // estoc, “The Wheel Spins Onward Paradise Locked Behind a Gate”
Chicago’s brutalist noise and disgust purveyors HIDE join forces with Philadelphia techno producer estoc for “The Wheel Spinds Onward Paradise Locked Behind a Gate”, a benefit for Seraj Aburaida and his family, displaced by the ongoing bombing of the West Bank by Israeli forces. As expected with HIDE it’s a rough ride from the first gasp with plenty of distortion and sharp-edged textures, although there’s a hypnotic rhythm built into the rhythm programming, which contains some sneaky fills and rolls orbiting the annihilating kick. No less vicious than you would expect possibly moreso.
THE WHEEL SPINS ONWARD PARADISE LOCKED BEHIND A GATE by HIDE // estoc

Devours, “Loudmouth”
Sometimes it’s a little scary pressing play on a new track from Vancouver’s synthpop gaylien Devours. Given how much the music that the project has put out in the last 5 years has meant to us personally, and the incredible consistency that basically finds each new sad, funny, beautiful synthpop gem that drops become a new favourite, it’s hard not to worry that some day it just won’t hit the same. Then you press play on a track like “Loudmouth” (from the forthcoming Sports Car Era) and all those fears are assuaged. Just the best, every single time.

Crush Of Souls, “Cult Of Two”
Hearing that Charles Rowell of Crocodiles had relocated to Paris to pursue a synth-driven project came as a surprise to us a couple of years ago, but with the follow up to Crush Of Souls’ debut (A)Void Love on the docket, it’s apparent that this switch is a permanent one. More importantly, the pair of teaser tracks for Lézire find Rowell lounging comfortably about in his new climes and pushing its boundaries a bit, with a mix of vintage dark synthpop and crooning which puts us somewhat in mind of Kindest Cuts.
Lézire by CRUSH OF SOULS

Rare DM, “The Ring”
There’s always been a sharp and droll candour to Rare DM’s songwriting which has served as a pleasant counterpoint to the smooth and club-ready style of darkwave plied by Erin Hoagg, whether it takes the form of odes to fuckboys or luxury suites. New single “The Ring” is no exception in that regard, with “fuck around and find out” warnings about the titular horror franchise being delivered atop wormy and engrossing programming.
The Ring by Rare DM

Sacred Skin, “The Lights (HEALTH remix)”
Los Angeles new-new wavers Sacred Skin absolutely slayed with their second full length Born in Fire last year, and have released a single for one its many standouts “The Lights”. It’s basically a perfect fit for HEALTH to remix, with it being the exact style of sad, slow-rolling number that the fêted noise-rockers deal in themselves. Extra drums, extra layers of programming and some pleasingly atonal bits of synth really bring out a different side from the smooth, neon-lit original.
The Lights by Sacred Skin

John McKay, “Flare”
Lastly, an out of the blue, entirely unexpected archival release is in the wings from John McKay, who played guitar on the first two Siouxsie & The Banshees records (and notably wrote the lion’s share of the music on first LP The Scream). Apart from one single with the Zor Gabor project in 1987, McKay’s effectively maintained radio silence since an acrimonious split from Siouxsie & co. nearly 45 years ago, making the prospect of a record of archival recordings from across the 1980s a fascinating document to those of us invested in how the likes of Andy Gill, Johnny Marr, and (McKay’s replacement in the Banshees) John McGeoch pioneered post-punk guitar playing and composition.
Sixes And Sevens by John McKay

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dormnt
pointfive
self-released
dormnt is the project of Vancouver producer Anthony McGillivray, who also operated in a glitchier, if no less atmospheric style as Urusai in the mid to late 2000s. The thread tying together McGillivray’s releases has always been an emotional one, with the use of subtle electronic movements that flow into one another, sometimes punctuated by percussion and, sometimes in washes of pure ambience. The latter approach is exmplified by “Ephemeral”, the opener of new EP pointfive; while there’s a pulsing rhythm that courses through the track, it rarely rises above the surface of the vast, melancholic pads, held down by their expanse and weight. Even on the more beat-oriented cuts like “Eidetic”, it’s the slowly evolving textures that flow around the anxious kicks and cymbal-hits that dictate structure, only briefly falling into step with the percussion before melting back down into atmosphere. McGillivray’s strength as a producer is creating intensity in those alternately wistful and pensive moods; the noisy edge that creeps into the sweeping sounds of “Fraught” convey the feeling suggested by the title through inference, tension as a function of a vast and ungraspable unease. While dormnt’s music is by its nature amorphous, its impact is fully tangible.
pointfive by dormnt

Crystal Geometry
Riot Dogs
Bloc Noir
The range of techno, industrial, and metal influences Maxime Fabre is going to bring to any new Crystal Geometry release should be familiar to regular readers of this site or anyone who’s been keeping their head on a swivel since the fantastic breakthrough of 2020’s Senestre. New EP Riot Dogs is a bracing and tight reiteration of Crystal Geometry’s core strengths. A bit more down the classic techno pipe than anything we’ve heard from Fabre in a minute (and distinct from the wooziness of last LP From The Rave To The Grave), the four cuts here don’t sacrifice any of the dense, percussive gallop Fabre always brings while working some lighter touches into the corner of still-pummelling productions. “Kanellos” does a great job of augmenting classic liquid techno and trance programming with some softer guitar picking, while we get some of the gabber and metal chug in the the style of recentEP Antithèse kicking against ghostly programming on “Loukanikos”. Keeping those subtler dynamics in play while still absolutely assaulting the listener with dense brutality is one of the hallmarks of Fabre’s best work. and when you factor in the EP’s unifying theme of wild dogs’s propensity to join riots around the world (to play fast and loose with the treble clef mnemonic, every good boy bites cops) it’s impossible not to get caught up in the maelstrom of this EP.
Riot Dogs by Crystal Geometry

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Informatik

It’s a classic two records formatted episode of the podcast this week, folks. The first full length record from Informatik and the sole release from electro-punk supergroup Error don’t have a whole lot in common sonically or aesthetically, but as we explore on this episode they’re each the product of a very precise and specific set of sounds, influences, and trends which would have only been accessible or pertinent precisely at the time they were released. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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This Eternal Decay
Spettro
SwissDarkNights

The various members of Italian darkwave act This Eternal Decay all have musical pedigrees stretching back well before the band’s formation in 2018 and the more or less contemporaneous surge in interest in darkwave. Coming from tenures in Spiral69, Date At Midnight, and even Spiritual Front, they’d all have had plenty of time to hone their chops even if new LP Spettro wasn’t This Eternal Decay’s fifth LP in seven years. That record continues their run of releases in a wide-ranging but still familiar continental darkwave style.

While atmosphere and mood are This Eternal Decay’s fortes, they have more than enough methods at hand for conjuring it. The dreamy guitars and plinking melodies of “Red Orchid” are nicely offset by the compressed drones and pads which however throughout, while the deft guitar work on “A Matter Of Lies” draws the line between second wave goth and more recent and sleek post-punk. Additionally, the snap and immediacy of the leads and beats on most of the Spettro keeps things from ever getting too ponderous or insular, even at its most gloomy.

Speaking of beats, there’s maybe a bit more in the way of quantized, dancefloor-friendly programming on Spettro than on previous records, but even when it’s used to add a bit of punch to the record it’s generally complemented by dour, mopey guitar (“Cold Fear”) or distortion and chiming synthpop-styled leads (“Rise & Fall”). As with the actual genres and eras This Eternal Decay are drawing upon, there’s a real sense of taste and balance throughout.

For all of that polish and consideration, few of the tracks on Spettro rise beyond the de facto appeal of these various blends of darkwave executed competently in terms of composition or memorability (a possible trade-off of the band’s relentless release schedule), but then again none of them really fall below that median line, either. The variety and brevity of the record overall is part of its charm, and even if it never moves the needle to a significant degree it still uses it to trace some enjoyable passages.

Buy it.

Spettro by This Eternal Decay

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Front Line Assembly
Mechviruses
Artoffact Records

The idea of a remix album for Front Line Assembly’s 2018 video game soundtrack WarMech is a bit strange, to be honest. While very slickly produced by the venerable Vancouver post-industrial act headed by Bill Leeb, the record itself is very much of that EDM-influenced era of FLA, serving as a coda for Jeremy Inkel’s time as a member and co-producer, his tenure cut tragically short by his untimely passing. WarMech is a very good record, although not a particularly characteristic one, being both instrumental and very much a soundtrack in nature.

Then again, there’s a certain mutability to the songs that makes Mechviruses a blank canvas for each remixer, who take the tracks whichever direction feels right. The sheer variety of takes on display is evidence of what can be done with the high-def originals, in forms that feel both akin to the classic Front Line blueprint, and completely foreign to it. Finnish old-school post-industrialists Cardinal Noire inject the Vancouver sound right back into the tweaky bass music of “Heatmap” by using the song’s rubbery melodics as a counterpoint to clangy percussion and shrieked vocals, while new body music act MVTANT play up the rhythm, transforming it from pumping side-chain to funky syncopated electro. Belgian electro-darkwave act ULTRA SUNN rebuild “Mechvirus” into one of their own distinctive dancefloor cuts, complete with the deep-voiced vocals of singer Sam Huge, that close to home approach mirrored by Ayria and Seb Komor’s synthpop version, each fitting the song’s pinging melody into their respective milieu.

Most interesting is how the record’s three separate versions of “Molotov” come out entirely different frpm one another, intersecting but feeling entirely distinct. The version by the unlikely trio of s:cage, Famine and Lys Morke is all broken beats and skittering percussion, with snatches of chanteuse Morke’s voice slipping between the rapidfire glitches and breaks. Meanwhile, Ottawa electro-industrialists Encephalon leverage the track’s existing neon-future textures to create a a full on cyberpunk club banger, adorned with vocoder and complimentary layers of synth and drum programming. Finally, Seeming’s Alex Reed goes full singer-songwriter with his undeniably great tale, pulling out and recontextualizing whole sections and crafting them into an affecting and uplifting anthem. It’s bizarre to consider that one of the best protest songs to come out of the industrial genre in recent years is a remix of a song from a video game soundtrack, but there’s no denying that Reed’s insistence that “Revolution is showing up” strikes a very real chord from the first listen.

Truthfully, the strangeness of Mechviruses as a concept is justified by the breadth of the results. You wouldn’t peg New York post-punkers Bootblacks as a great match for Front Line’s cybernetic aesthetics, but the dubby version of “Force Carrier”, complete with washes of twangy guitar, is such a left turn it’s hard to not to take notice of it, and that’s just one example. It might be Front Line Assembly’s name on the album cover, but make no mistake, this release is about the personalities of the contributing remixers as artists, and the persnality that they bring to the already somewhat outre-for-FLA originals is the draw.

Buy it.

Mechviruses by Front Line Assembly

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Vancouver is buried under a layer of snow at the time of this writing, although that’s not much of an issue for us; we’ve got plenty of music to catch up on while we’re holed up in the HQ. We mentioned in this space that 2025 seems to be shaping up nicely already in terms of new releases and news of forthcoming albums from artists we dig, and indeed, there’s been a few nice surprises already. If you don’t check out our reviews, or just look at the names you recognize, we’d encourage you to check the Friday Observer posts, where a lot of fresh shorter form releases get covered, it’s often where some of the most interesting new stuff we end up following makes its first appearance on the site. Not to take away from the institution that is Tracks though, one of our oldest and most favourite things to put together on a weekly basis. See below!

General Dynamics

Kite, “Heaven n Hell”
We praised the turn away from the lovely but admittedly sad-bastard sound of recent singles when they put out “Heartless Places” a few weeks ago, so hearing another cut that matches that song’s more upbeat delivery. Make no mistake, this is still that very unique melancholy the Swedish duo have had on lock since their debut way back in 2008, but the with the tempo behind it and some notably scrapy sounds in the mix, it fits nicely into the band’s catalogue of down-to-mope anthems, and has earned them enough of a following that they’ve been able to mount huge concept shows like the figure skating business they put together this past weekend. Forever one of our favourites.
Heartless Places / Heaven N Hell by Kite

Nightcrawler, “Course Navette Part II”
The second of Berlin label Kindcrime’s Cage Of Flesh tapes comes with an absolutely stacked list of modern EBM producers: Cyan ID, Statiqbloom, Unconscious, T_error 404, etc. Picking up where the previous tape left off, you’re getting a nice representation of how dark electro textures and less monochrome palettes are chipping away at the austere, monochromatic edifice of TBM. This reworking of Spanish producer Nighcrawler’s 2024 single, lending it some new beat styled atmospherics, is a nice example therein.
CAGE OF FLESH II [KDC246] by Various Artists

Twin Tribes, “Monolith (Tobias Bernstrup remix)”
Texas goth and darkwave phenoms Twin Tribes put out our favourite record of 2025 in Pendulum, a record that had no shortage of great tunes, along with a nice dose of club-ready cuts and singalong hooks. 2025 brings a suite of remixes of the single “Monolith” from names as notable as QUAL, Ultra Sunn and Tobias Bernstrup, whose version of the moody cut brings out an unlikely stripe of futurepop appeal. Listen to that rapidfire gating and synth bass and how it interacts with the grave vocals of the original to hear what we’re talking about.
Monolith Remixes: V by Twin Tribes

General Dynamics, “Creepin’ In”
WIlliam Maybelline (Qual, Lebanon Hanover) teaming up with Emad Dabiri (Sarin, Human Performance Lab, and umpteen other projects connected to his X-IMG label) for a 2022 LP under the General Dynamics handle was an unexpected surprise which made all the sense in the world as soon as you heard about it, and the record delivered on that promise. A forthcoming follow-up is good news for all those who appreciate both producers’ abilities to work classically grimy and lo-fi EBM and dark electro sounds into the modern dark club template, and this teaser track looks to be continuing on in that tradition ably. We’ll definitely have a full review of Where Animals Play when it sees release in April.
Where Animals Play by General Dynamics

Empusae & Onasander, “Astronyx”
Speaking of collabs which make sense, the highly prolific run Nicolas Van Meirhaeghe has been on of late as Empusae continues apace with one of two new team ups (the other with Pilgrimage To Pleroma). Produced alongside longtime ambient/experimental producer Maurizio Landini’s current sound-design focused Onasander project, the Umbrosyne record is an impressively sculpted piece of work, much of which fits squarely in the cosmic side of dark ambient, but with occasional flickers of some of the cinematic bombast both producers are known for, as this track shows.
Umbrosyne by Empusae & Onasander

Bigod 20, “Body to Body (DSTRTD SGNL Mix)”
DSTRD SGNL is the production duo of Stephan Kessler (Aircrash Burear) and Torben Schmidt of Infacted Recordings, a couple of EBM OGs if there ever were any. While a lot of their previous releases have leaned a little further into the EDM style than we’d generally be interested in covering, we can’t front on this remix of the Bigod 20 classic “Body to Body”, which doesn’t skimp on the distorted, gritty vocals of the original while pumping up some of the production in a style that feels pretty of a piece with millennial and early 2000s club oriented electro. Be curious to hear them take on some other cuts of comparable vintage in the future, see if they can strike the same balance of DJ appeal and classic recognizability.
Body To Body (DSTRTD SGNL MIX) by DSTRTD SGNL presents BIGOD 20

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Daast
Human Remains
Phage Tapes
The sweeping synths that open the new release from Manchester-based industrial act Daast may lull you into a false sense of security, but at least it’s short-lived; before long “All Your Saints are On Fire” is a minefield of fast-moving rhythmic noise percussion and glass-throated growling vocals, a template that sticks through most of Human Remains. While simple, it’s a plan of attack that the project finds plenty of different applications for, taking it into near dark-electro territory with snatches of warbling detuned synths on “Work Yr Body”, taking it into minimal synth via the T-800 factory on the title tracks, and invoking the classic Ant-Zen powernoise vibe on “High Rise” and “Tormentor”. The noisy menace of the record matches lyrical concerns on display; lines like “Reduce your screentime” and “Lust of the Goat/Wrath of Lion” don’t seem like they’d inhabit the same area code, but taken in aggregate they add to the record’s commanding misanthropy that wavers between calls for discipline, scorn and disappointment with full commitment. It’s gnarly stuff for certain, but no more so than the era it navigates, a grimy reflection not just of a callous world, but the dangers that inhabit it.
Human Remains by Daast

Blokkontrol
Blok 1
self-released
The period and style new Ukranian act Blokkontroll is tapping into is apparent from the initial attack of “Labarint”‘s frantic, acidic arpeggios and blocky kicks. 90s dark electro and EBM are the clear order of the day, with any number of Antler-Subway and Zoth Ommog releases likely coming to the seasoned listener’s mind by the time that cut comes to a close. That it can evoke early X-Marks and Leaether Strip so clearly even though there’s barely any modulation in it is reflective of the Blok 1 EP as a whole; there’s no attempt to reinvent the wheel or even look at it from a slightly askew angle here, you’re just getting fifteen minutes of classic, down the pipe early 90s industrial club fare, and pretty decent fare by that measure. The production and recording are pleasantly rough around the edges, but aren’t being used to hide any deficiencies, and the directness of the vocals (without a lyric sheet handy I can’t speak as to whether or not they refer to the current war) and programming is engaging throughout. By the time agreppo-flavoured closer “Vertikal” swaggers its flanged bassline to the finish line, you might not have heard anything you haven’t heard before, but I’m guessing you’ll be happy to have had a reminder of how enjoyable this style can be when it’s done with aggression and without compromise.
Blok 1 by Blokkontroll

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Catching the men for the last time.

Hot on the heels of a fantastic retirement concert from Front 242, the Senior Staff are discussing the ins and outs of legacy bands’ retirements. When’s the right time to pack it in, and who’s to say? How does a band’s aesthetic or style affect their longevity? We’re taking up these and other questions, as well as talking about this week’s Nine Inch Nails ticket sales. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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Blood Rave
Exponential Decay
self-released

The music on Californian project Blood Rave’s sophomore release Exponential Decay inhabits a space between electro-darkwave and EBM, a meeting of sounds that has proven to be fertile in recent years. While there are certainly plenty of easy points of comparison for the dancefloor ready tunes on the album (Dancing Plague and Ultra Sunn come to mind), there are also some strong indications here that the project is making strides towards a more distinctive sound of their own.

“Can’t Resist” is a strong example of that development; the foundations are a workmanlike body music bassline and graven-vocals, but are accented with both slow-motion horror movie pads and some punchy sampled grunts, the former element upping the atmospherics, while the latter cuts through them to lay in some additional tension. “Abyss” takes that unease still further by introducing more layers of atonal sound and ramping up the layers of percussion, the central groove feeling more manic as it rolls on with more weight balanced precariously on top of it. “Through Your Eyes” reverses course by tossing in some more melodic sequences, adjacent to darker stripes of synthpop, albeit with more sickly and forlorn vocals that keep it from ever feeling light.

While those tracks certainly jump out on repeated listens (along with a few others like the double time anxiety of “Code in Grey” and the deconstructed ramp of “Death Awaits”), there’s an equal number that play the project’s sound right down the middle. Tracks like opener “Throwing Weight” never departs significantly from the stock monotone and monochrome approach the band had on its 2024 debut, while “Symphony Explored” flirts with a more goth-rock arrangement but never commits entirely to the excesses in delivery that put songs in the style over the top. There’s nothing bad about these songs per se, but some sameyness does set in, exacerbated by the record’s sound design; you’ll hear similar bass and lead patches pop up across multiple songs, not to mention a particular metallic percussion strike that keeps popping up to the point of distraction.

Still, the willingness to stretch out creatively that Blood Rave displays on Exponential Decay is intriguing, and the growth of the project’s ambitions as compared to their debut early in 2024 is measurable. As sophomore albums go, it does the job of expanding and refining in ways that will keep Blood Rave on dark music watchlists in the years to come.

Buy it.

Exponential Decay by Blood Rave

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Vanligt Folk
Dischorealism
iDEAL Recordings

We’ve been tracking Swedish trio Vanligt Folk for over a decade on this site now, and yet I still feel just as flummoxed by their work, just as incapable of expressing anything of substance about its nature, charms, and points of irritation today as I did back in 2013 when their self-titled debut EP came across our desk. That’s partly due to how off kilter that record’s deconstructed approach to post-punk was at the time, and of course like any properly disordered group of oddballs Vanligt Folk haven’t stayed put since, moving from the panicked body music of Jag Har Utvecklat Mig Till Både En Hund I En Katt to the deliberately abstract dub of Allt E’nte. Now, with Dischorealism they’ve alighted upon a glitchy, fragmented bricolage of house, EBM, and techno markers in order to, in their own words, examine themes of “sucking the life out of somebody, exploiting and over consuming trust in any form”. There’s certainly something there which could be connected with classic EBM and industrial, but when you read that the album started off as a concept record about milk, all bets are off, as they generally are with Vanlight Folk.

The core sounds Dischorealism have one foot in the preceding Allt E’nte; its predilection for deep and sustained bass crops up here and there throughout the record, alongside plenty of house, minimal techno, and EBM. But from soup to nuts the metallic distortion and woozy detuning that’s applied to just about every element and instrument on the record overpowers those sorts of genre distinctions and becomes its defining characteristic, lending the percussion a tin foil crinkle and the vocals a wind tunnel intensity. Even when the album title is taken literally and we get some classic Studio 54 disco on “SKABBE”, the listener’s likely to be more drawn in by the squalling high end distortion that’s been applied to the organ than to the funk on the rhythm section.

A sense of alienation not just from genre but from groove and immediacy is the record’s calling card, but even when things are a bit more traditionally memorable or hooky Vanligt Folk are likely engaging in some sort of situationist mindfuckery. “GLE” sounds as though its unparsable, pinched and distorted vocals might be lifting melodies from “Warszawa” and “I Feel Love” at various points. Far from drawing the listener in with familiar comfort, though, they’re prompted to wonder why those particular moments of art rock and disco soulfulness might be being connoted two thirds of the way through a resolutely confrontational record. In the same way that Art Of Noise type bricolage is dragged through the analogue muck of early 80s lo-fi synth experimentation on “Dischora”, those allusions raise more questions than they could ever answer about the band’s framing of disco as a notion, an era, a topos, an identity.

“It’s not just you or the language barrier,” a couple of Swedish friends have told us when the subject of Vanligt Folk is broached. “We don’t know what they’re up to, either.” That’s a small measure of comfort, but one that isn’t likely to resolve the conundrums the band pose at a sensory or phenomenological level. Something about the naive structures, the familiar yet disaffected sound design and distortion, something about Vanligt Folk themselves invites repeated listening even when their methods and intent remain wholly obscure.

Buy it.

DISCHOREALISM by VANLIGT FOLK

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Last Tracks post for January, and the year has been off to a roaring start in terms of new music in single and pre-release terms. You’ve seen a few names repeated in these weekly posts of late, and it’s safe to treat them as a harbinger of what’s to come for the website in the next little while; the forthcoming albums from Encephalon, Henric de la Cour, SARIN and a few others are right at the top of our most-anticipated lists, not to mention all the stuff we noted on the podcast a few weeks ago. And hey, as if that’s not enough, here’s some more new songs for you to enjoy as the month draws to a close.

grabyourface

Die Warzau, “I Am a Camera (Red Mix)”
Holy shit, Van Christie and Jim Marcus are back with a new Die Warzau single and it’s real good. Whether or not you were a fan of the band’s original run of records (seriously, their debut Disco Rigido is an underrated late eighties EBM/industrial classic), there’s lots to recommend the sound of “I Am a Camera” in it’s myriad remixed forms – slamming breaks, slinky synth grooves and some atmospheric vocal motifs (not to mention wailing sax!), all in service of a track that addresses the absolute fucking horror we’re all facing every god damn day in 2025. Hopefully not a one-off, we’d happily take a whole record from this mid-west institution in these troubled times.
I am a Camera by Die Warzau

grabyourface, “You Will Never Be Happy”
There’s always been a thread of raw vulnerability to Marie Lando’s work as grabyourface even when it’s being delivered in a sharp and club-savvy manner, but this new cut goes far beyond that track record. A striking first impression to give of forthcoming LP Sadgirl Mixtape, it’s a direct and unrelenting picture of depression, grief, and regret, with a simple piano arpeggio and some low-key black metal percussion underlining the plain and bleak message. Lando’s kept her hand in with a variety of collaborative works and singles over the last couple of years, but a full-length of material with this sort of honesty and strength is something we’re very much looking forward to.
You Will Never Be Happy by grabyourface

Serpentskin, “Swallow the Flame Down”
We suppose it was only a matter of time before Alison Lewis, aka Zanias, aka one of the most prolific and influential artists of the last decade in darkwave and body music followed the thread that has been suggested in some of her recent work; Delerium-style trance with ethereal vocals. Serpentskin is the outlet for that aspect of Lewis’ work and we’ll admit that the first song from debut EP (due March 10th) is hitting that spot for us, featuring all the proper stylistic trademarks like gated pads, big filtered builds and solid four on the floor drum programming with some nice weight to it.
Serpentskin EP 1 by Serpentskin, Zanias

STCLVR, “Axewound”
Self-decribed queer death EBM producer STCLVR’s become one of our favourite noise-based acts in North America over the last few years, and their half of the new Making Ends Meat split with Succulent and Sinister is an object lesson in why. Tracks like this which tie death industrial, black metal, EBM, and chiptune together are representative of STCLVR’s omnivorous and furious style, and manage to jam an incredible amount of bile and excitement into a compact and absolutely disgusting package.
Making Ends Meat by STCLVR

Hatari, “Breadcrumbs”
We’re not sure that we could have specified what we expected next from Icelandic techno/EBDSM act Hatari after their Eurovision dalliance with the meainstream, but a track with lines like “stuck in my brain like a dick pick” and “show feet please” isn’t too far off. As much as themes of power dynamics in online sex, consumption, and desire are right in Hatari’s wheelhouse, the delivery of this one’s a bit different, fiddling with the particular balance of elements taken from techno, EBM, and of the moment pop.
Breadcrumbs by Hatari

éstudy, “Watch Your Step”
You know, there was a point in the last couple years where we just got weary of techno-body stuff, mostly because of the glut of producers doing the same thing. The last year has had a few notable cases of new and established acts doing something altogether different with the idea though, and this new one from producer éstudy is a nice case in point. Taking the focus off pure easy-to-mix dancefloor bangers for manic synth sequences that have an air of acid to them, mixed with some clanging and clamorous percussion and some synth stabs to taste. Looking forward to hearing what else the Wie Ein Gott released EP has in store for us when it comes out in a few weeks.
Wave Of Resilience by éstudy

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This month’s commentary podcast has Bruce and Alex ripping through Cubanate’s unrelenting Cyberia, a combination of industrial guitars and contemporary electronic production that’s just as furious and engaging as it was in 1994. We’re talking Phil Barry’s guitar technique, the holy terror of Marc Heal’s voice, and how the record manages to deliver a constant stream of tight club tracks while never falling prey to the chaos it rides the edge of. As always, you can rate and subscribe on iTunes, download directly, or listen through the widget down below.

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