D-Passion * Data Recovery (cd 2009)
Well well, D-Passion released a cd! Looking at the cover, I see quite a typical gabber face. D-Passion is one of the classic Third Movement artists enlightening their compilations with great industrial techno. D-Passion balances on the border between gabber and tekno, but does not lean towards the wrong direction. His style is fairly dark, pretty agressive, has a lot of samples and loud beats; not the the-faster-the-better ideology of the gabber or speedcore style, but always in a nice danceble pace. The music is minimalistic enough and does not have too many breaks and changes in speed, which makes it very enjoyable. Great heavy techno!
Links: D-Passion, The Third Movement
I mostly know Peaky Pounder from his label’s compilations, but I also heard some of his vinyls. Peaky often makes the quite popular techno (minimalistic, regular beats and with minimal sound on the background), but then in a heavy, industrial fashion. Great stuff. Now there is a cd. I like the fact that within a DJ culture vinyls are still released to play at parties, but I personally prefer to buy cds to play at home, so I was happy to hear about a Peaky cd. Our Dutchman thinks that things to not have to be too dark and wanted to create something lighter with disco samples and stuff like that. However the tracks presented are obviously Peaky, most tracks are not as hard as I like them, but there sure are nice tracks here too. Here and there I find the tone a bit too light though and it seems that the speed has gone a bit down too. Overall the album is not as good as I hoped and it seems that Peaky gets about as crazy as for example Kid 606 here and there. At least the sound is not very typical (not even for Peaky Pounder) and some tracks are still good.
The Dutch label The Third Movement releases what I call “post-gabber”. “Gabber” was the biggest Dutch subculture a decade or two ago, but it got too big and exploded and some of the people from that scene continued a bit more underground and with a heavier sound. In 2004 I discovered the superb compilation “
Last week I stumbled upon the French distro and label Steelwork Maschine. I never heard of them, nor have I heard of most projects they release and sell. Not having enough time to carefully look through their catalogues, I got a copy of this split cdr. Neon Rain offers some alright to nice rhythmical industrial tracks, HP Unit 14 has more tranquil IDM or drum’n’bass sounds which are not too good. It is always nice to run into new music, but I will have to check if Steelwork also sells really good stuff.
I have gravely neglected the current that I call “rhythmical industrial”, but which since years has been called “rhythmic noise”. I never liked the latter term, since however the style is rather extreme, I seldom found it really noisy. Then again, Winterkälte’s last album (“Disturbance” 2004) is quite noisy and this album of Imminent is too at times. Around 1998/9 I shortly listened to this music. Winterkälte’s “Drum & Noise” (1999), Imminent Starvation’s “Nord” (1999) are great albums, but the “Industrial Frequencies” compilation series and other projects in the style were too tame for me. Another problem that I often had with the style, is that the music is often a dustbin of ideas with tracks stuffed with different rhythms, breaks, sounds, samples and ideas completely losing the idea of ‘danceablity’. My interests shifted to other musical currents and for about 10 years I probably did not even hear a single “rhythmical industrial” release. Then at last years Wave Gotik Treffen I saw Winterkälte which was great. Then I noticed that Imment has a new album so I figured I might want to find out what it is that “rhythmic noise” is nowadays. “Cask Strength” opens with two IDM/breakcore tracks, but then goes on full throttle with extremely loud dance music. A lot of breakbeats (while I love the regular blasts of the “Lost Highway” track) and also more tranquil tracks, mostly very nicely done and a good listen. Danceable? I do not know, sometimes I guess. Apparently with Winterkälte out of the way, Imminent is the best project in this style. Ironically too by the way, since both Winterkälte and Imminent are the projects that have made this music since 1993/4 while all the later bands are less skilled to make this kind of music. Too bad in a way, since I have the same with other styles (harsch EBM, old Wumpscut style for example, noone ever topped the earlier releases, especially not Ratzinger himself), but at least Imminent has made a new release! However much I like this music when it is well done, just as with extreme tekno or power electronics, I will not play a release such as this too often, since I usually feel like listening to a little more easy music. In any case, should you -like me- have missed the last 10 years of “rhythmical industrial”, this new album will not sound shockingly new, but Moreau is still a guy to make this sound good.
So Argentina also offers loud electronics. I did not know Synchro Mode, nor the “new and promising harsh electronic label from USA, Soviet Media Kontrol”. No worries of course, since Synchro Mode offers “strong rhythmic noise tunes with breakcore influences”. Fortunately there are not breakcore breaks in all tracks, most of the tracks are more of a Winterkälte harsch industrial style which is not bad at all. The result is pretty energetic and enjoyable. The tracks have a varying length (4 to 11 minutes) and enough variation to keep my attention. An interesting release in the style. It seems that the earlier releases can be downloaded from the project’s website, but I have not tried that yet.
Five years after the previous album I had expected some more attention to the new album of the Prodigy. In fact, I had to search to find a copy in one of the local cd-shops. “Invaders Must Die” is worth the effort though. Continueing the development in style, but this time with many references the earliest material, the new album contains nicely explosive “electro punk”. On Youtube you can already watch two of the videos that come on the DVD, “Invaders Must Die” and “Omen”, the first two tracks. When you like these two, you can savely buy the rest of the album. “Invaders Must Die” might for the first time not put all the previous releases in its shadow, but it is a great album. A bit short though, 45 minutes.
Like I wrote earlier, HeilsKabaal is an “ambient/ noise/ drone/ audio-collage/ fieldrecording” label. In my opinion AvoidAudio does not really fit that picture. What I hear is good old “
