Reviews: electro

I recently obtained this 7″ single, to complete my Polygon collection. It was actually the first Polygon release, in 1998 on White Head, a division of A & T Records. The single comes in a nice foldout B & W paper sleeve, and contains a postcard and an insert sheet with info. Polygon is the project of Ingo Lindmeier, who was formerly active in Mortal Constraint…

Although this record has been released some time ago I still want to give this release some attention. This is the ninth release of the French Invasion Planete label and is a wonderful introduction to the sounds of this label. Invasion Planete is a specialized record label that releases electronic music. But they don’t put out just any kind of electronic music…

Musiques Pop! is a six track LP by the mechanical pop duo IT & MY COMPUTER. This record is released by the Citizens Paralleles record label. Which is a side-label from the French Invasion Planete label that is specialized in minimal/electro/wave/synth/body music. Rollinka, another Invasion Planete artist, is featured on three tracks of this release…

Coinside is a project of Sven Bussler, also known for his more industrial act Wappenbund and the Greyland label. In Coinside Bussler works together with Torsten Bessert, who is responsible for the lyrics and vocals. The music of Coinside has the same powerful bombastic sound as Wappenbund, but goes more in a dark electro direction…

This is the debut album from the English electro act Mechanical Cabaret. They mix harsh electro sounds with some softer touches drawn from synth pop. Besides that the songs on this album display a wide variety of other influences without being eclectic or incoherent. Much of this coherence is due to the production, which creates an overall lo-fi feeling, mainly because analogue tapes were used…

A Swiss act on the German Polymorph label, which is known for its atmosheric ambient releases and high quality design. The design of this Mist cd is as always fine. But the musical style of this release is more electro-minded. It’s not electro of a fast beat-driven EBM type, but more subtle cold electro. It reminds me a little of the legendary Mortal Contraint, or good old The Klinik…

‘Random event’ is a three track promo cd from the American group Lowtechnicians. The group makes electronic dance music that is inspired by (modern) EBM, electro (pop) and (80’s) synth pop. Although Lowtechnicians is a relatively new group this is not their debut. They have already released a split e.p. with another band, The Alpha Conspiracy, called ‘Forward rewinding’…

A band that has such a long and interesting history as Kirlian Camera deserves a biography and a tribute cd. Kalte Container was also available as a limited box with extra material, but I have the ‘regular’ version, with a 100 page book and a cd with 13 artists covering KC songs. The book is well-done: it contains many nice photos and is also very readable…

I accidentally got to know this band when I downloaded an mp3 from them. That track, ‘Kahle Bedrohung’, really blew my small computer speakers up! What a great power, sort of a mixture between dark electro and power industrial. Of course I wanted to know more about this band, so I did an Internet search…

New 4-track cd-single from this legendary French band. After the succesful album “Duality” with the hitsingles ‘Rain of Blood’ and ‘The Hidden cage’, and the compilation “Histories” Philiipe Fichot now returns with a rather good single. Again Eliane P. does the vocals. The title track ‘Deep Inside’ is cold and technoid…

Released by Bloodline is a new 5-track mini cd from this electro formation. it is a taster for the upcoming “Mechanical Horizons” album. Well, this single does not hold any real surprises, just a continuation of the style (and probably success) of their previous EVOLution album. That means modern sounding EBM/electro, well suited for the dancefloor, without becoming too clich? and popular…

Music for the dancefloors, that is what Decoded Feedback stands for. Very danceable dark electro tracks that you can’t sit still to. This album consists of three parts: Part I contains six new tracks, part II has remixes from Breathe, Bio-Vital and Relic (songs from their previous album) and the last part is filled by the Italian formation The Frozen Autumn, who are covering Bio-Vital…

An electro release from the Black Rain label. The album starts atmoposheric, in the style of Abscess, but it doesn’t take long before the album becomes more poppy, in the direction of Covenant or VNV Nation. A few songs are very suited for the electro dancefloors, with danceable beats and a slightly distorted voice…

One of the best industrial/electro bands from the 90’s is back with this ‘Remixed Retrospective of Revamped Material’. Fourteen classics are collected here, put in a modern jacket to make them sound fresh, which they have done well. I’m glad that the band released this album, because the latest studio releases were them a bit unworthy and Mentallo seemed to die an honourless death…

It was already back in 1994 that a band called Mortal Constraint released an excellent dark electro album called ‘The Legend of Deformation’, with great songs like Growing faces (on Glasnost Records). After a long silence Mortal Constraint released a mcd called ‘Second move’ in 1999, which appeared on the unknown (their own?) label Halbschlaf Records…

A band with a long history, this Italian formation. Kirlian camera has produced a large and varied oeuvre in the past 20 years, from poppy dance hits as ‘Eclipse’ to folky tracks such as ‘Heldenplatz’. A good overview gives the double cd compilation “The Ice Curtain”. On this brandnew album though KC proves to be not just a band with a past, but also one that is still relevant…

:Wumpscut: must be one of the most succesful electro acts of the last years. This double album, called Blutkind (Bloodchild in English), is a compilation with many rare tracks. The cd also has a nice, elaborate multimedia part showing lots of images, sounds, and text, including artwork sent in by fans…

In a nice purple box came a promo cd from the US band Übermenschen. With such a bandname you can expect anything, but the outcome was not so extreme. The band produces solid ebm/industrial, that is pleasant to listen to. The sound is not very modern, it reminds e.g. me of early Velvet Acid Christ stuff. The synths are very good, atmospheric and catchy…

Electro formation from Arizona, consting of Dave Strand (vocals, engineering, songwriting) and Kimberly Brown (female vocals). This cd (I think their first) was released by themselves in 2000. Ten tracks, whose titles like ‘chicks suck’ or ‘i hate my f***ing job’ predict the worst, but the music isn’t that bad…

The German label Maschinenwelt is known for its dark electronic music (like Seelenkrank). Not all their releases have convinced me so far, but now they have a new talented band: Solitary Experiments.