Apparently already out since March 2022, a tape of Idehall on a new label from Berlin, Kontralamakina. “Unending Crisis” is a tape of around half an hour. The sound is on the rhythmic side of Idehall’s spectrum, sometimes perhaps even going a bit further into an EBM-ish direction. There are also the ritual elements, here and there a flinch of IDM and of course Michael’s vocals. There are more ambient tracks and towards the end there is a somewhat noisy indutrial track
Out today, but the 200 copies of the 12″ have been long sold out (and I did not get one).
“Gladio” opens with Hoffman singing a hymn over some noise. After that the new album is pretty much what I call “industrial disco”. Ant-Zen describes it as “a diversified and contemporary collection of minimal electro pop tunes, industrial power electronics and retro-body beats”.
The music is not as energetic as Thorofon can get. Besides the more ‘atmosphere’ tracks, the music indeed seems to lean a bit more towards (old school) EBM as we are used to. But the sound is industrial, sometimes noisy and recognisably Thorofon.
More BDN and he is touring too. Roger Karmanik appears to have an artistic upliving. “Everything…” comes as a 10″, listed as “CMI-03”, but available from Tesco. It does not appear to be a rerelease.
The first track is a throbbing piece of industrial. Not as harsh as BDN can get. A good track. The next track is more noisy, but again relatively tranquil. The same can be said about number three, but this is more industrial than the previous track and reminds a bit of Karmaniks older (Lille Roger) material.
Then comes the absolute highlight of this release. “Love Hard” has a bit of a Thorofon approach. A somewhat ‘rhythmic noise’ rhythm with vocals of an artist I was not familiar with: Åsa Tedebro. She looks pretty classically goth on her Discogs page and appears to be a guest singer every now and then, but not an artist (or band) of her own. Her dramatic vocals go perfectly well with the background noise that intensifies and calms down again. It appears that the Swedish electropunk band Isotope Soap (that I also think I was not familiar with) have something to do with this track. It is a great track.
It does not happen often, but Spotify surprised me. I have known Blitzkrieg Baby since the “Kids World” tape on Beläten from 2014. Later there were a few other releases.
Spotify had only one Blitzkrieg Baby track on some compilation and yet last week I got “Genocidal Sextasy” as a new release. Not bad of Spotify. Incidentally I notice that older releases have been added to Spotify as well, even an album that I did not yet know: “Homo Sapiens Parasitus” (2019) which was released on Neuropa just as “Porcus Norvegicus“.
Actually “Homo Sapiens Parasitus” seems to be newer than “Genocidal Sexstasy” as this 2020 version seems to be a second edition. Cloister Recordings also rereleased some earlier material and that is probably how it all ended up on Spotify.
Anyway, if you know Blitzkrieg Baby, you will know what to expect. Nihilist lyrics, slow, beat driven music that sometimes leans towards industrial. This project as a very recognizable style, but it is not easy to compare to something else to give an idea of the sound.
This new album, as with previous releases, has amusing tracks and tracks are I like better, particularly the more industrial tracks.
Interesting and should you have missed them so far, give them a listen.
It looks like it that Beläten is no longer the label of Thomas -Trepaneringsritualen- Ekelund. I already noticed that Bandcamp has it listed as coming from Berlin and Ekelund was happy to have been contributed, which would be a strange way of describing a track on your own compilation. Discogs says that Beläten was active from 2012 to 2016 and apparently it has risen again.
On this compilation you find familiar Beläten names, Distel, Celldöd, Michael Idehall, Blitzkrieg Baby, Cryme and of course TxRxP. There are other familiar names such as Brighter Death Now, Moral Order and ARM. Some names do not immediately ring a bell, such as the TxRxP clone Dayofwrath of which I cannot find any information (good track though).
Music wise the compilation has some industrial (Moral Order), but mostly “post avantgarde pop”. All tracks seem to be exclusive, most are good too. A varied compilation which does hold true of ‘the old Beläten’. Available on tape and through Bandcamp.
Blitzkrieg Baby again releases a tape through Beläten. “War Gods” comes quite naturally after the previous Beläten tapes with a mix between “industrial disco” and more minimalistic tracks. And of course there are the known Blitzkrieg Baby vocals.
The opening track is a recognisable Blitzkrieg Baby track with repetitive music, a steady rhythm, an organ-like sound and the typical vocals. Then follow two track revolving around a repeated sound either or not with vocals. The best track is “Bott Hammer Kiss” which has a much more industrial style. The closing track is less ‘disco’, but certainly rhythmical (slow though) with whispered vocals.
5 Tracks, a little under half an hour of music available in a limited tape edition. This makes a nice addition to the discography of the Swedish project. I like the first and last two tracks best, but “War Gods” makes an enjoyable tape overall.
You have to be patient for releases of Pasquier (under her own name at least). “Handle With Care” is already from 2010. This new cassette does not even contain (much) new music either.
Side A mostly contains reworkings of old tracks such as Blitzkrieg Baby and Warm Leatherette, but also new (or at least unreleased) tracks like Douleur and 8 P.M. Daily News. This side has more of the ‘soft side’ of Pasquier with also a bit of new elements here and there.
Then we flip over to side B which contains a live recording from a Wien/Vienna show in April 2011. The tracks here come both from earlier and more recent albums. Live Pasquier can be nicely industrial, raw and energetic (I remember a great show at the 2010 Summer Darkness Festival in Utrecht, Netherlands). The recordings do not sound as raw as I remember the Utrecht show, but I prefer this side over side A. The live recordings have an alright sound, but the oddly faded applauses are a bit strange.
“Live One” makes a nice album, an overview of Pasquier’s discography. I am curious if there will be new material some day though. There are only 100 tapes, so if you are a collector, be quick. You can also buy a Bandcamp release.
Celebrating their 20th aniverary Thorofon reworked some old material. However I thought I was quite familiar with this German industrial project, I do not recognise a whole lot of tracks.
As you can expect the sound on “Roots” is a bit more old-style, more industrial than the recent ‘industrial disco’ type of releases. Recent releases do seem to have more extremities between harsch industrial and more ‘disco’ tracks than “Roots” though. This new album is fairly consistantly industrial, but in the Thorofon style of course.
On a mailing order list I saw a Thorofon tape that I did not have. It proves to contain recordings of two live shows, one of which I actually attended! In fall 2013 me and my girlfriend took a massive detour home from Scotland to be able to see Thorofon live in Paris.
Side A of the tape is a recording of the 2011 show at Maschinenfest, so side B is for the Le Petit Bain show. I must say that the recording captures the lively show well, even when I am usually not fond of live-recordings. Raubbau/Pflichtkauf did a nice job with a good-looking tape in a slipcase with nice artwork and a printed tape.
It may become boring, but here is another wonderfull Beläten tape/download (the tape has probably been sold out for over a year). Of course, since Beläten puts their releases on Bandcamp, you can listen to them before you buy them, I only got myself the ones that I liked. That is not to say that the all other Beläten releases are boring, but they were either obviously not my taste or I had to make choices because I did not want to buy everything.
In any case, Cryme makes a strange kind of industrial which goes from old-style industrial to a more minimal wave sound and less common sonic experiments. Sometimes Cryme reminds me of the ‘industrial disco’ style of Thorofon. Actually the latter may not be such a bad comparison. Not that “Mekonium” sounds like Thorofon, but the two projects would fit well together on a stage. Recommended.
Link: Beläten
