Minsk-based project Tomorrows Letters released the noir synthpop single “Up Against the Wall” on 31 August 2026, the first track lifted from the debut album Kiryl Karotki plans to issue this autumn. The self-released single runs to three versions on streaming services, the original at 3:46, an extended version at 4:26 and a 2:54 remix by the Belarusian post-punk band Nürnberg. The Bandcamp edition pairs the original with the extended version.

Karotki records Tomorrows Letters alone. Nürnberg’s sound engineer Andrei Bobrovka mixed and mastered the track, and Karotki produced the cover artwork. The three versions run to 11 minutes and 6 seconds in total, and the release is out on Bandcamp and Spotify.

What Tomorrows Letters says about ‘Up Against the Wall’

The song stages an internal trial in which the accused and the judge are the same person. Karotki explains what the arrangement is built around before the lyric reaches its closing line, “I’m a prisoner of my own mind”:

“The song describes a state where your own mind acts as both the prosecutor and the judge in a trial that never ends. It’s about being your own worst enemy, trapped in a loop of self-judgment where conscience acts as a punisher rather than a moral guide.”

A saxophone-like drone opens the recording before a mechanised groove takes over. Sparse piano notes sit next to Karotki’s measured vocal, and trip-hop menace and industrial textures run through the rhythm alongside the darker electronic pop of Depeche Mode‘s 1990s and early-2000s records. The saxophone returns between verses, winding through organ-like keys and a low electronic buzz, and the clipped construction carries the same severity as 1980s minimal synth.

The lyric keeps to the courtroom setting throughout. Past mistakes supply the testimony, the mirror holds the verdict, and the heartbeat keeps time for the fear. Inside what the song calls the courtroom of the soul, the singer takes every role and pays every toll, until the line between right and wrong turns into another form of captivity.

The Nürnberg remix is the first of several guest appearances and collaborations Karotki has lined up for the album.

About Tomorrows Letters

Tomorrows Letters is the solo project of Kiryl Karotki, based in Minsk, Belarus. The project mixes minimal synth and New Romantic sources with trip-hop rhythm and industrial texture, and Karotki works to a hardware-only rule, building tracks on vintage samplers and drum machines rather than software.

His writing returns to a fixed set of subjects: isolation, self-judgment, Jungian ideas about the hidden self, maladaptive daydreaming, compulsive creation, and victories that turn out to be empty once won. “Up Against the Wall” takes the second of those directly as its structure.

The samplers and drum machines leave the recordings with a dusty, tactile surface.

Karotki’s collaborators on the single come from the same city. Nürnberg, the Minsk post-punk band whose engineer Andrei Bobrovka mixed and mastered the track, also supplied the remix that closes the release. The project’s earlier releases, the singles “So Be It” and “Go For It”, went out the same way “Up Against the Wall” has, self-released through its own Bandcamp page and the streaming services rather than through a label.

The three versions of the single split the material three ways. The original runs 3:46, the extended version stretches it to 4:26, and the Nürnberg remix cuts it back to 2:54 and carries a joint artist credit to Tomorrows Letters and Nürnberg rather than a remixer credit alone.

“Up Against the Wall” opens the run-up to the debut Tomorrows Letters LP. No title, tracklist or release date has been announced for the album beyond the autumn 2026 window, and no further guest names have been confirmed.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Los Angeles synthpop producer Danz CM released the double single “A Violent Power” and “Bontempi Pop 3” on 28 August 2026 through Channel 9 Records, the label she founded and still runs. The two songs run 4:15 and 3:15, are digital only, and were both built on vintage hardware rather than software instruments.

The release arrives six months after “MYTHS”, the instrumental album she issued in February 2026, and points at a larger record to come. Announcing the two tracks on Instagram, Danielle Johnson wrote: “Two bangers and a double single of sorts. You can only assume this means one thing: yes, that a greater body of work is on the horizon.”

How the two Danz CM tracks differ

“A Violent Power” was constructed entirely from analogue synthesizers and runs on a steady new-wave pulse, with bass and keyboard lines locking into a dance tempo. The lyric deals with giving in to an emotion strong enough to override judgment, and the arrangement tightens around that idea as it goes.

“Bontempi Pop 3” takes the opposite route. A breakbeat carries trip-hop weight underneath an Italian Bontempi toy organ, whose chirps and squeaks run across the track from start to finish. The subject is time and the wish to slow its passing by staying inside the present moment. Live guitars, acoustic drums, motorik rhythms and layered vocals appear across both recordings alongside the synthesizer banks.

About Danz CM

Danz CM is the recording name of Danielle Johnson, born on 20 February 1989 and raised in New York’s Catskill Mountains, now based in Los Angeles. She works as a producer, songwriter, composer, singer and graphic designer, and handles writing, production, mixing and art direction for her own releases.

Johnson began releasing music in 2010 under the name Computer Magic, taken from a line of Viv Savage dialogue in “This Is Spinal Tap”. The early self-released records “Spectro”, “Hiding From Our Time” and “Get a Job” appeared in 2010 and 2011, followed by “Electronic Fences” on White Iris in 2011, “Orion” on Kitsuné in 2012 and the “A Million Years / Another Science” single on Modern Records in 2013. Her music found an audience in Japan, where it was used in campaigns for Panasonic and Kewpie Mayo.

In 2015 she started her own label, Channel 9 Records, initially in New York and funded with licensing income, and released the Computer Magic album “Davos” on it that year. The EP “Obscure but Visible” followed on 7 October 2016, the side project Cody & Danz with Cody Crump issued the EP “Only the Hits” on 14 July 2017, and the rarities compilation “Super Rare” arrived on 15 December 2017. The Computer Magic album “Danz” came out in 2018.

In August 2020 she retired the Computer Magic name and became Danz CM. The first Danz CM album, “The Absurdity of Human Existence”, was released in 2021, trailed by the single “Idea of You” in December 2020 and by “Domino”, “Something More” and “I Don’t Need a Hero” in early 2021. “Berlin Tokyo Shopping Mall Elevator” followed in 2023, the krautrock-leaning “LÄRM! EP” in 2025 and the instrumental “MYTHS” in February 2026. She has also written for film, scoring “While Mortals Sleep” in 2022 and Gary Hustwit’s New York subway map documentary “The Map”, whose soundtrack Channel 9 issued in 2024.

Outside her own catalogue she founded the print magazine, website and podcast Synth History in 2020, remixed Ladytron‘s “Tower of Glass”, and has toured in support of LCD Soundsystem and Ladytron. Channel 9 Records has been based in Los Angeles since 2021.

“A Violent Power” and “Bontempi Pop 3” are the first new Danz CM songs since “MYTHS”. No title or date has been announced for the larger release she referred to.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Prague Gothic Treffen has become one of the fixed points of my year, and I think the reason has less to do with ritual than with continuity. I return to the same island, recognise many of the same faces, meet people I may not have seen since the previous summer, and yet the two days never feel interchangeable with what came before. Music is the reason everybody travels to Prague, but PGT has always understood something that larger festivals sometimes lose when they become increasingly efficient machines for delivering artists to audiences: a scene only remains meaningful when the people inside it still want to meet one another.

The twenty-first edition, held on 28 and 29 August 2026, made that idea physically larger. Fuchs2 and Bike Jesus were joined by Vila Štvanice as a third full venue, which brought the programme to three parallel stages and 21 performances, eighteen of them Czech premieres and one a European premiere. The festival was sold out, and the expansion unquestionably gave the programme greater range, although it also made this the most physically demanding edition I have covered. The three spaces are close to one another on Štvanice island, but a short walk becomes something else when hundreds of people are moving in the same direction, rooms are full and another band has already started a few metres away.

As a photographer, that changed my own relationship with the weekend as well. There were performances I watched but barely photographed because the light made meaningful pictures difficult, and others where the area around the stage was so dense that I simply stopped trying to move further forward. I understand that completely. The audience has paid to experience a concert, not to spend it negotiating a corridor for photographers, and I would much rather come home with fewer images than behave as though an accreditation places me above the people standing in front of me. PGT has always felt unusually clear about that hierarchy, and for me it is one of the reasons working there remains enjoyable even when the practical circumstances become exhausting.

Friday: the Treffen part of Prague Gothic Treffen

Friday was the more social half of my weekend, although I did actually begin by behaving very professionally and going straight to Kadeadkas. The Cologne band, founded in 2016, describe their own music as a mixture of the raw, clinical post-punk of the early 1980s, psychedelic elements and punk energy, which is quite close to what makes them appealing without reducing them to a period exercise. Their set had abrasion and movement rather than nostalgic neatness, with guitars that retained enough dirt to keep the songs unsettled and a rhythm section that pushed rather than simply supported them. They were a good first band precisely because there was no ceremonial sense of easing the audience into the weekend; the music arrived quickly, directly and with enough punk instinct to shake off the afternoon before the festival had really begun.

CattaC shifted the atmosphere into considerably darker electronic territory. Jens Helmis and Christian Schinköthe describe the German duo through dark electronics and rock, and that combination explains why their material carries more weight than a purely sequenced club project without becoming guitar music wearing electronics as decoration. What I enjoyed was the tension between the solidity of the programmed structures and the vocals, which brought a much more human sense of damage into the machinery. There is a particular kind of dark electronic music that becomes less interesting the more technically immaculate it sounds; CattaC avoided that by keeping enough emotional grain in the performance, so the songs had shape and discipline without feeling sealed off from the room.

Skelesys was one of the Friday performances I particularly wanted to include because his position between guitar music and club electronics is more interesting than simply calling the project darkwave. Born in Buenos Aires and now based in Berlin, Skelesys moved from the darker electronic and EBM-inflected Epsilon material towards a more explicitly song-based combination of synth-pop, post-punk and goth on the 2024 debut album “Fading Echoes”. That history could be heard in the way the set operated: rhythm remained central, but guitar texture gave the music a more tactile, slightly corroded surface, while the vocals kept it from becoming purely dancefloor-oriented. There is a melancholic pull to Skelesys that never quite resolves into romantic softness, and in the intimate space of Vila Štvanice that mixture of movement and introspection worked particularly well.

Darkways brought yet another version of guitar-driven darkness. The Barcelona band’s second album, “Rust”, came out in January 2026 and deliberately revolves around decay, ageing, impermanence and the erosion of identity, while musically combining darkwave and post-punk with rock, metal and synthesizer-based influences. The attraction is that those elements do not appear as separate genre markers that need to be checked off one by one. The guitars give the songs weight, the synths expand their atmosphere, and the melodic writing remains immediate enough to carry the audience with it rather than asking everyone to admire the production from a distance. There is a melancholy in Darkways that feels muscular rather than passive, which made the set easy to enter even when I was already starting to divide my attention between music, photography and the people appearing around me.

By then Friday had begun to do what Friday at PGT usually does to me: the timetable slowly lost its authority. I started meeting people I had not seen for months, then somebody else joined the conversation, then somebody I had not expected to see appeared, and the five minutes supposedly available before moving to another stage expanded into twenty. This is not an accidental by-product of the festival. The organisers explicitly describe the “meeting”, the Treffen, as the central thing they want to provide, with the three venues designed as spaces between which people can move, meet and mix rather than as isolated concert rooms. My Friday followed that philosophy almost embarrassingly well, because somewhere in the middle of all those conversations I stopped trying to win against the programme.

One of the casualties was OH Madonna, and this is the one I genuinely regret. I had wanted to see them, but Vila Štvanice was already difficult to enter and the surrounding timetable simply made it impossible to be everywhere at once. The project is still relatively young and has been developing quickly through darkwave, coldwave and synth-led material, which made this one of the performances I was especially curious about rather than a band I casually sacrificed. Missing something you actually wanted to see is always frustrating, but I would rather admit that than pretend I meaningfully experienced a set from somewhere near a doorway. I hope there will be another chance somewhere on the road, because OH Madonna remain on my list.

I did make it back for Black Nail Cabaret, and they again demonstrated why they have become one of the most distinctive visual presences in contemporary dark electronic music. Emese Árvai-Illés and Krisztián Árvai have worked as the Hungarian duo since 2008, and their sixth album, “Chrysanthemum”, pushed their characteristic “pop noir” language into material preoccupied with death, fear and the difficulty of letting go without sacrificing the seductiveness of the songs themselves. What I admire about them onstage is the intelligence of the imbalance between the two performers: Krisztián can remain comparatively contained behind the electronics while Emese controls the visual field with extraordinary economy. She does not need to move constantly, because one deliberate gesture, one change in posture or the way she holds the audience’s gaze can acquire far more weight when everything around it is restrained. The result is beautiful, but never merely decorative; the elegance contains a certain severity, and her voice is strong enough to make that tension audible rather than leaving it entirely to the image.

Friday ended for me with Vomito Negro, which was almost the opposite proposition. The Belgian project was formed in 1983 and belongs to the foundational history of European EBM and industrial electronics, with a catalogue that has repeatedly moved between dancefloor pressure, ambient material, harsh vocals and more contemplative electronic forms. There is no need for a band with that history to imitate the surface vocabulary of contemporary dark electronics, and the set benefited from precisely that lack of anxiety. The machinery was allowed to sound like machinery, the rhythms had genuine physical density, and the performance carried the severe economy of music that learned long ago that atmosphere does not require endless layering. After an evening in which I had spent almost as much time talking as listening, Vomito Negro provided a suitably uncompromising endpoint.

Saturday: this time I actually followed the music

Saturday was deliberately different. I had done most of my catching up the night before, so I treated the second evening as the day for music, which meant considerably more movement between Fuchs2, Bike Jesus and Vila Štvanice and considerably less standing outside with people promising each other that a five-minute conversation really would only take five minutes.

I began with Majo Polyak & Radmila Svensson, whose work sits on the border between dark electronica and art-pop and has developed through collaborations that often treat sound, voice and image as parts of the same compositional environment. Their 2023 album “Neverending Story” was followed by “Angles morts” in November 2025, again involving Svensson and spoken-word artist Paulína Feriancová. The set was considerably more energetic than the melancholy and layered studio material might suggest, with Svensson giving it a strong physical centre while the projections expanded and destabilised the stage around her. I particularly liked that the visual component never functioned as expensive wallpaper; it changed how the music was perceived, sometimes making the space feel intimate and at other times almost disproportionally large, which is exactly what good visual work should do.

Panic Priest arrived with an additional point of interest because Prague was the European premiere of Jack Armondo’s Chicago project. Armondo’s “Once Wild”, released in August 2025, broadened the project beyond its darkwave foundations through glam, Italo disco, new wave and more overt guitar presence, while retaining the baritone voice and doomed-romantic character that have always made Panic Priest immediately recognisable. The set began with technical problems, which is never the ideal way to introduce yourself to a new continent, but the recovery was more interesting than a perfectly smooth beginning would have been. Once the machinery cooperated, the guitar gained increasing importance and the performance acquired a much stronger rock edge, while Armondo’s voice remained the central dramatic instrument. Instead of allowing the difficult start to flatten the show, he gradually converted it into momentum.

At El Ángel Exterminador, the visual impression hit me before I had time to analyse the musical one. The Berlin-based post-punk, darkwave and deathrock project consists of Alejandra Batalla on vocals, Ludo-Van on guitar and marZiano on bass, and its March 2026 album “Crónica” brings together new recordings with remastered material from the group’s earlier cassette period. The guitars and percussion were ferocious, but Batalla stood in the middle of that force in a red dress and with long black hair, looking almost like a priestess presiding over the noise rather than someone trying to compete with it. That visual authority would have meant little without the voice, and this was where the performance became genuinely impressive: she could remain audible, expressive and emotionally dominant against guitars capable of swallowing a weaker singer whole. The contrast between the elegance of her appearance and the physical aggression surrounding her gave the entire set unusual tension.

Cryo required a factual correction before anything else, because the current configuration is no longer Martin Rudefelt with Torny Gottberg. In 2026 Cryo consist of Martin Rudefelt and Ville Hising, with Hising also known from Run Level Zero and as DJ Rauz; their first concert in this new formation took place only on 25 July at MiNi-festival in Genarp. What surprised me in Prague was how little sense of transition remained. The rhythm was hard, clean and extremely physical, the synth structures retained the mechanical precision Cryo have built over roughly two decades, and the lighting amplified that architecture rather than simply flashing over it. There was a great deal happening rhythmically, but the set never became cluttered, because each repetition seemed to accumulate pressure instead of merely repeating information. For a configuration still very new onstage, the chemistry already felt convincing and, more importantly, alive rather than cautiously rehearsed.

Corlyx were among the strongest surprises of Saturday because the current full-band formation has altered the scale of what the songs can do. Caitlin Stokes and Brandon Ashley are now joined by bassist Davide Rocco and drummer Flow Toulman, and the new 2026 material has increasingly exploited that configuration: “Sweeter Than Blood”, “More Anarchy” and August’s “Your Heart In The Serpent’s Mouth” all lead towards a new album planned for early 2027. The guitars sounded huge without losing definition, the real drums gave the songs much greater forward force, and Stokes remained completely dominant at the centre of it all. She is visually striking, certainly, but what impressed me was how little the show depended on image once the band began playing; the music had enough weight to support every theatrical gesture. Corlyx have moved well beyond the limitations of being described simply as a darkwave act, and the combination of gothic atmosphere, alternative-rock muscle and melodic immediacy makes far more sense when heard at full physical volume.

Horror Vacui followed by stripping away much of that polished construction and reminding everyone where a large part of gothic music’s nervous system originally came from. The Bologna band describe themselves wonderfully as “punker than dark, darker than punk”, and their new album “Shadows Sanctuary”, released on 7 August through Artoffact, examines darkness as a form of protection against a culture of constant visibility and exposure. The philosophical starting point is interesting, but the immediate experience was much less abstract: screaming, guitars, drums and the kind of tightly wound aggression that makes the body understand the music before the intellect has any chance to interpret it. After several electronic sets, Horror Vacui felt almost cleansing in its refusal to smooth the edges. Their current material may have moved somewhat further towards atmospheric goth rock, but the punk impulse is still audible in the attack, and that tension keeps the songs from becoming museum-perfect versions of darkness.

Then came Potochkine, and for me there was no real competition for the highlight of the weekend. I have seen Pauline Alcaïdé and Hugo Sempé several times, and I still never reach the stage where I think I have absorbed enough of what they do. Their 2025 album “Sang d’Encre” continues the duo’s peculiar collision of poetry, techno, EBM, darkwave and synthetic harshness, with a theatricality that never loses its intimate, almost confessional quality. Hugo can stand behind the electronics almost like an operatic figure inside dense smoke and brutal light, apparently holding the entire architecture in place, while Pauline converts that structure into movement. Her dancing is not choreography laid over electronic music; it seems to emerge from the rhythm itself, violent one moment, controlled the next, continually giving the impression that the body is trying to outrun whatever the music has set in motion.

Every time I photograph Potochkine, I begin with the professional part of my brain switched on, watching the light, anticipating movement and trying to calculate where the next usable frame will appear, and every time I eventually realise that I am dancing almost as much as I am shooting. Their performances feel like contained explosions, or balls of fire, because the music underneath Pauline’s movement is actually extremely precise while everything happening above it suggests release, excess and the possibility of losing control. That contradiction is what makes them so addictive for me. The theatricality never becomes self-conscious, the aggression never eliminates sensuality, and the danceability never turns the songs into neutral club material. I could see Potochkine repeatedly and still leave wanting another set, which is probably the simplest explanation of why they were my PGT highlight again.

I had hoped to catch at least part of NITE, but this became one of the points where the physical reality of the weekend defeated me. Vila Štvanice was so packed that entering and reaching a meaningful position became difficult enough that I eventually stopped trying, particularly after Potochkine had already taken most of my energy. The official timetable makes clear how compressed the second half of Saturday was, with Potochkine beginning at 22:15, NITE at 22:30 and The Danse Society at 22:50 in three different rooms. Sometimes the correct response to a festival schedule is simply to admit defeat rather than pretend that two songs heard from the back of an overcrowded doorway constitute a review.

My final major set was Buzz Kull, Marc Dwyer’s Sydney-based solo project, which has been operating since 2012 at the intersection of darkwave, EBM, industrial electronics, minimal synth and synth-pop. The February 2026 EP “Deep Hate” pushed that language towards a particularly severe kind of industrial pop, built around propulsive rhythms and an atmosphere that remains detached and nocturnal even when the music is extremely danceable. Dwyer understands how much authority can be generated without filling the stage with movement; surrounded by smoke and very heavy light, he can appear almost statuesque, like somebody standing inside the machinery rather than in front of it, while small changes in posture or delivery suddenly alter the entire tension of the room. I have seen Buzz Kull before and that economy still fascinates me, because minimal movement does not produce minimal impact. He commands rather than chases the audience, and the resulting set was a beautiful, hard and appropriately exhausting end to my Saturday.

What PGT gets right

The practical difficulty of this year’s edition is real. Expanding to Vila Štvanice gave Prague Gothic Treffen a broader and more ambitious programme, but a sold-out festival across three stages also meant that some rooms became difficult to access, certain transitions took longer than expected and overlaps occasionally forced decisions I would rather not have made. I missed OH Madonna, gave up on NITE, photographed some bands far less than I intended and occasionally realised that I had barely found time to eat because I was moving between venues again.

None of that, however, is what I will remember first.

The greatest value of Prague Gothic Treffen continues to be its people, and I do not mean that in the vague festival-review sense in which every crowd is described as wonderful because nobody wants to insult the readers. There is something structurally different about the atmosphere here. People notice each other, help one another, make room and talk easily to strangers, while the organisers have made the principles behind that atmosphere unusually explicit: racism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, harassment and violent behaviour are grounds for immediate removal and bans from future Sanctuary events. This year there were also people visibly available around the venues to help anyone feeling unwell or unsafe, and the bartenders and staff again treated safety as part of running the event rather than an inconvenience to be dealt with after something has gone wrong.

What matters is that those policies rarely feel as though they are being imposed on a fundamentally hostile crowd. They describe behaviour that is already largely present among the people who come here, which is probably why Friday can disappear into conversations without feeling like time stolen from the festival. Those conversations are part of the festival. The organisers themselves say that while the line-up matters, the meeting is the point, and after attending PGT year after year I think that distinction explains its longevity better than any list of bookings could.

There is already a reason to mark the next summer in the calendar. The poster displayed at this year’s festival announces XXII Prague Gothic Treffen for 27 and 28 August 2027, with the first four names confirmed as Dina Summer, Twisted Nerve, The Spoiled and HUIR, with more still to be announced. It is already a wonderfully strange cross-section: Dina Summer bring the dark-disco and synth-wave world of Local Suicide and Kalipo; the Edinburgh veterans Twisted Nerve connect PGT directly to the punk-to-goth transition of the early 1980s; The Spoiled represent a much newer Italian post-punk perspective; and Barcelona duo HUIR arrive after releasing “States of Light” in May 2026.

That announcement felt like an appropriate way to leave Prague because PGT has never worked for me as a collection of isolated concerts. Friday was almost equally about people and music; Saturday was an intense sequence of performances in which Potochkine set the standard impossibly high, Cryo showed that a changed line-up can immediately find its own chemistry, Corlyx sounded bigger and more physical than ever, El Ángel Exterminador gave me one of the weekend’s most arresting visual and vocal performances, and Buzz Kull once again proved how much power can come from disciplined restraint. Around all of that were the conversations, accidental meetings, people dancing, people taking care of each other and the strange little community that reassembles on Štvanice for two days every year.

That is why Prague Gothic Treffen remains one of my yearly traditions. I go there to work, I take far too many photographs, I run between stages, I inevitably miss something I desperately wanted to see, and at some point I put the camera down because the music is too good not to dance. What makes me return, however, is the fact that none of those experiences happen in isolation. At PGT, music still feels inseparable from the people gathered around it, and after twenty-one editions the word Treffen still describes the festival better than anything else.

About Prague Gothic Treffen

Prague Gothic Treffen is an annual dark alternative festival held on Štvanice island in Prague and run by the Sanctuary organisation. The twenty-first edition took place on 28 and 29 August 2026 and sold out. It ran across three parallel stages for the first time, with Vila Štvanice joining the existing Fuchs2 and Bike Jesus venues, and carried 21 performances, of which eighteen were Czech premieres and one a European premiere.

The 2026 bill included Kadeadkas, CattaC, Skelesys, Darkways, OH Madonna, Black Nail Cabaret and Vomito Negro on the Friday, and Majo Polyak & Radmila Svensson, Panic Priest, El Ángel Exterminador, Cryo, Corlyx, Horror Vacui, Potochkine, NITE, The Danse Society and Buzz Kull on the Saturday. Panic Priest’s set was the European premiere of Jack Armondo’s Chicago project.

The organisers publish a conduct policy under which racism, homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, harassment and violent behaviour are grounds for immediate removal and a ban from future Sanctuary events, and staffed the 2026 edition with people available around the venues for anyone feeling unwell or unsafe.

The twenty-second edition is set for 27 and 28 August 2027. Dina Summer, Twisted Nerve, The Spoiled and HUIR are the first four acts confirmed, with the rest of the bill still to be announced.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Seven singles into a year that started in January, the Dublin project Gravité Fresq released Hypocrisy Loophole on 28 August 2026, with an official video posted the same week. The 3:24 track sets a rigid synthesiser bassline under an upbeat 80s synthpop surface, and the project describes it as “a deceptively upbeat 80s synthpop track that weaponizes its own catchiness, masking a dark and cynical core”. Like everything else in the catalogue it is self-released.

The subject is moral bookkeeping. In its own words the project calls the song a “deadpan roast of modern complacency, built for a society that treats spiritual redemption like a loyalty punch card” – sin, confess, repeat. Full lyrics are published on the project’s own site alongside those of the six earlier singles. “Hypocrisy Loophole” is on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and YouTube; it is not on Bandcamp, where the project’s page still carries only five earlier tracks.

Where ‘Hypocrisy Loophole’ sits in the Gravité Fresq run

The single closes a stretch of seven releases in eight months: “Schrödinger’s Office” on 23 January 2026, “Reality Is Premium” on 20 February, “Festive Season My Arse” on 13 March, “Placebo Thrill” on 17 April, “Curry Sauce” on 29 May, “Future Is On Fire” on 10 July and now “Hypocrisy Loophole”. Each carries its own official video. There is still no album or EP.

“Curry Sauce” drew the project’s first press outside Ireland. Hot Press picked it for its weekly Irish singles round-up on 29 May 2026, calling it “a delightfully unhinged electro-punk track from Dublin’s Gravité Fresq”. Magnetic Magazine ran a piece on it on 6 June 2026 in which Danny Kaufman wrote that “It does not treat tech anxiety like some huge cultural thesis.”

About Gravité Fresq

Gravité Fresq is an electronic project based in Dublin, Ireland. The person behind it has not been named publicly; the project’s own site speaks in the first person plural and gives only a contact address. It describes itself there as “a sardonic music project fusing alternative electronics, sharp indie-pop, and 80s synth sensibilities”, and explains the name as a blend of the French gravité, for weight and seriousness, with fresque, a wall painting meant to be permanent and public. The misspelling in “Fresq” is deliberate.

The project began releasing in January 2026 and has issued seven singles since, all self-released through its own imprint and all accompanied by a video on its YouTube channel. The songs work satirical, domestic subject matter – office life, subscription pricing, seasonal obligation, takeaway food – over synthpop and electro-punk arrangements. Coverage has come from Hot Press, Magnetic Magazine, CLOUT, Earmilk, Obscure Sound and Plastic Magazine, alongside airplay on Dublin City FM.

Side-Line first covered the project in July 2026 with “Future Is On Fire”. “Hypocrisy Loophole” follows it seven weeks later.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Rue Oberkampf‘s “Wehmut” is not simply a darker or quieter variation on what the band has done before. The more consequential change is where the music now seems to take its instructions from. Julia de Jouy and Oliver Maier say that although they have recorded much of Rue Oberkampf’s music in a rented cabin in the woods, their more club-oriented work was historically fed by the city. On “Wehmut”, the landscape itself moves into the composition: the Lower Bavarian environment in which they grew up, the Goldsteig trail, the sea between Belgium and Finland, and field recordings that retain the identity of the places where they were captured.

That geographical shift coincides with a musical one. Ten years into Rue Oberkampf, the duo feel that much of the current darkwave cycle, including its successive waves and hypes, has already been told. Post-metal and dark folk became important not as genres to imitate, but because of their ability to accumulate tension, physical weight and atmosphere. At the same time, “Wehmut” does not reject the band’s club history. Instead, it seems to open another vocabulary that can eventually be brought back into harder music.

The title is equally precise. Rue Oberkampf distinguish “Wehmut” from nostalgia: nostalgia fixes its attention on something irretrievably past, while Wehmut, as they understand it, can be experienced and even enjoyed in the present, carrying longing without requiring loss. That distinction runs through a record concerned with landscape, transience, language and the limited amount of the world any one person can experience.

I spoke with Rue Oberkampf about longing for places never visited, why six tracks were enough, using languages as musical materials, what field recordings preserve, the influence of post-metal, the next stage of their live presentation, and why predictability would ultimately be a reason to stop.

Rue Oberkampf interview

Karo: “Wehmut” has no exact English equivalent; it sits somewhere between melancholy, nostalgia and longing, but none of those words quite contains it. What interested you in building an album around an emotion that becomes less precise the moment you translate it? Does naming a feeling clarify it, or can language also reduce something that is valuable precisely because it remains difficult to define?

Rue Oberkampf: Nearly two years ago, we started recording the first fragments of “Wehmut”, and we both had the feeling from the very beginning that this was going to develop in a different direction from the things we had done before.

During the creative process, the word “Wehmut” emerged naturally because that was the feeling we both experienced at the time. And yes, we completely agree that the word loses some of its emotional depth when you translate it. But we wanted the title to be a word that expressed something we felt deeply within ourselves.

For us, it’s much more about the feeling than the word itself. Wehmut is also closely connected to the region where we were both born and raised.

Karo: What I find most intriguing about “Wehmut” is the possibility of missing not only something lost, but something never actually experienced. That almost produces nostalgia without memory. Where does such longing come from for you? Can an imagined place become emotionally as real as a remembered one?

Rue Oberkampf: We’re very lucky to have seen many beautiful places around the world. We filmed a video in Patagonia for “Congélation”, experienced temple stays in South Korea, and saw […] landscapes and cities in Japan.

During the production of “Wehmut”, we experienced the rough sea on a container ship travelling between Belgium and Finland, and we hiked along the old Goldsteig trail through the Bavarian Forest. Experiences like these stay with you. And as soon as you’re back home, you start missing those places.

At the same time, you become aware that there are thousands of other places in the world that you will never see, simply because there isn’t enough time in one life. You can long for something you’ve never even seen. You can imagine its beauty, but you’ll never know what it actually feels like.

That’s a beautiful, but also painful, kind of longing. And this is one part of where Wehmut comes from for us.

Karo: Four years separate “Wehmut” from “Liebe”, yet the new album consists of only six tracks. Was that concentration deliberate from the beginning, or did the record simply reach a point where adding more would have altered its emotional proportions? How do you recognise when an album has said enough?

Rue Oberkampf: You’re right with the second thought. We knew the recording was finished when we felt that every facet of our experience of “Wehmut” had found its place somewhere on the album.

Some feelings and emotions don’t necessarily become stronger by repeating them over and over again. Sometimes, saying enough is part of saying something honestly.

“Blanc Poney” in particular is a song we’ve loved for years, but we always had the feeling that “Liebe” was the wrong album for it and simply wasn’t the right time to tell that story. So we completely rearranged and re-recorded it from scratch, to bring its soul to a new and more loving home with “Wehmut”.

And there’s also a more technical reason: vinyl generally sounds better when you put fewer songs on each side. But that was really more of a nice side effect than a reason for making the album shorter.

Karo: The track titles move between English, French, German and Bavarian dialect: “Tonight”, “Come on Moon”, “Blanc Poney”, “Into the Woid”, “Sonne”, “Darkness”. Does changing language also change the emotional temperature of a song for you? Are there ideas that become more intimate, more distant or even more truthful when expressed outside your primary language?

Rue Oberkampf: Maybe yes. In fact, we choose languages like we choose instruments or sounds.

We close our eyes, listen to what we already have, and eventually words, phrases or even entire sentences come to us very intuitively. We can’t really decide which language we’re going to use before we have the basic structure and sounds of a song. Sometimes the vibe simply seems to call for a certain language.

The language becomes part of the sound and atmosphere of the song rather than just a vehicle for the lyrics. Creating art is mostly about listening to what comes up and recognising the diamond ideas hidden within it, and then taking a lot of time to shape and polish those diamonds.

Karo: “Into the Woid” is particularly interesting because “Woid” immediately roots the song in a very specific linguistic and geographical landscape. Rue Oberkampf has always carried a cosmopolitan identity, beginning with the French name itself. Was there a conscious desire with “Wehmut” to move away from abstraction and allow actual geography to become part of the project’s identity?

Rue Oberkampf: We both grew up in an area of Lower Bavaria with dense, dark forests, small hidden creeks, lots of snow and a lot of rough, untamed nature in general. There are many tiny villages with strong local dialects, surrounded by deep forests.

There were times when some of these places could be cut off from civilisation for months during the winter. Even today, you can still feel how deeply this environment has shaped the people who live there.

That’s one of the reasons why we’ve recorded almost every Rue Oberkampf album since the beginning in a rented cabin in the woods. But until now, the inspiration for most of our more club-oriented songs came primarily from the city.

This time, it was different. We didn’t just record in this area and let the surroundings influence the atmosphere of the recording process. We consciously drew inspiration from the landscape itself, from memories and situations connected to it, and from the particular atmosphere of that region.

Karo: The album contains literal traces of places: forest recordings from Buchberger Leite, waves from Kiel, and woodland and owl sounds in “Into the Woid”. A field recording seems documentary, yet the moment it enters a composition it acquires another meaning. Do you regard those sounds as evidence of places you experienced, or as raw material from which an entirely fictional landscape can be constructed?

Rue Oberkampf: Actually, the field recordings we use on “Wehmut” are very clearly recognisable as the sounds of the specific places where we recorded them.

We didn’t sample them in order to integrate them into melodies or beats, or to create some kind of fictional soundscape. Instead, we wanted to bring the original atmosphere of those places into our songs. In a way, we wanted the music to carry a piece of the actual place with it.

The recordings are therefore more like traces or memories of real places than raw musical material.

Karo: Post-metal appears among the influences around “Wehmut”, although the record does not simply adopt the obvious vocabulary of that genre. What interested you in it beyond guitars or heaviness? Was it more about duration, accumulation, dynamics, physical weight, or the way tension can be sustained without immediate resolution?

Rue Oberkampf: Rue Oberkampf has existed for ten years now, and both of us have the feeling that the story of current darkwave and its many waves and hypes has been told. We felt the need to express something different. Something more organic, mystical and profound.

For quite some time, we’ve been listening to many different styles of music, especially post-metal and dark folk. We think that most listeners, apart from perhaps noticing the guitars, wouldn’t necessarily associate “Wehmut” with post-metal. But for us, it was one of the album’s major influences.

What interested us wasn’t so much the genre itself, or simply adding heaviness to our sound. It was more the way post-metal can create an atmosphere, build tension and evoke something physical and almost overwhelming.

We didn’t want to copy the style. We wanted to take what inspired us, filter it through our own musical language, and make it feel like Rue Oberkampf.

Karo: There is an interesting movement through the titles themselves: “Tonight”, the moon, “Sonne”, then finally “Darkness”. I don’t want to impose a narrative that may not be there, but did sequencing the six tracks create an emotional chronology of its own? When you order a record like this, are you constructing a journey or simply finding the most revealing relationship between separate states?

Rue Oberkampf: We didn’t do this on purpose, but you’re right: the titles all seem to come from a similar direction.

They capture different facets of some of the most exciting and inspiring moments of the “day”: sunrise, sunset and the night. There’s something about these fleeting, hard-to-grasp or dark moments that really resonates with the mystical atmosphere of “Wehmut”.

They’re moments that are difficult to hold onto. They appear, change and disappear almost before you’ve had the chance to fully grasp them. We think that quality of transience naturally became part of the album.

Karo: You end the album description with the invitation to “be wehmütig with us”. That turns the listener from an observer into a participant. Is “Wehmut” primarily trying to describe an emotional state, or to induce one? And is there an important difference, for you, between understanding an emotion intellectually and actually being placed inside it by music?

Rue Oberkampf: As you can see when you come to our shows, we love experiencing emotions together with the audience. So for us, it’s much more about the experience than about intellectually describing an emotion.

We always play our new songs to friends before releasing them to see what other people experience when they listen to them. “Into the Woid” was one of the songs that most of the people who heard it beforehand described as being extremely, or even too, sad, which we actually loved because that was exactly what we wanted to express.

In that sense, music can do something that words or explanations can’t: it can put you inside a feeling instead of simply telling you what that feeling is.

So yes, for us, “Wehmut” is definitely more about inducing an emotional state than explaining it.

Karo: “The Singles 2018-2026” and “Wehmut” arrive only months apart. One release deliberately gathers eight years of Rue Oberkampf’s past, while the other revolves around memory, longing and absence. Did encountering your own catalogue retrospectively change your relationship to those themes, or is artistic memory fundamentally different from personal nostalgia?

Rue Oberkampf: With “The Singles 2018-2026”, we’re kind of closing a big chapter in our band’s history. That doesn’t mean we’re going to stop producing club-oriented tracks. But we felt that the next chapter, which opens with the very dark and calm “Wehmut”, needed a clean slate and its own space.

As for the connection between the two releases, we think there is an important distinction between nostalgia and Wehmut.

To us, nostalgia is always about looking back at something that is over, dwelling on the past, on something that can never come back. There’s a certain helplessness to it.

Wehmut feels different. It’s a feeling you can actually embrace and enjoy in the present moment. It’s about longing, but nothing necessarily has to be over or lost. In that sense, Wehmut can even contain a positive impulse towards the future. You can feel the longing without simply looking backwards.

Maybe that’s also why “Wehmut” doesn’t feel like an album about the past to us. It’s more about being deeply aware of the need to stay focused on the present and enjoy it to the fullest.

Karo: I’ve seen Rue Oberkampf live several times, and at Castle Party this year I was struck again by how much intensity you create through restraint: very little movement can make a gesture suddenly carry enormous weight, while the light alternately reveals and removes you from view. Does “Wehmut” require a different physical or visual language onstage? How do you translate absence, distance and landscape into performance without illustrating them too literally?

Rue Oberkampf: Yes, we will definitely change some things onstage, but we won’t suddenly become a completely different band after the release. We will absolutely continue playing songs like “Solitude” or “Deine Augen”.

But with the new atmosphere that comes with the “Wehmut” songs, we feel that we can tell even more complete stories onstage, with an exposition, a climax and, eventually, a catastrophe.

The only exception so far will be a very special two-day event we’re planning in Leipzig in April 2027. We’re currently working on it together with the local promoter, and the idea is to create two completely different worlds over these two nights.

Friday will be dedicated entirely to the dark, atmospheric and almost ritualistic side of “Wehmut”, while Saturday will take things in the opposite direction: harder, faster, harsher and extremely club-oriented.

We’re planning special support acts, lighting, video and stage design for both nights, so the two shows will feel less like two concerts and more like two different chapters of the Rue Oberkampf universe. We’re really excited about what this could become.

Karo: “Wehmut” brings landscape, acoustic elements and field recordings into a project whose live identity remains intensely electronic and physical. Once these songs begin accumulating their own histories through performance, what do you want them to change about Rue Oberkampf? Has this record opened a territory you already know you want to explore further?

Rue Oberkampf: For now, we’ve created only dark and calm songs with this particular vibe. We’re very excited to see what impact this inspiration and these influences will have on future, harder or more club-oriented Rue Oberkampf songs.

We already have a lot of ideas for new sounds, instruments and even different singing techniques. In this increasingly digitalised world and the current Zeitgeist that inspired us to create “Wehmut”, there are still so many sources of inspiration and impulses waiting to be translated into new Rue Oberkampf songs.

So yes, we think “Wehmut” has opened up a territory that we definitely want to explore further, but we’re not quite sure yet where it will take us.

Karo: And to finish by looking forward: after “The Singles 2018-2026”, “Wehmut” and the next cycle of live shows, what feels most important for Rue Oberkampf not to become? Is there a version of the project, musically, visually or creatively, that would feel too comfortable or too predictable, and therefore tell you it is time to change direction again?

Rue Oberkampf: We’ve never been the kind of band that recreates “Glycine” twenty times with only minor changes just because it works well on streaming and makes us more predictable for Spotify.

The focus of Rue Oberkampf has always been on trying things out, taking risks and experiencing our songs together with our live audience in an emotional way.

For us, the magic of playing live comes from seeing how people react when the next song doesn’t simply start the way the previous one ended. We like to surprise people and to create moments where they don’t quite know what’s coming next.

That can sometimes be unpredictable and less comfortable, but it creates suspense and turns a concert into a shared journey. We’re personally bored by movies that try to convey just one single feeling for two hours.

We have a strong inner drive that keeps us from getting bored and pushes us to always try something new. So if we ever become completely predictable, we’ll probably know that it’s time to stop.

About Rue Oberkampf

Rue Oberkampf was founded at the end of 2016 in southern Germany by three DJs: Julia de Jouy, Oliver Maier and Damien De-Vir. Young & Cold Records describes the original concept as a collision between the energy of 1980s electronic music and the physical environment of techno-era club culture. The group’s own 2026 retrospective credits De-Vir as a member from 2016 to 2023; the current “Wehmut” writing credits belong to Julia de Jouy and Oliver Maier.

Their first substantial release was the six-track “Waveclash” in 2018 on No Emb Blanc, followed by the debut album “Christophe-Philippe” on Young & Cold Records in 2019. The 2020 “Negativraum” release appeared through ant-zen, while the second full-length “Liebe” followed on Young & Cold in 2022. Its material moved between EBM and techno-informed tracks, synthpop and darkwave while continuing the band’s multilingual use of French, German and English.

The six-track “Essenz” arrived in November 2024. In July 2026, Rue Oberkampf released “The Singles 2018-2026”, collecting “Eternity”, “Eiszeit”, “Solitude”, “I Won’t Surrender (Brutal Edit)”, “Negativraum”, “Sans Toi”, “Deine Augen” and “Never Stop to Dance”. Its credits explicitly document the earlier trio formation and make the compilation a useful dividing line between that period of the band and what follows.

“Wehmut” contains six tracks: “Tonight”, “Come on Moon”, “Blanc Poney”, “Into the Woid”, “Sonne” and “Darkness”. The album is released through Young & Cold Records in October 2026; Bandcamp lists the digital release for 15 October, while the label’s own store gives 16 October. The vinyl is mastered by Eric Van Wonterghem, while Ludwig Maier masters the digital and CD editions. Field recordings include forest sound captured at Buchberger Leite for “Darkness”, waves recorded at Falkensteiner Strand in Kiel for “Sonne”, and Scottish owl and forest recordings from the BBC Sound Library for “Into the Woid”. The artwork and design are by Kinnat Sóley.

For Rue Oberkampf, “Wehmut” therefore arrives at an unusually explicit dividing point: ten years into the project, immediately after a retrospective gathering eight years of singles, and at the moment when the duo themselves say they no longer find repetition of the current darkwave vocabulary artistically sufficient. The record does not erase the club-oriented Rue Oberkampf; their own answers make clear that they are already interested in what these quieter, more organic and geographically rooted ideas might do once they are pushed back into harder music.

Karo Kratochwil

Based in Wrocław, I work as a music journalist and photographer covering electro, industrial, EBM, gothic, and darkwave. My work includes features and live coverage, as well as concert, portrait, promo, and theater photography. What interests me most is the connection between artistic intention, what the work communicates, and what unfolds live on stage, all in pursuit of the bigger picture behind the music.

Los Angeles synthpop project Color Theory released the single “Time to Kill” on 28 August 2026. The digital release pairs the song with an instrumental version and is out through Brian Hazard’s own 11th Records imprint on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, SoundCloud and YouTube.

Hazard writes, sings, produces and mixes the project himself and has been releasing under the Color Theory name since the 1990s.

What ‘Time to Kill’ is about

The track sets a melodic electropop arrangement against a lyric about suppressed anger. It starts from ordinary irritation, the kind produced by a traffic queue or a comment thread, and follows the thought until it turns into revenge scenarios involving killer bees, wild boar and helicopter blades. Hazard sums up the distance the song travels in a single line on his own site: “Somewhere between forgive and forget, there’s a swarm of killer bees.”

That mix of bright synthesizer melody and dark subject matter runs through most of his catalogue, which he describes as melancholy synthpop. The instrumental version that fills out the release strips the vocal away and leaves the arrangement to carry the same material on its own.

Color Theory XP and the 2026 release run

“Time to Kill” arrives alongside Color Theory XP, a browser project Hazard put online at colortheorymusic.com that rebuilds the release as a Windows XP desktop, complete with a log-in screen offering separate entries for Hazard himself, a guest and a password-protected patron account. The invitation on his main site reads “Party like it’s 2004, with easter eggs galore”.

The single also lands in the middle of a dense release year. Hazard has issued the singles “And Which Way Is Up”, “Fall Back”, “The Naked Eye” and “Couldn’t It Be Me?” during 2026, along with the “Arm’s Length” and “Resist Me” EPs, all of them ahead of “Time to Kill”.

About Color Theory

Color Theory is the solo project of Brian Hazard, based in the Los Angeles area and running since the 1990s. Hazard handles writing, vocals, production and mixing himself, and releases the material through his own 11th Records.

The project reached a wider audience during the file-sharing years, when the track “Ponytail Girl” spread after listeners mistook it for an unreleased Depeche Mode B-side. Hazard later won the grand prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and his songs have been placed in the video games Just Dance and Rock Band and in MTV’s The Real World. His recordings have passed 15 million streams.

The Depeche Mode connection has stayed close to the surface of the project. Hazard issued the covers compilation “Color Theory Presents Depeche Mode” in 2003 and returned to the catalogue in 2022 with a double A-side of “Sometimes” and “The Things You Said”, which Side-Line covered at the time: Color Theory does double Depeche Mode feature on new single ‘Sometimes + The Things You Said’. Asked by Apple Music to name three favourite albums, Hazard listed David Sylvian’s “Secrets of the Beehive”, Depeche Mode’s “Some Great Reward” and The Cure‘s “Seventeen Seconds”, the last of which he has named as the starting point for his 2019 album “Lucky Ago”.

The album run since then covers “Mages” in 2021, “The Skeleton’s Closet” in 2022, “Underneath These Dying Stars” and its companion remix set in 2023, and “This Bright Circumstance” in October 2025. Hazard has kept up a fast singles schedule through 2026, with “And Which Way Is Up”, “Fall Back”, “The Naked Eye”, the “Arm’s Length” and “Resist Me” EPs and the single “Couldn’t It Be Me?” all appearing before “Time to Kill”. He also runs a monthly subscription through Patreon under which subscribers receive two new songs each month, and curates a weekly Spotify playlist of new synth-driven pop.

“Time to Kill” is the latest instalment in that release pattern. No follow-up album has been announced.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Laufeyiar Sonr released “Tarnished” on 10 August 2026, a two-track single running five minutes and 36 seconds. It is the project’s first new material since the 2006 debut album “Vorst”, which Neuropa Records issued twenty years earlier.

The title track runs 3:16 and is backed by “End of Rotation (Finitude)” at 2:20. The single is on Spotify and the usual streaming services. No label is credited on the release, and the project has no Bandcamp page.

Several tracks from “Vorst” have also been added to streaming platforms under the Laufeyiar Sonr name, among them “Grey”, “White Girl”, “Through the Burren” and the two-part “Sì An Bhrù”. Those are the 2006 recordings rather than new versions; only “Tarnished” and “End of Rotation (Finitude)” carry a 2026 date.

About Laufeyiar Sonr

Laufeyiar Sonr is an electronic project whose only album to date is “Vorst”, released on CD in 2006 by the Belgian label Neuropa Records under the catalogue number NRP11, packaged in a 7-inch sleeve. The eleven tracks were “Grey”, “Through The Burren”, “White Girl”, “Grimhild”, “Red Bar”, “Three-Coloured Fields”, “Second Fire”, “Sì An Bhrù I”, “Sì An Bhrù II”, “The Trickster Strikes” and “Grey Park”, and Discogs lists the record under electronic, industrial, experimental and ambient. Discogs credits the project to a single member, working under the name Bastiaen Van Der Karbargenbok.

Neuropa Records operated from Haaltert in Belgium and released synthwave, dark ambient and industrial records.

The project’s own website is no longer online, and its only other appearance in recent years was “Through the Burren” on the compilation “Dutch Electronic Masters III” in September 2022. “Tarnished” breaks a twenty-year gap in new material.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Sixteen months after a digital-only first single, Pissoir des Dieux put out their debut album on vinyl. The French project, which brings together Larissa Iceglass of Lebanon Hanover, Vincenzo Wieczerzynski of Chaos International and Owen Pratt of Uncanny Valley, releases the self-titled LP through Fabrika Records on 30 September 2026 in two editions of 500 copies each, one on black vinyl and one on pink. Audioglobe handles export distribution.

The trio bring an eighties wave sound with sixties pop and dark folk in it, driven by a mechanical beat. The label files it under cold wave, neo folk and post-punk.

What is on the Pissoir des Dieux debut

The album runs eight tracks across two sides. Side A is “Casinno Piss”, “I should be Shot”, “Hotel Grand Amour” and “24/7”. Side B is “Vultures”, “Jack Nicholson”, “Internet Cafe” and “Triple Size Coctails”.

“Hotel Grand Amour” came out on 8 May 2025 as the project’s first release, digital only, on Fabrika Records, and remains the only track from the album available so far. Its official video is the one visual the project has released to date.

The LP has not appeared on the band’s Bandcamp page or in the Fabrika Records web shop yet. Orders currently run through the label’s distribution rather than a direct release page.

Fabrika Records reprints She Past Away and Lebanon Hanover

Alongside the new album, Fabrika has repressed two of its longest-selling records on regular black vinyl. She Past Away‘s “Belirdi Gece” returns in the embossed and lacquered sleeve used for the tenth-anniversary edition of 2020. The Turkish band first issued the album on their own REMOOV label as a CD-R in 2012; Fabrika’s first vinyl pressing followed on 28 February 2013 in a different sleeve, and the record has since gone through six vinyl editions, four CD editions and a cassette.

Lebanon Hanover’s debut album “The World is Getting Colder”, originally released in February 2012 and remastered since, is also back in stock on black vinyl with a download code and a poster. The duo wrote and recorded it in the north-east of England after moving back from Berlin in 2011, and the second album followed shortly afterwards.

About Pissoir des Dieux

Pissoir des Dieux is a three-way collaboration based in France, formed by Larissa Iceglass, Vincenzo Wieczerzynski and Owen Pratt. Iceglass founded Lebanon Hanover in Sunderland in 2010 with William Maybelline and sings and plays guitar and synthesiser in the duo, which has released through Fabrika Records for most of its catalogue; their most recent album, “Asylum Lullabies”, came out on 10 July 2025. Side-Line covered the “Torture Rack” video that preceded it.

Wieczerzynski is a multi-instrumentalist based in Poznań who released a self-titled debut as Chaos International in March 2024 and has worked on Lebanon Hanover sessions. Pratt records as Uncanny Valley, whose debut album “Ugashia” appeared in 2019.

Fabrika Records has run from the Athens area of Greece since 2011 and is operated by Dimitris Pavlidis and Joanna of Selofan. Its catalogue includes Selofan, Qual, The Glass Beads, Harsh Symmetry, Second Still, Double Echo and Jennifer Touch alongside She Past Away and Lebanon Hanover. The Pissoir des Dieux LP is the label’s first full-length from the project.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Los Angeles producer Dragan Capor, who works as DC for his studio defrostMusic, released an unofficial remix of Nine Inch Nails‘ “Capital G” on 31 August 2026, accompanied by a video. He made the remix in 2007 from the multitrack files that Nine Inch Nails published during the “Year Zero” campaign, then left it in his archive for nineteen years before rediscovering the session files.

The release is non-commercial. Capor states that it is a standalone reinterpretation and that all rights in the original work remain with their owners. It is not connected to Nine Inch Nails, Interscope or any official remix programme.

Dragan Capor remixed and produced the track for defrostMusic. Yossi Shakked mastered it and Matteo Castiglioni made the video. The original “Capital G” was written by Trent Reznor and produced by Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Where the ‘Capital G’ stems came from

“Capital G” is the sixth track on “Year Zero”, the fifth Nine Inch Nails album, released on 17 April 2007 through Interscope Records. It became the record’s second and final single on 11 June 2007, issued in the United Kingdom as a limited 9-inch with a Dave Sitek mix of “Survivalism” on the B side.

On 26 April 2007, the official “Year Zero” website posted the multitrack audio for “Capital G” in GarageBand and Logic Pro formats, with WAV files for anyone using other software. It was one of three “Year Zero” songs opened up that day. The invitation produced “Year Zero Remixed”, released on 20 November 2007, whose CD and DVD-ROM edition carried multitrack files for every track on the album in GarageBand, Ableton Live and 16-bit WAV formats.

Capor’s version comes out of that first wave. He has said the song’s subject matter, which turns on power, money and political self-interest, reads differently now than it did in 2007.

About Dragan Capor

Dragan Capor is a producer, digital editor and remixer based in Los Angeles, where he founded and runs the production studio defrostMusic. His professional credits sit largely in jazz, soul and pop rather than industrial music: he has worked with Al Jarreau, Joe Cocker, George Benson, Norman Brown and Patti Austin, and is credited on Norman Brown’s Grammy-winning album “Just Chillin'”. Discogs lists him with writing, arrangement, technical and production credits across a range of releases.

Alongside that work he keeps a running set of unofficial remixes on his own channel, presented under the defrostMusic name. Those include a mashup remix pairing Nine Inch Nails material with Lisa Papineau, an extended edit of Peter Gabriel’s “Shock the Monkey” and a Gracie Abrams remix. The “Capital G” version is the oldest of them by nineteen years, and the first he has released from the 2007 sessions.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Max Meyer has not picked up a stringed instrument on stage in about ten years. The singer of the German industrial metal band Devil-M will do it twice in one weekend: he joins Italian dark electronic act Kirlian Camera as guitarist at the Fuchsbau in Chemnitz on 25 and 26 September 2026. Both nights are sold out, and the band will play a different setlist on each. Danse Macabre Records, Devil-M’s label, announced the guest appearance on 31 August.

Meyer described the return to guitar as the part that stands out for him: “Nach so langer Zeit wieder mit einem Saiteninstrument auf der Bühne zu stehen, ist definitiv etwas Besonderes. Gleichzeitig ist es eine spannende Herausforderung, bei zwei Konzerten eine Band wie Kirlian Camera zu unterstützen.” In English: standing on stage with a stringed instrument again after so long is definitely something special, and supporting a band like Kirlian Camera across two concerts is an interesting challenge at the same time.

He is known first as a vocalist and frontman of Devil-M, but he has worked as a multi-instrumentalist for years and is credited with drums, synths and arrangement on Devil-M records. The arrangement covers the two Chemnitz nights only. The label states that further shows or projects together are not ruled out.

Kirlian Camera tour dates for 2026 and 2027

Kirlian Camera keep a single canonical calendar on their own site and warn against buying tickets for shows that do not appear on it. Seven dates are confirmed:

• 25 September 2026 – Chemnitz, Germany (Fuchsbau, day 1, doors 20:30, show 21:30, sold out)
• 26 September 2026 – Chemnitz, Germany (Fuchsbau, day 2, doors 20:30, show 21:30, sold out)
• 3 October 2026 – Parma, Italy (Santa Maria della Pace Church, Colonne28, “Gala in Nero – Lode”, on stage 20:30, total black dress code)
• 27 November 2026 – Nuremberg, Germany (Der Cult, headliner)
• 28 November 2026 – Karlsruhe, Germany (Die Stadtmitte, headliner)
• 28 February 2027 – Bruges, Belgium (De Donkerste Beurs, festival headliner)
• 16 May 2027 – Leipzig, Germany (Wave-Gotik-Treffen)

Thirteen further entries appear on the same calendar as deliberate placeholders, with no country given. The band reveal those to their mailing list before announcing them publicly. Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2027 runs from 14 to 17 May, so the Leipzig date falls on the Sunday of the festival.

About Kirlian Camera

Angelo Bergamini founded Kirlian Camera in Parma, Italy, in 1979, and the project became the first Italian act signed to Virgin Records. The line-up changed repeatedly through the 1980s and 1990s across a catalogue that moved between synth-pop, dark electronics, martial and neoclassical material. Elena Alice Fossi joined in 2000 as lead singer and composer, and the Bergamini and Fossi pairing has anchored the band ever since.

The group have released through Dependent Records for the last three albums: “Hologram Moon” in 2018, “Cold Pills (Scarlet Gate of Toxic Daybreak)” in 2021 and the double album “Radio Signals For The Dying” on 23 February 2024. That last record runs to sixteen tracks and features Julian Assange. Side-Line covered its announcement in Julian Assange featured on new Kirlian Camera LP ‘Radio Signals For The Dying’ out in 2024 and the singles that preceded it, including “Il Tempo Profondo” and “Götter, geht weg!”.

Kirlian Camera are not signed to Danse Macabre Records. The label carries the Chemnitz announcement because its own artist is the guest.

About Devil-M

Devil-M started in Germany in 2009 and mix industrial metal with gothic metal, with Max Meyer on vocals. Their fourth album, “Titanomachie”, came out on Danse Macabre Records in late 2025 on digital, CD and vinyl, and takes its subject from Greek myth; Side-Line covered it in Devil-M return with Greek myth album ‘Titanomachie’. Meyer has been credited across the band’s records for lyrics, arrangement, percussion and synths alongside his vocals, which is the background to the Chemnitz appearance: the guitar is not a new instrument for him, only one he has kept off stage for a decade.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Six years after two self-released EPs, Ton:Fehler have a label. The German electronic duo released their debut album “Der Charme des Stumpfen” on 28 August 2026, their first record for Danse Macabre Records. The thirteen tracks run 37 minutes and 41 seconds and mix German EBM with techno, with the two members trading vocals across the record.

What is on ‘Der Charme des Stumpfen’

Eleven of the thirteen tracks are new songs: “Der Konjunktiv”, “Evolution Rückwärts”, “Kaputt”, “Bliss Point”, “Bibeltreu und Faktenscheu”, “Normkonform”, “Will ich nicht”, “Erklärer”, “Radsport”, “Tanzreflex” and “Fokus”. Two remixes close the album. Zweite Jugend rework “Bliss Point” and Aktion : Fiasko take on “Erklärer”. “Normkonform”, at 3:32, is the longest song on the record.

The lyrics are in German throughout and stay with everyday life rather than genre imagery. Danse Macabre Records describes the album as posing critical questions without supplying answers, and names “Normkonform” as the track that pushes the contradictions furthest. Irony and social criticism run through the writing, and the duo keep the tempo on the dancefloor while they do it.

Ton:Fehler on Danse Macabre Records

Danse Macabre Records is one of the longer-running German dark electronic labels. Bruno Kramm founded it in Bayreuth in 1989 as a cassette imprint, released early records by Das Ich and Goethes Erben, and coined the term Neue Deutsche Todeskunst for that circle. The label now runs its office and studio from Potsdam. Its current roster includes Devil-M, Oberer Totpunkt, System Noire and Wisborg. “Der Charme des Stumpfen” is Ton:Fehler’s first release through the label; their two earlier EPs came out on their own.

The album is available on the usual streaming services. It is not on Bandcamp, where the duo still list only their two EPs.

About Ton:Fehler

Ton:Fehler are an electronic duo split between Bonn and Bad Salzuflen in Germany, made up of Rösi and Helga, who work under those names alone. The project started in 2020, originally as a trio, after the three met at an Orange Sector concert. The third member produced the beats on the first two releases and left the line-up; Rösi and Helga have continued as a duo since 2024.

Their first release was the six-track EP “Versuchen ist der erste Schritt zum Scheitern” in 2022, with the songs “Kohle”, “Freddy”, “Tanzen”, “Tempus fugit”, “Mutter hat verboten” and a “Tanzen Nacht Mix”. The EP “Is das schon Kunst ?!” followed in 2024. Both remain on the duo’s own Bandcamp page. The two singers alternate lead vocals across the material rather than splitting the songs between them, a method they carry over to the album.

“Der Charme des Stumpfen” is their first full-length record and their first release on a label, and it arrives with two outside remixers attached, from Zweite Jugend and Aktion : Fiasko.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Every track on the new Johan Agebjörn album has a different singer on it. The Swedish producer, best known for Sally Shapiro, releases “Falling” featuring Yota on 4 September 2026 as a digital single through Blanco y Negro Music and his own Johan Agebjörn Music. It is the second single from “Casablanca Nights 2: The Unveiled Chapter”, a twelve-track album due on 30 October 2026 and open for pre-order since 21 August.

Yota is a Stockholm-born vocalist and songwriter, credited on Discogs under the name Jotta Hautanen, who now lives in Paris. She described hearing the demo for the first time on a walk in the park: “I recall listening to the demo of ‘Falling’ that Johan sent to me during a walk in the park and it was instantly playing on every emotional chord within me. The progressive and slightly subtle intensity in it just blew me away. It felt right. It was one of those rare moments when something just seems tailored to find its way through every little cell in your body and mind and connect with you. The tension this track carries is quite massive, especially as it’s delivered (at least partially) in a subtle and soft manner. The fact that it also has the elements that I naturally feel drawn to like the whispery and suggestive vocals and an instrumental that is melodic and deep, confirmed my initial feeling even more which was that this just had to happen.”

Johan Agebjörn pairs a different singer with every track

Agebjörn produced the whole of “Casablanca Nights 2: The Unveiled Chapter” himself and gave each of the twelve tracks its own guest. “Falling” with Yota opens the record, followed by “Beautiful Stranger” with Little Boots, which came out as the first single on 21 August 2026. The rest of the running order is “Fakesnow” with R Missing, “Substitute For Love” with Ellen Andrea Wang, “My Only One” with Fred Ventura, “Hush Hush Baby” with Nina, “Waiting For Magic” with Dana Jean Phoenix and Mikael Ögren, a 2026 mix of “Have You Ever Been In Love” with Tom Hooker, “Love On Ice” with Ryan Paris and Sally Shapiro, “Filled Me Up” with Bunny X, “Will You Be Home For Christmas” with Dana Jean Phoenix, and “Nightbows” with R. Missing.

The album is a sequel to “Casablanca Nights”, which Paper Bag Records released in 2011 and which used the same method of a rotating cast of vocalists.

About Johan Agebjörn

Johan Agebjörn is a producer and songwriter based in Lund, Sweden, who has made italo disco and synth-pop since the mid-2000s. He started Sally Shapiro in 2006 with the track “I’ll Be By Your Side”, and the project’s debut album “Disco Romance” came out on Diskokaine. Later Sally Shapiro records moved through Paper Bag Records and Permanent Vacation, including “My Guilty Pleasure” in August 2009, before the duo signed to Italians Do It Better for “Sally Shapiro” in 2022 and “Ready to Live a Lie” in May 2025. In September 2023 they released a cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Rent”.

Outside Sally Shapiro, Agebjörn has released solo albums and produced for other singers. “Casablanca Nights” appeared on Paper Bag Records in 2011. He worked with Samantha Fox on “Hot Boy” in 2018 and with Loney Dear on “The Leftovers”, and remixed Annie’s “Swedish Kiss” in 2014. He and Yota had already worked together before this album, on the 2024 EP “Universe In Flames”.

“Casablanca Nights 2: The Unveiled Chapter” is his first album under his own name since that collaboration, and “Falling” is the track the pair placed first on it.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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San Diego synthpop trio Twin Ritual released the single “Suffocate” on 28 August 2026. It is the band’s first new recording since “Allie” in May 2023 and is out on Bandcamp.

Hannah Mahute wrote the lyrics and sings. Anthony Ramirez, who also plays in Glass Spells, handles synthesizers, bass and drum machine, and Antonio Estrada plays guitars. The band wrote the song together. Vocals and guitars were recorded at Chateau Trumfio, and Dave Trumfio mixed and mastered the track.

How ‘Suffocate’ sounds

The arrangement runs on a steady drum-machine pulse and wide synthesizer lines, with Estrada’s guitar set in open, measured phrases that alternate between texture and lead melody. Mahute sings in the centre of that space, moving between a soft delivery and a sharper one. The song deals with staying beside someone who is withdrawing into their own pain, and with the limits of what patience can do about it.

Dave Trumfio’s involvement links the single to a long run of American independent rock records. He founded Kingsize Soundlabs in Chicago’s Wicker Park in the 1990s and moved the studio to Los Angeles in 2000, and has produced or engineered for Wilco, Built to Spill, My Morning Jacket and OK Go. Here he handled the mix and the master.

About Twin Ritual

Twin Ritual are a three-piece from San Diego, California, built around Hannah Mahute’s vocals, Anthony Ramirez’s synthesizers and rhythm programming, and Antonio Estrada’s guitar. Their music mixes synthpop with atmospheric guitar and a slow-burning, cinematic pace.

The band’s first release, the single “Angry”, appeared on 12 October 2017. The “Hand Through The Mist EP” followed on 9 February 2018. “Norma Jean” arrived as a single on 29 October 2019, and “Allie” on 5 May 2023.

Ramirez is also a member of Glass Spells, the San Diego synthpop project Side-Line has covered separately. Twin Ritual’s own releases have all been issued independently rather than through a label.

“Suffocate” ends a three-year gap in the band’s discography. No album or EP has been announced to follow it.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Stockholm post-punk trio Then Comes Silence have released a behind-the-scenes documentary on the making of their “Judgement Day” video, filmed and edited by the Swedish video maker Marzipan Moonlight. The film follows the studio shoot for the single, which came out on 7 August 2026 through Metropolis Records as the first track from the band’s eighth album, “Requiem Ballroom”.

The music video itself was directed by Damon Zurawski of Future Legend Films and staged as a live performance in a photo studio, with invited extras dancing around the band. Marzipan Moonlight’s film documents that day from the floor: the setup, the repeated takes, and the friends and members of Stockholm’s goth community who filled the room as extras.

Vocalist and bassist Alex Svenson describes the shoot as closer to a concert than to a film set: “We gave a performance in the photo studio when shooting the music video. It was like a regular concert with the extras dancing around the band. People seemed to enjoy being involved in the making of this video – it’s easy to dance to and has a good dynamic.”

Drummer Jonas Fransson accounts for one of the smaller participants: “We invited a bunch of friends to join us for the music video shoot, and one of them happens to be a 16-year-old Miniature Pinscher. He is almost completely deaf, so he didn’t mind walking around the studio while we were playing.”

“Judgement Day” is on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music. The full background to the single and to “Requiem Ballroom”, which is due on 20 November 2026 through Metropolis Records, is covered in Side-Line’s earlier report on Then Comes Silence release ‘Judgement Day’, announce album ‘Requiem Ballroom’. Svenson has described the track as a nod to Killing Joke, and Johan Lange of Agent Side Grinder plays synthesizer on one album track.

Then Comes Silence tour dates

The band open a European run in Belgium on 11 September and close in Stockholm in October:

• 11 September 2026 – Glain, Belgium – Deux Ours
• 12 September 2026 – Rotterdam-Albrandswaard, Netherlands – Baroeg Open Air
• 13 September 2026 – Rennes, France – Brewklyn
• 14 September 2026 – Paris, France – Le Chinois
• 15 September 2026 – Rezé, France – Cold Crash
• 16 September 2026 – Lyon, France – Rock N’Eat
• 17 September 2026 – Marseille, France – Le Molotov
• 18 September 2026 – Torino, Italy – Ziggy Club
• 19 September 2026 – Castelfranco Veneto, Italy – Sale Improve
• 20 September 2026 – Prague, Czechia – Subzero
• 24 October 2026 – Stockholm, Sweden – Kollektivet Livet

Tickets are routed through the band’s own tour links page.

About Then Comes Silence

Then Comes Silence formed in Stockholm in 2012 around vocalist, bassist and songwriter Alex Svenson, who has written the lyrics and music throughout the project’s history. The line-up narrowed to a trio in 2022 and now pairs Svenson with drummer Jonas Fransson and guitarist Hugo Zombie.

The band issued the self-titled “Then Comes Silence” in 2012 and “Then Comes Silence II” in 2013, followed by “Nyctophilian” on Novoton in 2015. “Blood” arrived in 2017 through Nuclear Blast, “Machine” in 2020 through Metropolis Records and SPV, and “Hunger” in 2022 through Nexilis Records and Schubert Music. “Trickery” followed in 2024 on Metropolis Records. Sonic Seducer named “Blood”, “Machine”, “Hunger” and “Trickery” album of the month on their release.

The group has toured widely across Europe, North America and Latin America, sharing stages with Fields of the Nephilim, Clan of Xymox, The Chameleons and Pink Turns Blue, and has played M’era Luna, Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Amphi Festival, Castle Party and W-Festival.

“Requiem Ballroom” is split into two halves, “Ballroom” and “Requiem”. Jon Bordon mixed the first, Tom van Heesch the second, and Svante Forsbäck mastered the record at Chartmakers. D.K. Griftegaard and Jonas Fransson made the cover artwork. The behind-the-scenes film is the second piece of video the band have put out around “Judgement Day”, ahead of the album on 20 November.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The Chameleons, the post-punk band from Middleton, Greater Manchester, released their third studio album “Strange Times” on 1 September 1986 through Geffen Records. The album turns 40 this year. David M. Allen produced it. North America received the record four weeks later, on 29 September 1986, with a bonus LP attached to initial vinyl copies.

Jacob’s Studio and the making of ‘Strange Times’

The sessions ran for five weeks at Jacob’s Studio, in Ridgeway House near Farnham, Surrey. Mark Saunders engineered, with Paul Crocket and Beki Field assisting and adding piano. Reg Smithies drew the cover, as he had for every Chameleons release since the band’s first single. The line-up was Mark Burgess on bass and vocals, Dave Fielding on lead guitar and ARP String Ensemble, Smithies on rhythm guitar and John Lever on drums and percussion. Ten tracks run 52:09: “Mad Jack,” “Caution,” “Tears” (original arrangement), “Soul in Isolation,” “Swamp Thing,” “Time/The End of Time,” “Seriocity,” “In Answer,” “Childhood” and “I’ll Remember.” The vinyl carried no B side. Both sides were credited instead as Side A and Side A+. Asked where the record sits among the band’s albums, Burgess gave a short answer in the sleeve notes on the band’s website: “Strange Times is my favourite.”

Two singles came out of the sessions. “Tears” arrived first, on 16 June 1986, in a version credited as the full arrangement, electric where the album take is acoustic and ends differently. “Swamp Thing” followed on release day itself, backed by a cover of David Bowie’s “John, I’m Only Dancing.” A promotional 12″ issued the same year paired “Mad Jack” with “Time/The End of Time” and a reading of the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows.” The bonus LP bundled with early North American pressings held six non-album tracks; the American cassette split those across both sides. No CD edition existed until 1993, when Geffen released a two-disc set in the UK and Germany and an American single disc that dropped “Ever After” to fit. Reissues have continued since: a Japanese CD on 25 February 2004, a Music on CD two-disc edition in Europe on 20 March 2020, a Moochin’ About double LP on coloured vinyl on 28 October 2022, and remastered 2CD and 3LP editions through Blue Apple Music on 3 May 2024. The Spotify edition carries 16 tracks, the album plus the bonus material.

About The Chameleons

The Chameleons formed in Middleton, Greater Manchester, in 1981, when Mark Burgess joined guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding. Burgess had played with the Cliches; Smithies and Fielding came from Years. They started as a trio without a drummer, took on fellow Middletonian Brian Schofield, and settled on John Lever of Dukinfield, previously of the Politicians. Martin Jackson, formerly of Magazine, covered the drum stool during 1982 and 1983 while Lever took a sabbatical. A 1981 session for John Peel led to a contract with Epic Records, which issued the debut single “In Shreds” in March 1982 with Steve Lillywhite producing, and dropped the band shortly after over disagreements about packaging and image.

Statik Records, a Virgin subsidiary, picked the group up and released the debut album “Script of the Bridge” in 1983, a record Side-Line covered in The Chameleons’ ‘Script of the Bridge’ turns 43 on 8 August. Statik’s ownership disqualified the album from the UK independent charts, and MCA cut four songs from the American edition, a decision the band objected to. The second album, “What Does Anything Mean? Basically,” followed on Statik in 1985. Constant touring and the work of manager Tony Fletcher brought the band to Geffen Records, and to “Strange Times.” Fletcher died of cardiac arrest in 1987, and with a rift already open between Burgess and Fielding, the group broke up. The EP “Tony Fletcher Walked on Water…. La La La La La-La La-La-La,” recorded in 1987 and named for him, appeared in 1990.

Burgess and Lever formed The Sun and the Moon, releasing one album on Geffen in 1988; Smithies and Fielding formed The Reegs, who put out two albums on Imaginary Records in 1991 and 1992. The Chameleons reconvened in January 2000 for a run of shows at The Witchwood in Ashton-under-Lyne, issued the acoustic album “Strip” that May, then “Why Call It Anything” in 2001 and a second unplugged record, “This Never Ending Now,” in 2002. Renewed tensions ended the reunion in early 2003. From 2009 Burgess and Lever played the catalogue as ChameleonsVox. Lever died on 13 March 2017, aged 55.

Burgess and Smithies reformed the band under its own name in May 2021 with guitarist Chris Oliver and drummer Stephen Rice, recording “Edge Sessions (Live from the Edge),” released on 25 April 2022 by Metropolis Records. The current line-up adds drummer Todd Demma and keyboardist Danny Ashberry. New material followed after a two-decade gap, covered here in The Chameleons release first new material in over 20 years: ‘Where Are You?’ and The Chameleons release ‘Tomorrow Remember Yesterday’ EP with re-recorded early tracks – Out now, ahead of the single reported in Chameleons release new single ‘Saviours Are A Dangerous Thing’ via Metropolis Records and the dates listed in Chameleons announce European ‘Arctic Moon’ Tour 2025. The fifth studio album, “Arctic Moon,” was released on 12 September 2025 through Metropolis Records. Forty years on, “Strange Times” remains the last album the original quartet finished together.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Polish witchpop and darkwave act Agnis released a cover of “Mile Deep Hollow” on 28 August 2026. The single-track digital release is her first new recording since the 2025 album “Gothess” and is available on Bandcamp.

The original appeared on IAMX‘s third album “Kingdom of Welcome Addiction”, released on 19 May 2009. Agnis keeps the song’s structure and moves it into her own setting of darkpop atmospheres and electronics. She describes the approach in one line on the release page: “Some songs don’t need to be rewritten, only re-enchanted.”

Where the Agnis cover sits in her release run

This is not her first cover. “Gothess” included a version of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, and she has since released a reading of Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra”. “Mile Deep Hollow” is the second IAMX-adjacent point of contact for Side-Line readers this year: the band’s Chris Corner released the single “Artificial Innocence” in February 2026 ahead of a European tour.

Agnis remains signed to darkTunes Music Group, the German label that issued her debut. No album has been announced as the follow-up to “Gothess”.

About Agnis

Agnis is the solo project of Polish singer and producer Agnieszka Leśna, who previously performed with Desdemona and with her own band Red Storm. She works under the witchpop label, mixing darkwave and witch house electronics with Wiccan imagery.

Side-Line first covered the project in January 2022, when Agnis released the single and video for “Sol Invictus”. The debut album “Oneness” followed on 25 March 2022 through darkTunes, running ten tracks: “I Am The Light”, “Gray Magic”, “Transubstantiation”, “Let’s Get Magical”, “Sol Invictus”, “Light And Fire”, “Polyhymnia”, “True Self”, “Slavic Witch” and “Cosmic Goddess”.

The second album, “Gothess”, arrived on 4 April 2025 with eleven tracks, including “Antipriest”, “Dark Dancer”, “Halloween Night”, “Baba Jaga”, “Elixir”, “Creatures of the Night”, “Vamp”, “Incantation” and the title track. A remix collection, “Gothess Remixes”, followed, with reworks by Basszilla, Antibody, Freaky Mind, The Silverblack, Chem, Prophette, Cattac, White Ritual, Vioflesh and C Z A R I N A. The standalone single “Wicked Witch” came out on 21 November 2025.

In 2026 she released “Satisfaction” with label mates Extize and Basszilla, and toured Germany and Austria with Extize. “Mile Deep Hollow” is her first release since that collaboration, and her first cover of a track from the industrial and electronic rock catalogue rather than the pop charts.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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And One released “Bodypop” on 1 September 2006 through Out Of Line in Europe, with a US edition following on 7 November 2006 via Metropolis Records. The ninth studio album by the Berlin electropop/EBM band turns 20 this year. It was produced by co-founder Steve Naghavi and followed 2003’s “Aggressor,” the band’s previous studio album.

The German CD edition runs 12 tracks: “Mein Anfang,” “Military Fashion Show,” “Enjoy The Unknown,” “So Klingt Liebe,” “The Sound Of Believer,” “Body Company,” “Traumfrau,” “Stand The Pain,” “Sexkeit,” “Love You To The End,” “The Dream” and “Dein Ende.” A limited “Bodypop”/”Frontfeuer” CD/EP bundle added five further tracks: “Rearming Strafbomber,” “Master Master,” “A Kind of Deutsch,” “Steine Sind Steine” and “The Force.” Band members Steve Naghavi, Chris Ruiz and Gio van Oli are credited as performers on the album, which was mastered at Master & Servant. Out Of Line has since reissued “Bodypop” on vinyl in 2018 and 2023 and on cassette in 2024.

Two singles preceded the album and one followed it: “Military Fashion Show” (19 May 2006), which reached number one on the Deutsche Alternative Charts, “So Klingt Liebe” (14 July 2006), which peaked at number three, and “Traumfrau” (1 December 2006). Side-Line reported on a double-vinyl reissue of “Bodypop” in 2018.

About And One

And One formed in Berlin, Germany, in 1989, founded by Steve Naghavi and Chris Ruiz, who met at a Berlin nightclub and initially performed under the name Body Project. Alex Two joined before the band’s 1991 debut. The single “Metal Hammer” (1990) became a club hit ahead of the debut album “Anguish,” released on Machinery Records in 1991, the year And One won a regional “Best New Artist” award. Three further albums followed on Machinery: “Flop!” (1992), “Spot” (1993) and “I.S.T.” (1994).

And One signed to Virgin Schallplatten in the mid-1990s, releasing “Nordhausen” (1997), “9.9.99 9 Uhr” (1999), “Virgin Superstar” (2000) and “Aggressor” (2003). Chris Ruiz left the band in 1992 and returned in 2001; Joke Jay and Rick Schah joined the lineup across the late 1990s and 2000s. The band moved to Out Of Line for Europe and Metropolis Records for the United States starting with “Bodypop” in 2006. And One continued with “Tanzomat” (2011), “S.T.O.P.” (2012) and “Magnet” (2014), released alongside companion albums “Propeller” and “Achtung 80” as part of a “Magnet Trilogie.” Chris Ruiz left the band again in 2011 to co-found Pakt with Gio van Oli and Chad Hauger. Steve Naghavi remains the band’s constant member; Nico Wieditz has performed with the band since 2012.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Sixteen years in, Mondträume have a different singer, a double album and, for the first time, confirmed live dates. “Mind Games” came out on Alfa Matrix on 26 June 2026 as a 24-track 2CD, the Spanish synthpop project’s third album and its first full-length with Nicky Schulschenk on vocals.

In this interview Pikotto talks about how the collaborations on the record doubled as an audition process, why a previously unreleased Bruderschaft remix ended up on it, and what the current line-up actually is. On that last point he corrects the record: Mondträume is a duo of himself and Schulschenk, with Madil Hardis and Ivan Derbenev friends and collaborators rather than members.

Mondträume interview

SL: Mondträume turns 16 this year, and the lineup has changed almost completely since 2010 – Damasius Venys left for Mental Exile in 2020, Ivan Derbenev and Madil Hardis joined in 2022, and Nicky Schulschenk has fronted the band since “Heart Machine” in 2023. What’s the one thing about writing a Mondträume song that has never changed through all of that, and what’s changed the most?

Pikotto: First of all, I’d like to thank you for inviting me to take part in this interview. It’s quite amazing to think that 16 years have already passed!!!!!! Where has all that time gone?

Looking back, I think the one thing that has never changed is the passion and excitement I still feel when I create music. The melodies continue to move between melancholy and happiness, and I still have the same desire to make music that can touch people, make them feel something, and ultimately allow them to enjoy the journey through each song. That is something I don’t think will ever change.

In that sense, I don’t really feel that I have changed as an artist. I think the journey has simply taken a different direction. The road may have turned, but the essence remains the same: the way I approach composition, the emotions behind the melodies, and above all, the desire to keep creating.

The biggest difference is that today, those songs have a new voice. Nicky has brought a new dimension and a new identity to the music, but the heart of what I want to express through my compositions is still very much the same.

So perhaps the direction has changed, but the feeling that started this journey 16 years ago is still there. And as long as I continue to feel that excitement when I hear a melody come to life, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

SL: “Lovers, Sinners & Liars” took five years to finish because of health issues you were dealing with at the time. Did that experience change how you pace yourself as a songwriter, and did any of it shape how “Mind Games” came together?

Pikotto: Not at all. In fact, if anything had changed, I would say it has changed for the better. It feels almost like being given a second chance – a chance to climb out of a dark place and start believing again that things can get better.

When someone is struggling with their health or going through difficult circumstances in life, you can reach a point where you simply don’t feel like doing anything. Everything can suddenly seem as if it has come to an end. I think that is one of the biggest mistakes we make as human beings. Deep down, we know we should keep fighting and moving forward, but sometimes there is something inside us that blocks us and makes it incredibly difficult to take that next step. And unfortunately, no matter how much we want to fight it, it can be very hard to overcome.

With “Mind Games”, I knew from the very beginning that it was going to be a difficult journey. We had a new singer, a new musical direction, and a lot of things that were unfamiliar to us. That made me want to give everything I had to this album.

And looking at everything that has happened since its release – the reviews, the comments from listeners, and even the Spotify statistics, where we went from around 3,000 monthly listeners to more than 15,000 – I honestly feel that we have achieved something really special. We also spent several weeks at number two on the GEWC Top 15 as one of the best albums on the chart, which was an incredible feeling.

When you put all of that together and see the response that “Mind Games” has been receiving, I can honestly say that I’m extremely proud of what we have accomplished. I truly believe we have done a great job, and I’m very satisfied with the result.

And above all, I have to thank Nicky from the bottom of my heart for coming on board this journey, getting on this ship with me, and helping me make all of this possible. I honestly couldn’t be happier to have him alongside me for this new chapter of Mondträume.

SL: “Mind Games” runs to 24 tracks across two CDs. Why a double album rather than a shorter, tighter release, and how did you decide what made the final cut versus what got held back?

Pikotto: Well, this was something Seba from Alfa Matrix (I like to take this opportunity to send him a big hello from here) and I discussed

At first, I had the idea of releasing the albums separately: the third Mondträume album with the new official vocalist, and a second album that would be more like a “Pikotto & Friends” project… or something along those lines. Just one of those crazy ideas that occasionally goes through my head, haha!

But in the end, Seba and I decided to put everything together as a double CD, and honestly, I’m really happy with how it turned out. I think it was the right decision.

In fact, I designed the entire visual side of the booklet myself 🙂 So it was a very personal project for me, not only musically but visually as well.

As for what was left out, there are a couple of songs that never quite came together in my mind the way I wanted them to. And then there’s another one that, to be completely honest, I simply forgot to include! With so many things going through my head, I was bound to forget something at some point. I’m a disaster. And it’s actually a great remix by the […] Gerrit Thomas of the song “I Need You Now”.

So I promise that it won’t be forgotten forever – I’m planning to release it on a future EP dedicated to that song. I guess sometimes even the songs that don’t make it onto the album end up having a second life of their own.

SL: The album brings in guest vocalists from District 13, Neon Space Men, Color Theory, and Antilav. How did each of those collaborations happen, and did you write with a specific voice in mind before reaching out, or after?

Pikotto: Well, I actually used these collaborations as a way of searching for a new singer. During that period, I was trying to figure out what direction to take and how I could find the right voice for Mondträume.

One day, while talking to a great fan of ours, Alain (who is also a wonderful person) he suggested that I should try looking for a new vocalist through collaborations like these. In fact, he was the one who put me in contact with the singers involved. “Pictures of You” was born during that particular period of my life, while I was creating these songs and experimenting with different voices. But the moment I heard Nicky’s voice, the vocal melody, and the way his voice blended with the musical foundation I had created, I immediately fell in love with the combination.

At that moment, I already knew exactly who I wanted to become the new official voice of Mondträume. I made the proposal to him, and, well… you all know how the story ended. 🙂

So, to answer the second part of the question, yes – all of the musical foundations were created before I contacted the singers. The collaborations came afterwards, as part of the process of finding the voice that would ultimately lead Mondträume into this new chapter.

SL: The record also includes a previously unreleased Mondträume remix made for Bruderschaft. What’s the story behind that remix, and why put it on this album instead of releasing it on its own?

Pikotto: This is quite a delicate subject for me, and the first thing I would like to do is send a huge hug to the great Rexx, wherever he may be. I hope that he has finally found peace and is happy. As many of you will know, he sadly passed away after battling that terrible disease, cancer. It was a devastating loss for the music scene, and my deepest thoughts and strength go to his family and loved ones. I actually made this remix quite a long time ago, when Rexx contacted me and asked if I would like to take part in the project. I didn’t hesitate for a second.

Rexx and I were basically the only two people who had heard that remix for a very long time. He had nothing but praise for it, and his words really encouraged me and gave me a lot of motivation. Unfortunately, though, He never seemed to find the right moment to release it.

When I finished the third album, I contacted Rexx and asked for his permission to include the remix on the album. He kindly gave me his blessing, and for me, that was a huge honour.

Including it on the album means much more to me than simply adding another remix. It is my way of keeping his memory alive and making sure that, in some small way, Rexx will always have a place within our music and within the history of Mondträume. I will always be grateful to him for that.

SL: Nicky joined as vocalist on “Heart Machine” in December 2023. Two years and a full album later, is he still primarily a vocalist, or is he shaping arrangements and lyrics now too?

Pikotto: Nicky is mainly responsible for the vocals, and the lyrics come entirely from his own creativity and imagination. As I mentioned before, I’m extremely happy with him. I think he has an incredible voice, and it fits the synthpop style of Mondträume perfectly.

That said, there have been a few occasions when he has said to me, “Hey, what if you did the melody like this at this particular point?” And sometimes those little suggestions can actually lead us somewhere really interesting.

The truth is that working with him is both very easy and a lot of fun. We understand each other really well, and the creative process feels very natural between us. In a relatively short time, I think we’ve also developed a really strong friendship, which makes everything even more enjoyable. At the end of the day, when you can work with someone, create music together, have a laugh along the way, and genuinely enjoy the process, I think you’ve found something pretty special.

SL: Madil Hardis, who joined Mondträume in 2022, put out a solo charity EP called “Noel” that same year. How involved is he in Mondträume day to day now, and does the rest of the current lineup – him and Ivan Derbenev – have room for outside projects like that?

Pikotto: I have a very strong friendship with both of them. They are not official members of Mondträume. Mondträume is a duo consisting of Pikotto and Nicky.

It’s true that we did try to work together as a group for a while, but I eventually realised that it wasn’t really the direction I wanted to take Mondträume in. That doesn’t change the fact that I have a great friendship with both of them, and I’m very grateful for everything we have created together.

Madil has an absolutely spectacular voice, and I’m sure we will continue working together on future collaborations and features.

SL: Side-Line called Mondträume one of the strongholds of “the 3rd electropop wave” a few years back, and ranked your debut among the best synthpop albums of the last four decades. Sixteen years in, does that kind of legacy talk change how you approach a new record, or do you try to ignore it?

Pikotto: For me, that was a huge honour. Being mentioned among some of the great albums with my very first album… just imagine! It was something truly incredible and something I will always be grateful for.

But honestly, it doesn’t influence me when I’m creating new music. Of course, whenever I’m asked about Mondträume, I’m very happy to mention those achievements, but they are not something I think about when I sit down to compose a new album.

What I always try to do is make every new song something special for the people who listen to us and, above all, make them feel something. That is actually my biggest concern – not whether an album will be considered one of the best, but whether I will manage to create something that connects emotionally with the listener.

That is what really matters to me. And, so far, I think I’m achieving it.

If, in the future, another Mondträume album is once again considered one of the best albums, I will obviously be incredibly grateful and very happy about it, and I certainly hope it happens. But, as I said, it’s not something I’m constantly looking out for or worrying about.

I simply want to keep making music that makes people feel something. Everything else is a wonderful bonus.

SL: You’ve kept an unmistakable 80s touch since day one. With 24 new tracks on “Mind Games,” was there ever a temptation to push further away from that reference point, or does the project only really work within it?

Pikotto: I really love the music of the 80s, and I think that definitely comes through in my compositions. But it’s not really a question of whether I want to move away from that sound or not. When I sit down to compose, I simply let my hands and my mind do what they naturally want to do.

The melodies that come to me often have that unmistakable 80s feeling, and I feel very comfortable working that way. It’s simply part of who I am as a composer and the musical language I’ve developed over the years.

Maybe at some point the musical direction will change a little, who knows? But somehow, whenever I try to move too far away from it, my mind seems to travel straight back to the 80s because that’s where it feels most at home. Hahaha!

I guess you can take the composer out of the 80s, but you can’t take the 80s out of the composer!

SL: “Poisoned Love” was included on Side-Line’s “United 2 – The Odin Files” compilation for Ukraine this July. What made you say yes to that specific compilation, and would Mondträume take part in benefit releases like it again?

Pikotto: I believe that compilations like these, created to support a meaningful cause (whether it’s helping those affected by war, fighting diseases, or raising awareness for important issues) are always worth supporting.

Being able to contribute, even in a small way, is something I feel is very important. We all have the opportunity to make a difference, no matter how big or small our contribution may be, and I think we should all do our part whenever we can.

Music has always had the power to bring people together, inspire solidarity, and support those who need it most. If a song, an album, or a compilation can help achieve that, then I’m more than happy to be involved.

And that also answers your second question: yes, absolutely. I will continue to participate in these kinds of projects whenever I have the opportunity. Supporting a good cause through music is something I will always be proud to do.

SL: What’s next for Mondträume after “Mind Games” – live shows, a new lineup configuration, or time off before the next release?

Pikotto: I hope the future has great things in store for us. As I mentioned earlier, the official Mondträume line-up is the one featured on this album: Nicky will be the voice at the front, while I will continue to focus on the music and production side.

One of our main goals for 2027 is to start bringing Mondträume to the stage. In fact, we already have two shows confirmed: February 27th in Leeds (UK) and March 6th in Madrid. We are also very close to finalising another show in Mexico, and hopefully many more opportunities will follow.

I’m also pleased to announce that we have recently signed a non-exclusive agreement with Dark Entries Spain, and our management will be handled by Barbara Banu. If anyone is interested in booking Mondträume, they are welcome to contact Barbara through her social media channels, or they can reach out to me directly. It would be a genuine pleasure for us to bring our live show to as many places as possible and connect with audiences around the world.

And as for free time… I think I’ve already had more than enough of that! Now it’s time to get moving, work hard, and give it everything we’ve got. We have a lot of exciting plans ahead, and I can’t wait to see where this new chapter takes us. Hahaha!

As always, it is a genuine pleasure have this kind of one-to-one conversation with Side-Line. Thank you for your interest in Mondträume, for your support over the years, and for helping us share our music with your readers.

We truly appreciate it.

About Mondträume

Mondträume is a synthpop project formed in 2010 and based in Spain, built around producer and composer Pikotto. Damasius Venys sang on the early records before leaving in 2020 for Mental Exile. Ivan Derbenev and Madil Hardis worked with the project from 2022, and Nicky Schulschenk took over vocals with the “Heart Machine” EP in December 2023. The line-up is now a duo of Pikotto and Schulschenk.

The project has released through Alfa Matrix since its debut, which Side-Line placed among the strongest synthpop albums of the past four decades, and followed with “Lovers, Sinners & Liars”, a record that took five years to complete. The single “Poisoned Love” arrived in December 2024 and was expanded into a digital EP in February 2025, alongside a previous Side-Line interview. The track was later included on Side-Line’s Ukraine charity compilation “United 2 – The Odin Files” in July 2026.

Alfa Matrix announced “Mind Games” in April 2026 and released it on 26 June. The 24 tracks split between new songs and remixes, with guest vocals from Madil Hardis on “Immortal”, “Day After Day” and “Whole”, District 13 on “I Tried So Hard” and “Please Don’t Cry”, Neon Space Men on “Heart”, Color Theory on “Better Off” and Antilav on “Falling Snow” and “Something”. The remix side carries reworkings by Code 64, Final Selection, Rob Dust, Beyond Border and Neon Space Men, plus the Mondträume remix of Bruderschaft’s “Falling”. The Leeds and Madrid dates in early 2027 will be the project’s first live shows.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Most of these songs have been sitting on Bandcamp one at a time since 2020. Music for the basses, the first Xavier Monax album to reach streaming services, brings twelve of them together and runs 42 minutes. The French solo project, which works under the lower-case name monax, describes the record as melancholic material in an indie rock and post-punk style. It went up on Spotify, Apple Music and Deezer on 30 August 2026; the artist gives 18 September as the date it lands on all platforms.

The title is of course a wink to Depeche Mode’s “Music For The Masses”.

The running order is “The Call”, “Is it the stars”, “White rooms”, “14 off”, “Don’t shoot the pianist”, “Leaving the darkness”, “Quiet again”, “Ordinary Fields”, “Follow me”, “Back in town”, “The sound from my mind” and “From here”. Every track had already appeared as a standalone Bandcamp release between November 2020 and April 2026, so the album works as a first collected edition rather than a set of new recordings. It is self-released, with no label and no distributor beyond digital delivery.

About Xavier Monax

Xavier Monax is a solo project from France. The Bandcamp page gives the country and nothing more precise; there is no city, no biography text and no listed website or social account. Releases are billed as Xavier Monax on streaming services and credited to monax in the liner text.

The Bandcamp catalogue is the fuller picture: around 37 items, mixing short albums with a long run of individual tracks. The earliest, “tout est à vendre”, carries a 2003 date. “The John Room Innocence” followed in September 2020 and the single “Music for the Basses” – one track, “Don’t shoot the pianist” – in November 2020. The nine-track “Viral Kiss” arrived in June 2022, “DREAMS 23” in April 2023 and the two-track “Sur le sable” in April 2025. Between those, singles appeared at a steady rate: “The Sound Of My Mind” in October 2022, “14 off” in February 2023, then “Back in town”, “Ordinary Fields”, “Refuges”, “Simon”, “White rooms”, “Follow me” and “Leaving the darkness” across 2024, “From Here” and “Quiet Again” in 2025, and “L’ironie du sort” and “Is it the stars” in 2026. Cover versions of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt” and of Tristana sit alongside them.

The project tags its own work as alternative, alternative rock and wave, and has no recorded label history, no announced live dates and no press coverage in any language before now. “Music for the basses” is the first Xavier Monax release to appear outside Bandcamp.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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A reel-to-reel tape sat unplayed for 36 years. On 30 September 2026 the London archival label Nausea Records issues Etiquette Session: 1990, eight songs the Belgian post-punk band Your Eyes recorded in a single day in April 1990 and never released. The band split shortly afterwards. The digital version went up in August; the vinyl is a 45 RPM LP, limited to 200 copies on transparent purple with a lyrics and biography insert.

The record runs “Mein Untergang”, “Looking Through Your Eyes”, “Wouldn’t It Be Great” and “But Still” on the first side, and “As Easy As Hate”, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”, “The Dreamless Sleep” and “Dialogue” on the second. Nico de Haan produced the session at Etiquette Studio in Zandvliet on 16 April 1990. Dutch Tape Transfers restored the master tape in 2025 and Frank Gorissen remastered it at Subterra Recordings from the original reel. Caio Batata laid out the artwork around a Steve Slingeneyer drawing originally made for the promo tape that never appeared, with back-cover photographs by Gerry Smet.

Who Your Eyes were

The label tells the band’s history plainly: “In 1989, four musicians from Belgium came together with a shared passion for dark, atmospheric post-punk. Inspired by Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy, and the adventurous sounds coming from the 4AD label.” The line-up was Koen Apers on vocals, Kris De Potter on bass, Tom De Dobbelaer on drums and Bart Verlent on guitar, all from Beveren in East Flanders.

Within months of forming they had a set together and made their live debut in Antwerp, opening for Enema Joe at a Creatures Of The Night party. The response pushed them into the studio the following spring. Then it ended: De Dobbelaer left soon after the session, and the remaining three played one last show in Beveren with Jan Dhooge behind the kit before calling it off. According to the label, “The reel to reel tape was shelved and the recordings remained unreleased for the next 36 years.”

Verlent went on to Sin of Sins, Kandinsky and Hydrom Line, the last of which released through the Belgian label Wool-E Discs in 2000 and again in 2021. He brought the Your Eyes tape to Side-Line’s attention himself.

About Nausea Records

Nausea Records is a London label run by Marcus Lombardi that describes itself as “A London-based archival label uncovering lost and overlooked punk, post-punk and DIY recordings from the 70s and 80s.” Its catalogue works through unreleased and long-out-of-print European material, with recent titles including Intensified Chaos’ “That’s not Freedom 1982”, T-Red’s “Partie 1984-1985” and Cruel Maniax’ “Atomkrig 1985-1988”. Its other current release is Danza Morta’s “Dead Dance 1985”, issued alongside the Your Eyes LP.

The Your Eyes record is the label’s first Belgian title. Vinyl copies are on pre-order through the label’s own store, with the digital version already on Spotify and YouTube. Neither the band nor the label has announced any live activity around the release.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Djinn & Tone Inc, the electronic project of Fribourg-based musician Mathias Läubli, released The Prince of Darkness on 28 August 2026. The 3:57 track is self-released and sits between synthpop, dance-pop and alternative electronics, with a female vocal carrying a scene set in a fetish club at two in the morning. Läubli filed it under “Dark Electro Pop” on his own SoundCloud, where the description reads “A seductive female vocal relaying the atmosphere in a fetish club at 2am”.

Läubli is credited as the composer. He says he wrote, produced and engineered the track himself, and that he dedicated it to a friend who runs sex-positive club nights in Switzerland. No vocalist is credited on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer or SoundCloud, and the release carries no featured-artist billing – unlike two earlier Djinn & Tone Inc singles, which name Fanny Corboz in the title. The single is on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and SoundCloud. It is not on Bandcamp, where the project’s page holds only the 2020 track “Petit Génie”.

A Swiss project back in motion after four quiet years

“The Prince of Darkness” is the fourth Djinn & Tone Inc single of 2026 and the seventh overall. The catalogue opened on 18 December 2020 with “Petit Génie”, featuring Fanny Corboz and Michael Déforné, then continued with “House Arrest” on 18 February 2022 and “Tibetan Lament”, again with Corboz, on 31 March 2022. Nothing followed for almost four years. The project resumed on 4 January 2026 with “The Climate These Days”, the only release credited to Mathias Läubli rather than the project name, and carried on with “indigo Daze” on 23 January and “Swipe Right” on 3 July.

Läubli contacted Side-Line directly, writing that he was “looking for places that still cover new dark electronic music directly rather than through a paid submission platform”.

About Djinn & Tone Inc

Djinn & Tone Inc is the independent electronic project of Mathias Läubli, who works from Fribourg, Switzerland, and describes himself as a former London resident. He writes, produces and engineers the material himself, and the project has released everything to date without a label, through digital distribution under its own name.

In his own account of the project’s range, it “moves between song-based electronic music, pop experiments, guitar-driven grooves and live no-tempo sound work”. He keeps a second strand under the name Djinn Fizz, which he describes as “the quieter, ritual side of the same project” – Tibetan bowls, drones and improvised atmospheric pieces. Djinn Fizz material stays on SoundCloud and has not been issued commercially.

The first release, “Petit Génie”, came out of a 2020 collaboration with a musician who wanted something, in Läubli’s words, “Floydesque but with modern sounds”. He brought in Fanny Corboz, a singer he had worked with in an earlier band, for the vocal parts. Michael Déforné, also credited on that release, is the name of a record and hi-fi shop in Fribourg whose owner is a long-standing drummer. Corboz returned for “Tibetan Lament” in 2022. Neither singer is credited on “The Prince of Darkness”, which is Läubli’s first release aimed squarely at the dark electronic scene.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Ten days after closing their Portuguese summer at Extramuralhas in Leiria, Necrø start a seven-date European tour in Berlin on 2 September 2026. The Lisbon duo of João Vairinhos and Sara Inglês mix darkwave, EBM and industrial electronics, and the run takes them through Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia before finishing in Ljubljana on 11 September. It is their first tour since Into Oblivion, the album Cold Transmission Music released in December 2024.

Vairinhos handles electronics and Inglês sings. The Extramuralhas date on 21 August put them on the Jardim Luís de Camões stage at the fifteenth edition of the Leiria festival, on a bill that also carried The Chameleons, Moonspell and IAMX. Two months before that they played Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig.

Necrø tour dates in September 2026

• 2 September 2026 – Berlin, Germany – Tommy Weisbecker Haus, with Leere Menge and Daniel Knutz
• 3 September 2026 – Ostrava, Czech Republic – Cafe Club Dock
• 4 September 2026 – Vienna, Austria – Das LOT, with Ductape
• 5 September 2026 – Budapest, Hungary – Instant-Fogas / Robot
• 9 September 2026 – Graz, Austria – Cafe Wolf
• 10 September 2026 – Zagreb, Croatia – Klub Močvara
• 11 September 2026 – Ljubljana, Slovenia – Voyager Craft Bar

Cold Transmission Music has not published ticket details for the individual dates.

About Necrø

Necrø is a dark electronic duo based in Lisbon, Portugal, formed by João Vairinhos and Sara Inglês. Vairinhos came out of the Portuguese punk and hardcore scene as a drummer and has recorded under his own name since 2019, alongside work with the instrumental doom project Löbo, The Youths and Wildnorthe. Inglês sings and plays keyboards, and works with Vairinhos in Wildnorthe as well. He composes and records the material; she writes and performs the vocals; the lyrics are credited jointly to Necrø.

The pair opened with the six-track EP “Death Beats” on 17 February 2023, which put “Surviving Pessimism”, “Narcissist”, “X”, “Two Sides”, “Without You” and the title track on record. Live work followed the same year at Portuguese events including Amplifest and Monitor. Cold Transmission Music, run by Susanne Herrmann out of Bad Homburg in Germany, then took the duo on and issued the ten-track album “Into Oblivion” on 6 December 2024 on CD, with limited vinyl and cassette editions. Vasco Vaz played guitar on the title track, João Cabrita added saxophone to “Desolate” and “No Rainbows Underground”, and Sérgio Almeida played piano on “Human”. The duo also appear on the label’s “Zeitgeist+ Vol. 2” and “Zeitgeist Chrome Vol. 2” compilations.

The five-track “Into Oblivion Remixes” arrived on 26 September 2025 with reworkings by Years Of Denial, Madd Rod & Radondo, Xinobi, Cage and Iamtheshadow. Their most recent release is the single “Hanged Man”, out on 6 March 2026. The September dates are their first European run since that single.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Swiss-German electro duo SIIE released “Sabotage Remixes” on Cold Transmission Music on 28 August 2026. The two-track digital single reworks “Sabotage”, a song from the band’s 2025 debut album “ACMÉ”, and is available on Bandcamp and streaming platforms.

The first track is “Sabotage (Satellite Edit)”, the duo’s own alternative version. The second is “Sabotage (Madd Rod Remix)”, by the Lisbon-born, Berlin-based producer Madd Rod. Cold Transmission Music describes what each version does with the original: “For this release, SIIE revisit ‘Sabotage’ with a fresh alternative version of their own, opening up new textures and perspectives on the original. Joining them is […] Madd Rod, delivering a powerful remix that takes the track into darker, more hypnotic territory.”

Where ‘Sabotage’ comes from in the SIIE catalogue

“Sabotage” is the fifth track on “ACMÉ”, the ten-song debut album Cold Transmission Music released on 2 May 2025. Side-Line covered that release when the label launched the album on vinyl and CD, and reviewed it as SIIE – Acmé. The album runs “Grand Virage”, “Cité Lunaire”, “Tendance”, “Opaque Couché”, “Sabotage”, “Un Moment”, “Monde Bizarre”, “Cowboy Fatigué”, “2112” and “2113 (feat. PHACE)”, with French lyrics delivered half-spoken over synthpop, EBM and techno rhythms.

The remix single is the duo’s second release of 2026. It follows “Indigo”, issued on 17 July 2026 with an official video, ahead of European dates that included support slots on the Nitzer Ebb 2026 tour. No album has been announced as a follow-up to “ACMÉ”.

About SIIE

SIIE formed in 2021 as a Swiss-German duo and work between electro, coldwave, EBM and dark techno, with vocals in French. Their early singles arrived independently, among them “5ème Avenue” with a Waltervelt remix, “Le Sept” with a Joyce Muniz remix, and “Violent”, which carried remixes by Panther Modern and Skelesys.

The band signed to the German label Cold Transmission Music, which issued “Cité Lunair” as the second single from the forthcoming album in January 2025, followed by “Grand Virage”. “ACMÉ” arrived on 2 May 2025 in digital, CD digipak, cassette and vinyl editions, the LP pressed as a limited run on solid light pink vinyl. The album mixes synthpop and EBM with acid-tinged sequences, and closes on “2113” with German producer PHACE.

“Papier Glacé” and “J’attends” followed, then “Indigo” in July 2026, whose live debut came at Amphi Festival in Cologne. “Sabotage Remixes” is the duo’s first remix release and returns to a track from the debut album a little over a year after it appeared.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The shoot took Freakangel into a Tallinn dungeon and a pole dance studio. The Estonian industrial rock act premiere the official video for Control on 4 September 2026 at 11:00 CEST, six days before they open a three-country Baltic tour with Psycholies and Sugar Rody. A teaser went up on 31 August. “Control” is the closing part of a trilogy the band built with Alfa Matrix across three years, and it turns slower and more introspective than the two singles before it.

D. Darling produced and directed the video and cut it from two separate shoots. The Freakangel footage was filmed at Kultus Club, a members-only kink venue in Tallinn, with Alex Troitsky as director of photography. The pole dance sequence features Daria Khudinskaia and was filmed by Šilanda Sirakova at Hudi Dance Studio. The band describe the result as built on mood rather than plot: “Rather than following a traditional storyline, the video focuses on atmosphere, movement and the tension between attraction, control and vulnerability.”

The song deals with obsession, idealisation and the collapse of an illusion the protagonist built himself. D. Darling and Ocean Black wrote the lyrics and wrote, produced and recorded the track together. Ocean Black has produced every part of the trilogy: “Suicidal (Break The Cycle)” in 2023, “Death Bloom” in 2024 and “Control” in 2026. Alfa Matrix collected all three on the digital “Control” EP on 10 April 2026, then issued the seven-track “Control (Extended)” EP on 26 June 2026 with remixes by Psycholies, PashaRav, Spankthenun and Implant.

Freakangel Baltic tour dates with Psycholies and Sugar Rody

Psycholies, the Bari goth-industrial act led by Vigos von Lies, also remixed “Control” for the extended edition. Sugar Rody is a Tallinn producer and DJ and a co-founder of the Dark Disko night.

• 10 September 2026 – Kaunas, Lithuania – Klubas Lemmy
• 11 September 2026 – Riga, Latvia – Klubs Depo
• 12 September 2026 – Tallinn, Estonia – The Krypt

Freakangel add a fourth September date: 27 September at the Renaissance Alternative Music Festival at Venue 229 in London. Earlier in 2026 the band played Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig on 22 May, the Tallinn Industrial Festival in April and Hard Rock Laager in Vana-Vigala in July.

About Freakangel

Freakangel formed in Tallinn, Estonia, in late 2009, started by Dmitry Ivanov, who works as D. Darling, as an offshoot of his other band Suicidal Romance. The project began as an EBM and industrial outfit and moved towards industrial rock across its first decade. Members credited over the years include Dmitry Ivanov, Roman Demchenko, Artjom Balakshin, Ocean Black and Tanel Könd.

The band opened their catalogue in 2010 with the album “The Faults Of Humanity” and the “Digital Deviations” release, both on Alfa Matrix, and followed with “Let It All End” and “Porcelain Doll” in 2012, “The Book Of Violence” and “The Ones To Fall” in 2013, “Into The Fire” in 2014 and “The Show Of Violence” in 2015. “How The Ghost Became” arrived in 2016 and “In The Witch House” in 2017, both on DWA, before “Death Walks With Us” in 2018. Alfa Matrix marked the debut with “The Faults Of Humanity (X Anniversary Edition)” in 2021 and issued the “The Last White Dance” EP in 2022.

The current run began with the free download single “Death Bloom” in April 2024, followed by a free “Death Bloom (extended version)” EP in October 2024 and the sixteen-track free compilation “Serenity To The Stars, Beauty To The Broken” in September 2024, released ahead of a USA and Mexico tour that October. The “Control” video closes the trilogy that run produced, and the Baltic dates are the band’s first shows since Hard Rock Laager in July.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Mike Watt returned his bass part within a day. That track now sits at the centre of “Emotional Plea”, the debut single by Work Crush, the new project of Hudson, New York songwriter Stephen Bluhm. The electropop and disco-leaning single was released on 28 August 2026 and is available on Bandcamp.

Bluhm wrote the music and lyrics and handled vocals, guitar and synth. Watt, co-founder of the San Pedro punk band Minutemen, plays bass. Alex Wernquest contributed drums and percussion and shares the recording and mixing credit with Bluhm. The track was recorded and mixed at Basement Floods Records in Catskill, New York, with Watt’s bass recorded at Studio tHUNDERpANTS in San Pedro, California. Jeff Lipton mastered it at Peerless Mastering in Boston, with Costanza Tinti as assistant mastering engineer. Musician and illustrator Steve Teare drew the cover, a child playing with a toy military plane.

Why Work Crush wrote ‘Emotional Plea’

The song is a first for Bluhm, who had not written directly about politics before. He explains what pushed him to it: “With Emotional Plea, I’d never written an overtly political protest song, but I felt I couldn’t ignore in my writing what’s happening around us, with ICE, with Gaza, with the complacency and lack of compassion.”

The recording came together faster than his usual pace, and Watt’s involvement is the reason he gives for that. “I usually write slowly, but this came together quickly because I felt it so urgently,” Bluhm said. “Mike Watt is one of the funkiest bass players I know, and I knew he’d be perfect for the song. I’m grateful he agreed. He sent his bass track back within 24 hours. The man works furiously.”

Musically the single sets a steady dance rhythm under synthesizers and clipped rhythm guitar, with Bluhm singing in a baritone. He describes the project’s method in one line on its release page: “At Work Crush, we believe all kinds of messages and stories can be told through the fine art of disco.” The same note states that no generative AI was used on the release.

About Work Crush and Stephen Bluhm

Work Crush is the current project of Stephen Bluhm, a songwriter based in Hudson, in New York’s Hudson Valley. Bluhm began releasing music under his own name, issuing the self-titled album “Stephen Bluhm” on 17 September 2017.

“Easter” followed on 14 April 2023. His second full-length, “Out of the Nowhere. Into the Here.”, came out on 19 April 2024, recorded, mixed and produced by Bluhm with guest players including musicians from Bard College’s The Orchestra Now and the Bard Conservatory Orchestra. It is built around strings, horns, flutes, piano and reeds rather than synthesizers. An instrumental version of the album was released alongside it.

“Emotional Plea” is his first release since that album and the first under the Work Crush name. It moves him from orchestral chamber pop to a synth and dance-rhythm setting, with two collaborators he has worked with before, Alex Wernquest and Steve Teare, and one new one in Mike Watt. No further Work Crush releases have been announced.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Few bands have achieved such a rapid development and enduring status in the Electronic music scene as Mesh. Founded in Bristol in 1991 by Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn, the British band evolved from a synth-driven group into an act with a highly distinctive blend of Electro-Pop, dark synth textures, subtle Rock influences, and deeply personal lyrics. From their earliest records, their music generated immense enthusiasm, which only continued to grow over the years. Their list of hits is almost too long to recount, and every new album generated a buzz. Following Neil Taylor’s departure in 2007, Mesh continued as the creative duo of Hockings and Silverthorn. Although a long period passed without a new studio album after the release of “Looking Skyward” (2016), Mesh never truly fell off the radar, largely because they continued to perform live. Eventually, the duo returned to the studio to begin writing new music. Their new album, “The Truth Doesn’t Matter (The Complete Truth)”, released on Dependent, marks Mesh’s ninth studio album. Despite the long hiatus, the band’s musical identity—or, indeed, its DNA—has remained completely intact. It is a strong record that stays true to the group’s distinctive sound and finest traditions. This interview took place during their current tour, which has also seen the band’s live lineup evolve. Mark and Richard are now joined on stage by drummer Sean Suleman and keyboardist Vaughn George. I reached out to Mark Hockings to look back briefly on 35 years of Mesh and, of course, to discuss the band’s current album and the road ahead. (Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Mesh on 35 years and the decade after ‘Looking Skyward’

Q: This year, you celebrate Mesh’s 35th anniversary, and your debut album “In This Place Forever” was released exactly 30 years ago. Which memories and absolute highlights immediately come to mind?

Mark: It only seems like yesterday we started out, yet it really was a lifetime ago. I suppose our first album/EP “Fragile” getting made, our first shows in Bristol, our first shows in Sweden, our first shows in Germany, our first record signing to Memento Materia, our first big festivals, giving up work when we got signed to Orbit/Home Records, going on tour on a real tour bus, touring in the USA, every new album we ever released, every live show we ever played. As you can tell, we love it all. It’s been just one long adventure and we are still making memories.

Q: Moving forward in time for a moment: it has been 10 years since you released a new studio album following “Looking Skyward”. That’s something we weren’t used to from you—how do you explain that gap, and when did you begin working on the new album?

Mark: I think we just needed a bit of a break from writing and the whole album release cycle. It really is quite a commitment once you say ‘yes’ to a new album. It’s a lot of work and you have to be prepared to launch into it 100%. We did spend that time doing some writing, but we mostly played shows like the “Retrospective” tour and “The Point At Which It Falls Apart” re-release tour. We don’t consider any of this ‘lost’ time and was very valuable in further building up our following. We were able to come back to writing full of energy and fresh ideas. I think ultimately our releases this year will make up for the 10 years of waiting.

‘The Truth Doesn’t Matter’ and its post-truth title

Q: What formed the foundation of the ideas and influences behind “The Truth Doesn’t Matter – The Complete Truth”?

Mark: It has not been difficult to find inspiration for this record. The rate of change of social and political norms has been unprecedented. We are in the middle of a huge technological shift that will forever change the way we work and communicate. The way that we all filter and process these changes will be key to how the World will look in the next few years. “The Truth Doesn’t Matter” is in parts a damning commentary on the World, but also offers hope for the future. If we can develop our skeptical skills and bring back some empathy then and we might just be OK. We are going through a huge learning period and I think we might just turn it all around. The mostly bland and disappointing use of all this new technology will hopefully give way to spectacular and life changing uses that will change all of our lives for the better.

Q: With the album title, you seem to refer to so-called ‘post-truth’ realities. To what extent is this record an expression of criticism, or perhaps resignation—even acceptance—of that condition? And if truth no longer matters, what remains as a moral or emotional compass for humanity, and for artists who are, after all, only human?

Mark: The title is more cynical than a statement of what I truly believe. It’s more of commentary on the ‘I believe this is true, and here are others that agree with me’ echo chamber type mentality that seems so have become gradually worse over time. The internet feeds such things of course. Ultimately the title suggests that you can actually spend your life mis-informed of basic truths and there is a high chance that your life will not be any worse for it because you will be in the company of the like-minded.

On the face of it you could say that those people don’t matter and what is the harm in letting then be. But I’m not sure that these people are harmless. The danger comes when people try to re-write important social history or reverse the progress of technology, political leadership, social care, awareness and tolerance. So actually the truth does matter. It matters a lot.

The personal songs on ‘The Truth Doesn’t Matter’

Q: Perhaps I’m misinterpreting certain titles, but songs like “I Lost A Friend Today” and “Trying To Save You” suggest more personal themes or experiences. What do these tracks convey exactly, and do they carry a deeper or more emotional significance for you?

Mark: Yes, there are still personal songs on the album. “I Lost A Friend Today” is particularly personal. There needs to be room left for those intimate spaces on our albums I think. We rarely write an album completely based on a theme, but rather the theme exposes itself when the work is complete. We feel that the political, the emotional, the light and the dark can easily coexist on a single record and yet still present as a coherent piece. That coherence is as much to do with the construction of the music as the lyrics.

Q: Despite the melodic and danceable nature of your music, there has always been a darker, melancholic undercurrent. I find it fascinating how these elements coexist—people dancing intensely to songs that deal with serious themes. How do you view that contrast?

Mark: I think we’ve always tried focus on the emotional side of all of our tracks. Yet is important to us to create energy if it helps to push that emotion to the fore. It can seem like a dichotomy when analysed in this way, but to us it has always made perfect sense to us. There are quiet emotions and there are loud emotions. There are sad emotions and there are angry emotions. It’s a spectrum that requires a different musical backdrop every time.

Mark Hockings on art funding, streaming and the album format

Q: In a world that often seems to be deteriorating, Art—including music—serves as an outlet and a source of hope. At the same time, we see increasingly conservative governments and world leaders cutting funding for the Arts. How do you interpret this contradiction, and how do you see the role of Art and music evolving?

Mark: It may be true that the funding of publicly funded art is generally being cut all over the World, however it feels like there is more creativity out there than there has ever been. People are able to make great music, film and art with the cheapest of tools. They have free platforms that give them an outlet for that art. I think you just have to go and find it. Gone are the days when a small number of intellectuals influence the way our culture moves. There are very few blockers in your way if you want to make art in some form. Most people are not out to make money, or become famous doing this. It just makes them happy. I think this is a really great thing. We just have to re-adjust the way we discover art and music. It just requires a little more effort possibly. But isn’t that part of the fun?

Q: At a time when everything is accelerating and constantly evolving, I sometimes wonder what purpose an album still serves. With streaming platforms and algorithm-driven playlists and social media dominating how people listen to music, does releasing an album become a form of resistance—a deliberate ‘no’ to that evolution?

Mark: We still think it’s important to give people a coherent piece of work. To take an idea and run with it. We still like the format of the physical album, the journey, the depth, the story, the artwork. The album set a theme like a film or a book. The songs are the scenes or the chapters. Hopefully the album tells a story and the listener is left with an experience or a memory when they listen to it a whole. We understand that things are moving possibly in a different direction, but I don’t think this a denial thing, like being resistant to new technology or delivery platforms. I believe that people are genuinely missing out on the album format as a way of consuming music, and I think that streaming services could do more to make music more of an experience.

How Mesh wrote and recorded the new album

Q: As mentioned earlier, it has been 10 years since your previous studio album. Has your way of collaborating changed during that time? And how have studio practices or production tools evolved for you—especially with the rise of technologies like AI?

Mark: Collaboration tools have improved certainly. Our main program Cubase has a remote client that we use when working with our mix engineer Olaf in Germany. This is partially made possible due to faster network connections available now. A lot of retro gear is cheaper and more available due to companies like Behringer. Controversial possibly, but they have made expensive classic synths affordable to a lot of people. A.I has certainly made mastering tools a lot easier to use for final productions, but we tend to still rely on the skills of people like Olaf to deal with that still. Tools like Suno AI, particularly Suno studio might have their place in bringing ideas to the table, but those platforms are still a little predicable in their results. Ultimately I suspect we will use such things to generate sounds and loops not unlike using sample packs or services like splice. I don’t see anything wrong with any of this stuff really. Ultimately the artist is the filter for ideas and where those ideas come from is largely irrelevant. Exciting times though.

Q: The album features several short interludes. What role do they play within the broader context of the record? And could you also tell us more about the album’s Deluxe Edition?

Mark: The interludes we call “Particles” and are used to add a bit of colour to the record or to change moods in the flow. When you take the confines of the lyrics out of the equation then you can be a little more free in the way you manage the structure of those pieces. We are able to try a few sound design experiments that would be difficult if words were involved. So they are just little mood changing experiments that are fun to write.

The deluxe edition contains a few tracks that we either couldn’t fit on the physical CD/vinyl or we didn’t think necessarily fitted on the album quite as well as the final track list. That is subjective obviously, but we spend a long time considering such things. That said, I love the additional tracks on the extended version.

Q: Is there a particular stereotypical modus operandi when it comes to creating a song or an album, or how does that process actually work—more specifically for the new album?

Mark: Not really. We just swap ideas and see what happens. The difficult part is just getting started. We need a couple of good songs finished before the ball really starts to roll. Generally Rich will give me some music and I’ll write a song around that, or I’ll make a demo and Rich will work on it. But the process varies. We get together to work on final vocals, final mixes, final arrangements etc. It’s much more collaborative towards the end of the process than at the start. We tend to need to get together a nucleus of tracks and then step back and see a) where is this going? And b) what are we missing? But tracks sometimes just appear out of nowhere – like “Exile” for example. This was written after we’d mixed the final album and was added at the very last minute. Happy accidents or hard work? Difficult to be sure.

Touring ‘The Truth Doesn’t Matter’ in 2026

Q: At the time of this interview, you’ve already played a lot of live shows, and the tour is still ongoing. What have been the highlights so far? What do you enjoy most about touring and performing in different countries, at different festivals, and in a variety of venues?

Mark: The highlights have been the people and the enthusiasm and love they have shown us. It’s been quite humbling. Can never get used to it. We pushed ourselves to make this tour a really special production and I think we surpassed our expectations on how the show looked and sounded. Touring is just fun. We love the whole process to be honest. The shows, the fans, the travelling in the tour bus, the friendship and the shared experience. Every venue is different, every crowd is different. Festivals can be fun, but a very different thing as the audience is not necessarily there to see you. Its a different challenge, but just as rewarding off you get it right.

Q: I’ve always wondered how a band prepares for a tour like this. What’s involved in getting everything ready? Could you also tell us a bit about the crew that travels with you? And when you’re not on stage, how do you spend your time on the road, and what do you do to stay in good shape throughout the tour?

Mark: There are months of preparation involved in a tour like this. The music has to be completely reprogrammed for live, hardware and software has to be prepared/written especially for the tour. Video plays a big role in our stage show and this also takes months to author and sync to the live sequencing. So essentially we are straight out of the studio from the album, then straight back into it again. There are a huge amount of logistics involved around video, lighting, merch, crew, travel, support bands etc. it’s a huge undertaking.

We have the best crew and many of them we have worked with for many, many years. I think there were 14 of us on the bus for this tour.

Touring seems to be a lot of hanging about interspersed with intense periods of activity. But the time passes too fast. It’s a lot of fun. We all keep reasonably fit. Myself and Rich do a lot of cycling. Sean does a lot of gym work. You can’t do. Much once you are actually on tour, so the prep is important.

About Mesh

Mesh formed in Bristol in 1991 around Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn, later joined by Neil Taylor. The mini-album “Fragile” appeared in 1994, and the debut album “In This Place Forever” followed in 1996 on the Swedish label Memento Materia, which also issued “The Point At Which It Falls Apart” in 1999. “Who Watches Over Me?” came out in 2002 through Home Records, and “We Collide” in 2006 on Königskinder Schallplatten. Taylor left in 2007 and the band has worked as a duo since.

Dependent Records has carried every Mesh studio album since “A Perfect Solution” in 2009, followed by “Automation>>Baby” in 2013 and “Looking Skyward” in 2016; Metropolis Records handled several of those records in the United States. In September 2024 the duo issued a 25th anniversary reissue of “The Point at Which It Falls Apart”. Hockings also records as Blackcarburning, which released the MCD “Divide Us” in 2022 and the debut album “Watching Sleepers” in June 2023.

“The Truth Doesn’t Matter” was released on 27 March 2026 through Dependent Records and runs sixteen tracks. It was trailed by three video singles: “Exile” in January 2026, “Hey Stranger” in February and “This World” in March. A box set titled “The Complete Truth” pairs the album on double vinyl with a bonus LP of additional tracks and alternate versions, two CDs, an artbook edition, postcards, a poster and a hand-numbered signed certificate, limited to 500 copies. The “The Truth Doesn’t Matter” tour opened after the release, with Hockings and Silverthorn joined on stage by drummer Sean Suleman and keyboardist Vaughn George.

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

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The Cure released their sixth studio album, “The Head on the Door,” on 30 August 1985 through Fiction Records. The album turns 41 this year. It followed 1984’s “The Top” and arrived with a lineup that added drummer Boris Williams and brought back bassist Simon Gallup and guitarist Porl Thompson.

The band recorded “The Head on the Door” in 1985 at Angel Recording Studios in London. Robert Smith and David M. Allen produced the album, with Howard Gray producing “Kyoto Song,” “Push” and “A Night Like This,” and Frank Barretta engineering. The ten-track record runs “In Between Days,” “Kyoto Song,” “The Blood,” “Six Different Ways,” “Push,” “The Baby Screams,” “Close to Me,” “A Night Like This,” “Screw” and “Sinking.” It was issued on vinyl LP and CD, led by the single “In Between Days,” which reached number 15 on the UK Singles Chart, and followed by second single “Close to Me.” “The Head on the Door” reached number seven on the UK Albums Chart and number 59 in the US, and is certified gold in the US, UK and France. It streams on Spotify.

About The Cure

The Cure formed in Crawley, England, in 1976, when school friends Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst played together in a band that became Malice, then Easy Cure. Easy Cure signed briefly to the German label Ariola-Hansa in 1977, but the deal collapsed in 1978 after the label rejected the song “Killing an Arab” and pushed for cover versions instead. Guitarist Porl Thompson was dropped from the lineup in April 1978, and Smith renamed the remaining trio the Cure. Later that year, Polydor scout Chris Parry signed the band to his newly formed Fiction label. The Cure released the single “Killing an Arab” in December 1978 and its debut album, “Three Imaginary Boys,” in May 1979.

Bassist Simon Gallup joined for “Seventeen Seconds” (1980), an album that helped shape the emerging gothic rock sound, followed by “Faith” (1981) and “Pornography” (1982). Gallup left after the “Pornography” tour, and Smith put the Cure on hold to join Siouxsie and the Banshees as guitarist. Tolhurst switched from drums to keyboards, and the pair released the singles “Let’s Go to Bed” (1982), “The Walk” and “The Love Cats” (1983), later compiled on “Japanese Whispers.” For 1984’s “The Top,” Smith played most of the instruments himself, drummer Andy Anderson and early Malice member Porl Thompson filled out the sessions, and Thompson officially rejoined the band. During the following tour, Boris Williams, previously the touring drummer for Thompson Twins, became the Cure’s official drummer, and Gallup rejoined after reconciling with Smith. This lineup of Smith, Tolhurst, Gallup, Williams and Thompson recorded “The Head on the Door” in 1985, and the album’s success carried into the “Standing on a Beach” singles compilation the following year.

The Cure went on to release “Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me” (1987), “Disintegration” (1989) and “Wish” (1992), and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The band’s most recent studio album, “Songs of a Lost World,” arrived in November 2024 after a 16-year gap, followed by the remix collection “Mixes of a Lost World” in June 2025. The Cure returned to Rockfield Studios in March 2025 to record 13 songs for a follow-up album, placing “The Head on the Door” anniversary within an active chapter of the band’s ongoing work.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Nine Inch Nails released “Hesitation Marks” on 30 August 2013 through The Null Corporation, distributed by Columbia Records in the United States and Polydor Records elsewhere. The eighth studio album by Trent Reznor‘s industrial rock project turns 13 this year. It was the band’s first full-length release in five years, following 2008’s “The Slip,” and its only album distributed through Columbia.

“Hesitation Marks” was produced by Reznor alongside Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, Reznor’s longtime studio collaborators; it remains the most recent Nine Inch Nails album to be co-produced by Moulder. The standard edition runs 14 tracks: “The Eater of Dreams,” “Copy of a,” “Came Back Haunted,” “Find My Way,” “All Time Low,” “Disappointed,” “Everything,” “Satellite,” “Various Methods of Escape,” “Running,” “I Would for You,” “In Two,” “While I’m Still Here” and “Black Noise.” Guest musicians on the record include Lindsey Buckingham, Adrian Belew, Pino Palladino and Ilan Rubin. Tom Baker handled mastering. Cover art across the album’s several editions was created by Russell Mills, the artist behind the visuals for “The Downward Spiral” nineteen years earlier.

Three singles preceded the album: “Came Back Haunted” (June 6, 2013), “Copy of a” (August 13, 2013) and “Everything” (August 20, 2013). “Hesitation Marks” debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and topped the Canadian Albums Chart, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.

About Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails was formed by Trent Reznor in 1988 in Cleveland, Ohio. Reznor wrote, arranged and performed nearly all instrumentation on the band’s debut album, “Pretty Hate Machine,” released via TVT Records in 1989. After a dispute with TVT over promotion, Reznor signed with Interscope Records and released the EP “Broken” in 1992, followed by “The Downward Spiral” (1994) and “The Fragile” (1999). Nine Inch Nails returned from a hiatus with “With Teeth” (2005) and “Year Zero” (2007), then left Interscope and independently released the instrumental double album “Ghosts I-IV” and “The Slip,” both in 2008, before entering a second hiatus.

Reznor announced the return of Nine Inch Nails in February 2013 and confirmed on May 28, 2013 that a new album, recorded in secret with Atticus Ross and Alan Moulder, was finished. That record, “Hesitation Marks,” followed on August 30, 2013, backed by the Twenty Thirteen Tour featuring Reznor, Ross, Robin Finck, Alessandro Cortini, Josh Eustis and Ilan Rubin. Ross, previously a production collaborator, became an official member of Nine Inch Nails in 2016. Subsequent releases include the EPs “Not the Actual Events” (2016) and “Add Violence” (2017), the album “Bad Witch” (2018), and “Ghosts V: Together” and “Ghosts VI: Locusts,” both released in 2020. Nine Inch Nails was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020. “Hesitation Marks”, the album that ended the band’s second hiatus, turns 13 this year.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Chicago post-punk trio French Police released the double single “Super Over Drive” / “Silver” on 28 August 2026 through Interscope Records, with a video for each track. “Super Over Drive” and “Silver” are the band’s second release for the label, four weeks after the “Reptile” / “Japan” double single that opened the deal.

Chris Eichenseer directed both clips as a Someoddpilot Studios production and also shot the cover art. The “Super Over Drive” video puts the trio through a sepia-toned performance in which bodies blur into movement and faces appear and disappear.

What French Police put on ‘Super Over Drive’ and ‘Silver’

“Super Over Drive” runs 3:22 and rides a driving bass line while Manny Herrera’s guitar cuts back into the arrangement from shifting angles. Brian Flores stretches his phrasing further than on earlier French Police tracks, holding notes past the point where the delivery stays composed. “Silver” runs 3:04, opens the arrangement out and leaves more space around the vocal, trading the first track’s defensiveness for a direct admission.

Both tracks are on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and the other streaming services. No album has been announced around them, so they stand as the band’s second standalone Interscope single.

The pairing follows “Reptile” / “Japan”, which arrived at the end of July 2026 and was the trio’s first release for a major label after seven years of self-released records and vinyl through independents. Side-Line reported that release in French Police signs to Interscope Records, releases ‘Reptile / Japan’ double single.

French Police tour dates 2026

The trio play 26 North American dates between 11 September and 18 October 2026, closing at home in Chicago.

• 11 September 2026 – Detroit, MI, US – El Club
• 12 September 2026 – Toronto, ON, Canada – The Dance Cave
• 13 September 2026 – Montreal, QC, Canada – Les Foufounes Electriques
• 14 September 2026 – Boston, MA, US – Brighton Music Hall
• 17 September 2026 – Brooklyn, NY, US – 99 Scott Ave.
• 18 September 2026 – Philadelphia, PA, US – The Foundry at the Fillmore
• 19 September 2026 – Baltimore, MD, US – Baltimore Soundstage
• 21 September 2026 – Charlotte, NC, US – Neighborhood Theatre
• 22 September 2026 – Atlanta, GA, US – Terminal West
• 23 September 2026 – Tampa, FL, US – The Orpheum
• 25 September 2026 – Houston, TX, US – White Oak Music Hall
• 26 September 2026 – San Antonio, TX, US – Aztec Theatre
• 27 September 2026 – Dallas, TX, US – Trees
• 29 September 2026 – Albuquerque, NM, US – Sister
• 30 September 2026 – El Paso, TX, US – Lowbrow Palace
• 1 October 2026 – Phoenix, AZ, US – The Van Buren
• 2 October 2026 – Las Vegas, NV, US – The Portal at Area 15
• 3 October 2026 – Riverside, CA, US – Riverside Municipal Auditorium
• 4 October 2026 – Anaheim, CA, US – House of Blues
• 7 October 2026 – San Francisco, CA, US – August Hall
• 9 October 2026 – Seattle, WA, US – The Crocodile
• 10 October 2026 – Portland, OR, US – Wonder Ballroom
• 13 October 2026 – Salt Lake City, UT, US – Metro Music Hall
• 15 October 2026 – Denver, CO, US – The Oriental Theatre
• 17 October 2026 – Nashville, TN, US – The Pinnacle
• 18 October 2026 – Chicago, IL, US – Ramova Theatre

About French Police

Brian Flores founded French Police in Chicago in 2018. The Mexican-American singer, songwriter and guitarist writes in Spanish and English. Manny Herrera plays lead guitar and Rolando Donjuan plays bass. The trio bring a post-punk that mixes chorused guitar lines, driving bass and coldwave-leaning vocals, and they share a listener base with Lebanon Hanover, Molchat Doma and The Chameleons.

The self-titled debut appeared in 2019, followed by the “Pedaleo Nocturno” EP the same year and the 15-track “Haunted Castle” in February 2020, which Icy Cold Records later pressed to CD. A dense run of self-released EPs and singles followed through 2021 and 2022, among them “Pensamiento Negro”, “Onyx” and “1995”, with “Club De Vampiros / Plant Based Girl” issued by Icy Cold Records in January 2022 and “Fumar / Hate Me” by Cruel Records that May.

“Bleu” arrived in February 2023, and Audiotree released a live single and EP the following month. “Bully” came out on 26 January 2024, again self-released digitally with a vinyl edition through Icy Cold Records. Side-Line covered those European pressings in French Police launch limited European vinyl editions of ‘Bully’ and ‘Haunted Castle’, and Side-Line reviewed the album in French Police – Haunted Castle (Album – Icy Cold Records).

The “Espera” EP followed in January 2025 with the singles “Sugar Killer” and “Libra” later that year, and Icy Cold Records collected earlier material on the “Essentials” CD in March 2026. The Interscope deal, announced at the end of July 2026, ends the self-released period; “Super Over Drive” and “Silver” are the first songs the band has put out since the tour was announced.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Neither of the two Andy Bell records due on 28 August 2026 came out. Extended Blue, the 21st-anniversary triple vinyl edition of his 2005 solo album “Electric Blue”, has been delayed because the original vinyl cut was not good enough and had to be re-cut. The double A-side 12-inch pairing new Manhattan Clique remixes of “Love Oneself” and “Delicious” was also held back for a second time. The Erasure Information Service, which announced the delay in its 28 August newsletter, has no new date for either.

The album delay has an explanation. Writing in the newsletter, Richard of the Erasure Information Service stated that “the delay is down to the audio quality of the original vinyl cut not being quite up to scratch which meant the vinyl required a re-cut, which can take a bit of time”, and added that the new cut is believed to be finished and that he is waiting on the label for a date.

The 12-inch has none. It was originally set for 14 August, then moved to 28 August, as Side-Line reported when the single was first put back. No reason has been given for either postponement. Both records remain on pre-order at Lexer Music and at UK vinyl retailers; the Lexer Music listings still carry the 28 August date.

What is on ‘Extended Blue’ and the ‘Love Oneself’ 12-inch

“Extended Blue” spreads eighteen tracks across three discs pressed in different shades of blue, adding four single b-sides to the original fourteen-track album, all of them on vinyl for the first time. Pre-orders include four art prints, and the first 500 also carry a bonus CD whose tracklist matches the vinyl. The double A-side 12-inch is pressed on pink vinyl and runs “Love Oneself (Manhattan Clique 2026 Extended New York Remix)”, “Love Oneself (Andy Bell Version)”, “Delicious (Manhattan Clique 2026 Extended London Remix)” and “Delicious (Andy Bell Version)”. Claudia Brücken of Propaganda sings on the album versions of both songs and co-wrote “Love Oneself”. Two “Electric Blue 21” t-shirts and a bundle of the 3LP, the 12-inch and a shirt are listed for the same date. Side-Line covered both records when they were announced on 15 July.

The same newsletter carried one piece of forward news: the new Erasure album is finished. Richard wrote that “not only is the new Erasure album finished it also has a confirmed name, as do each of the tracks it contains”, and that the release timeline is still being worked out. No title, tracklist or date has been published. Erasure have no live dates scheduled.

About Andy Bell

Andy Bell has been the vocalist of Erasure since he answered Vince Clarke‘s advertisement and the pair formed the duo in 1985, after Clarke’s spells in Depeche Mode, Yazoo and The Assembly. Bell’s first solo album, “Electric Blue”, arrived on 3 October 2005 through Sanctuary Records and was made with Manhattan Clique, the remix and production duo of Philip Larsen and Chris Smith. The label collapsed around the release, and the record circulated thinly despite later CD and digital reissues.

Bell has kept a parallel solo catalogue running since. Recent releases include the 2025 album “Ten Crowns”, trailed by the singles “Dance for Mercy” and “Heart’s A Liar” with Debbie Harry, and the “The Crown Jewels” 4-CD box set that expanded it, which was followed by “The Chance Won’t Come Again” with Tim Rice-Oxley. He discussed that record and his solo work in a 2025 Side-Line interview. “Extended Blue” was to be the first vinyl pressing “Electric Blue” has had since 2005; it now waits on a date from its label.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The Axiom Divide, the dark electronic project of Jay Tye and Brent Heinze, released the eight-track EP “The Halls of Amenti: Remixes” on 28 August 2026 through Re:Mission Entertainment. The EP reworks the project’s first single, taken from the forthcoming debut album “Halo Effect”, and carries remixes by Razed In Black, Frontal Boundary, Pygmy Children, Fermion, I Am Consumer and dread risks, plus a Probe 7 mix of a second song.

The duo mix gothic industrial rhythms with operatic and choral parts. Tye handles vocals and synthesizers, Heinze plays synthesizers, and the pair produced, mixed and engineered the original versions themselves. Rodney Orpheus of The Cassandra Complex added production, and Rob Robinson mastered the record.

Tracklist and rollout of ‘The Halls of Amenti: Remixes’

Re:Mission staggered the release across August. The original mix went up on the label’s Bandcamp page first, the Razed In Black remix followed on 7 August, the Frontal Boundary remix on 14 August across digital platforms, and the full EP on 28 August. The label has not announced a release date for “Halo Effect”.

The eight tracks run:

1. “The Halls of Amenti” (Original Mix)
2. “The Halls of Amenti” (Razed In Black Remix)
3. “The Halls of Amenti” (Pygmy Children Remix)
4. “The Halls of Amenti” (Frontal Boundary Remix)
5. “The Halls of Amenti” (Fermion Remix)
6. “The Halls of Amenti” (IAC Remix)
7. “The Halls of Amenti” (dread risks Remix)
8. “Unrequited” (Probe 7 Mix)

Most of the remixers share the label. Razed In Black is the electronic project Romell Regulacion started in Hawaii in 1994 and later moved to Florida. Frontal Boundary is the Los Angeles industrial and EBM group founded by Brendin Ross, now on Alfa Matrix, whose “Burn” EP Side-Line covered in Frontal Boundary close ‘Failure’ cycle with ‘Burn’ EP. Pygmy Children is the Baltimore electro-industrial duo of brothers Pete and Brian Roper. Fermion is the New York pairing of Eric Shans and Augustine Backer, whose most recent Re:Mission release Side-Line reported in Fermion drops ‘Four Dimensions’ EP on Re:Mission Entertainment. dread risks is the Austin project covered in Austin duo dread risks return with ‘Where You Left’. Probe 7 is Heinze’s own long-running synth project, and it closes the EP with a mix of “Unrequited”.

Tye explains the title through Egyptian lore rather than through the music. “The symbolism behind the single for ‘The Halls of Amenti’ references Egyptian lore to describe a metaphorical spiritual realm where a repository of forgotten knowledge welcomes an individual’s search for enlightenment,” the band stated. “When the seeker of truth is deemed worthy, they are granted entry into this space to expand their mind and spirit. It speaks to our search for wisdom and personal discovery to enrich our lives.”

The EP is on Bandcamp and on the major streaming and download services. The original mix was a Bandcamp exclusive on its own and reaches the other platforms as the opening track here.

About The Axiom Divide

The Axiom Divide began as a solo project of Jay Tye, founder, lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the darkwave project Soil & Eclipse. Soil & Eclipse formed in Hawaii and released five albums through COP International: “Necromancy” in 1997, “Meridian” in 1999, “Archetype” in 2000, “Purity” in 2002 and “The Mirror” in 2008. Romell Regulacion of Razed In Black helped produce “Necromancy”, and Rodney Orpheus remixed on “Purity”, which makes both of this EP’s outside collaborators long-standing contacts rather than new ones.

Tye invited synth producer Brent Heinze into the project. Heinze started Probe 7 in 1992 in Palm Springs, California, releasing albums including “Over & Out” in 2016, “Strange Angels” in 2019, “Parallel Universe 1” in 2021 and “Transference” in 2022. He has produced remixes for Information Society, The Cassandra Complex, Kirlian Camera, Gitane Demone and Dogtablet. He also revived Darling Kandie, the project first assembled in the late 1990s with William Tucker, alongside Franke “Groovie Mann” Nardiello of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and the pair issued “NuAge Depression” in 2021 and “Tales From The Bone Phone” in 2022.

Under the Axiom Divide name, Tye and Heinze first issued the self-released single “Generations” on 30 March 2022, which paired the single mix with remixes by Ashes Fallen, Probe 7 and Aggraux Kouture and a cover of Tones on Tail’s “Shakes”. “The Halls of Amenti” is their first release for Re:Mission Entertainment, the Oklahoma City label that has worked in industrial and dark electronic music since 2005. The remix EP is the last step before “Halo Effect”, the duo’s debut album.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Italian darkwave and post-punk trio Soft Scent release “No Flowers in June” on 21 September 2026, together with an official music video. It is the first single from “Mother’s Ruin”, the band’s second album and the follow-up to their 2024 debut “CHIMERA”. Pre-orders for a physical edition open on Bandcamp on 29 August 2026.

That physical edition runs to fifty individually numbered CDs, self-released by the band. Each copy ships in a black envelope sealed with one of six flower wax seal designs, picked at random per copy, and comes with a printed art card carrying the artwork and credits.

Who recorded ‘No Flowers in June’

Gianluca Lo Presti recorded the track at Loto Studio 2.0 in Filetto and at Logan Sound Space in Castelfidardo, Italy. Lo Presti also recorded Soft Scent’s debut album at the earlier Loto Studio. William Faith, a founding member of Faith and the Muse, mixed and mastered it at 13 Studio in Los Angeles. The song keeps the band’s darkwave and post-punk footing, with a restless bassline and insistent synthesizers.

“Mother’s Ruin” is built as a concept album in the form of a travel book, moving between places, eras and stories. The title takes the Victorian nickname for gin, and the band set the record between comfort and destruction, escape and consequence. “No Flowers in June” deals with what is left once the escape is over. Soft Scent describe the song in one line: “Some endings don’t wait, they arrive before you do.”

The artwork follows the album’s visual language, using dried and ceramic flowers marked with eyes modelled on Victorian Lover’s Eyes miniatures. No release date has been announced for “Mother’s Ruin”.

About Soft Scent

Soft Scent formed in Marche, Italy, in the summer of 2023, as a trio: Anna, who performs as MissLucifer, on vocals, keyboards and synthesizers; Enrico on drums and electronic drums; and Sara on bass and backing vocals. The band write and produce their own material.

Their first single, “The Howl”, appeared in November 2023, followed by “No Wounds” in January 2024 and the title track “Chimera” that August. The debut album “CHIMERA” came out on 9 September 2024, running seven tracks: “Parasomnia”, “No Wounds (Album Mix)”, “Chimera”, “17:07”, a cover of Grauzone‘s “Wütendes Glas”, “The Howl (Album mix)” and “Susan and Sam”. Gianluca Lo Presti recorded it at Loto Studio in Filetto, and Maurizio “Icio” Baggio mixed and mastered it at La Distilleria Studios in Sarcedo. Tommaso Pompili added backing vocals and guitar to “The Howl”. The Polish label Bat-Cave Productions issued the CD in a six-panel digipack with a lyrics poster insert, and Manic Depression Records handled the vinyl.

Two remixes of the album tracks followed, by Ermete Lo Stige and Border. “No Flowers in June” is the band’s first new recording since, and the first material from the second album.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Toronto coldwave duo Traitrs released the official video for “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong” on 28 August 2026, a month before they open a ten-date US run in Dallas. The track first appeared as a standalone single on 28 November 2025 and became the second song on “POSSESSOR”, the fourth Traitrs album, issued through Furniture Records on 13 March 2026.

Shawn Tucker directed the video and shot it in black and white on location in a studio warehouse in Hamilton, Ontario. Emmanuelle Vaughan plays the lead, Daniel Cherney worked as first assistant director, and Tucker and Cherney shared camera duties.

What Shawn Tucker says about the ‘I Was Ill, You Were Wrong’ video

Tucker connects the shoot to a death in his own life and to the way the album was written. “This album is incredibly personal for me because I’m still trying to make sense of a major loss in my own life,” he said. “When I directed this, the goal was to visualize death as this unstoppable force, almost like a terminal illness creeping through the body. It doesn’t care who you are; it just destroys. But I didn’t want the video to just be bleak. It’s about our internal fight.”

The set is a black chamber with no walls, floor or horizon. Vaughan appears under a single overhead light, an oil-dark coating spreads across her hands, arms, back and throat, and she keeps moving until the frame empties. Tucker cast her after working with her on the earlier “Burn In Heaven” video and named Jonathan Glazer’s film “Under the Skin” as the reference for the space.

“The void represented Ultimate Isolation perfectly and supports my visual theme of total isolation,” Tucker said. “There are no walls, no horizons, and no exit. The victims are entirely alone with their desires right before they are destroyed.”

He described the shoot in plain terms: “It was all shot in one day on location in a small studio warehouse in Hamilton, Ontario, that took 7 hours.”

When the song came out in November 2025, Tucker linked it to a shared recognition rather than a private one. “I felt that song connected me to everything and everyone, it is the one thing we all share and have in common,” he said. “It is also a wake up call to live the life you want to live. We only have one chance at this so go dance in the rain.”

Traitrs ‘POSSESSOR’ formats and credits

Traitrs recorded “POSSESSOR” at Wychwood in Toronto with long-time collaborator Josh Korody, who co-produced. Matt Colton mastered the album at Metropolis Mastering, and Tucker supplied the artwork.

Furniture Records pressed the Canadian edition as a black LP limited to 400 copies, plus CD and a limited cassette. Icy Cold Records handled the first European edition on cream white vinyl with an insert, limited to 500 copies, and a CD digipak. Side-Line covered both announcements in Traitrs set March 13 release for fourth album ‘Possessor’ and confirm 2026 North American tour and Icy Cold to launch Traitrs ‘Possessor’ EU edition on cream white vinyl.

The physical editions run ten tracks: “Burn In Heaven”, “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong”, “Seven Fictions”, “Cold Skin”, “Selfish Hunger”, “Prayertaker”, “Dream Drowning”, “Mourn”, “Japanese Picture Pony” and “Crawl”. “Burn In Heaven” got its own video on 12 March 2026, the day before the album arrived.

Traitrs tour dates 2026

The US run opens on 29 September in Dallas and closes on 16 October in Washington, DC.

• 29 September 2026 – Dallas, TX, US – Club Dada
• 30 September 2026 – Austin, TX, US – Elysium
• 1 October 2026 – Pomona, CA, US – Flyway
• 6 October 2026 – Las Vegas, NV, US – The Dive Bar
• 8 October 2026 – Fresno, CA, US – Fulton 55
• 9 October 2026 – San José, CA, US – The Ritz
• 10 October 2026 – Sacramento, CA, US – The Starlet Room at Harlow’s
• 13 October 2026 – Raleigh, NC, US – The Pour House
• 14 October 2026 – Atlanta, GA, US – The Drunken Unicorn
• 16 October 2026 – Washington, DC, US – Pie Shop

About Traitrs

Traitrs formed in Toronto in late 2015 as a recording project built around Shawn Tucker on vocals and guitar and Sean-Patrick Nolan on keyboards and writing. Sessions with producer Josh Korody produced the debut “Rites and Ritual” in 2016, released on the Toronto label Pleasence Records as a cassette and reissued on CD and vinyl over the following years by Alchera Visions, Furniture Records and Icy Cold Records.

“Butcher’s Coin” followed on 18 May 2018, issued jointly by Manic Depression, Alchera Visions and Pleasence Records. Its track “Thin Flesh” was used in Lionsgate’s 2024 remake of “The Crow”. The third album, “Horses in the Abattoir”, arrived on 19 November 2021 through Freakwave, with CD, cassette and coloured vinyl variants in 2021 and 2022 and a US reissue on Metropolis Records on opaque tangerine vinyl in October 2025.

Touring has taken the duo through more than a dozen countries, including Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Castle Party and Canadian Music Week, plus dates with VNV Nation, Lebanon Hanover, She Past Away, Twin Tribes and Ultra Sunn. Side-Line reported on the 2024 North American shows in VNV Nation launches extra North American tour dates with Traitrs.

After a four-year gap, the band returned in September 2025 with the “Burn In Heaven” single, followed by “I Was Ill, You Were Wrong” that November and “POSSESSOR” in March 2026. The new video is the second clip pulled from that album and lands as the autumn US dates approach.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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The bassline on the new Death By Love track was recorded in a hotel room on a North American tour. Królowa Świata, out digitally on 28 August 2026, is the first original song the Polish-American duo have written in Polish, and it carries a guest bass part from Mario Usai of Clan Of Xymox. The gothic, industrial and trip-hop mix Death By Love brought to their debut album “444” is here pushed towards trance-styled synth sequencing.

The release runs four tracks: “Królowa Świata” (3:44), a “Psychotribe Psychoqueen Remix” of it (3:45), “Forest” (3:53) and a “Psychorchestra Remix” of “Forest” (4:02). Inga Habiba wrote the lyrics and sings; Peter Guellard handled synths and electric guitar; Usai played bass. Guellard produced and mastered the track at his Psychotribe Studio in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The cover picture is by Robert Laska.

How Death By Love built ‘Królowa Świata’ on the road

The title translates as “Queen of the World”. Habiba addresses the song’s second person to herself rather than to a listener, and describes the writing that way: “these words are the whispers of my own subconscious, trying to break through the defensive armor I had built around myself.”

Guellard began work on the track while touring the North American East Coast as a tech for Clan Of Xymox, carrying a portable rig and building around vocal takes Habiba had sent him. He cut the first guitar pass on Ronny Moorings‘ Rickenbacker. Usai then came into his hotel room, listened, and recorded the bass for the whole song. Guellard finished the arrangement at home, pairing fresh vocals from Habiba with the synth sequences. On writing in Polish, he commented: “Poland is our homeland, after all, even though at this point I’ve lived in the US longer than I ever lived there.”

The video sets a vampire story in a mansion and a ballroom. Guellard built it from AI-generated imagery that he then edited and reworked with additional visual effects, the same method the duo used on their 2025 video for “Krakowski Spleen”. The track is on Bandcamp, Spotify and YouTube.

About Death By Love

Death By Love is a Polish-American project built around Polish singer-songwriter Inga Habiba and Polish-born, US-based producer, multi-instrumentalist and remix artist Peter Guellard. Habiba began performing in her teens with the new wave band Nizam, then fronted Monev, Ahimsa and the Warsaw gothic rock group Lorien, and worked with the folk-ethnic ensemble Habiarjan and the electronic act NUN Electro alongside her solo project CallMe. Guellard came up through the Polish goth band Blitzkrieg and later worked in the US dark-electronic underground with MACE, The Electric Hellfire Club, Venus in Furs and Dichro. A remix commission for NUN Electro’s “Hide” led to the pair working together on Habiba’s CallMe material, which became Death By Love.

The duo signed to Distortion Productions and opened their catalogue with the three-track single “Strong Inside” at the end of January 2025. A Polish-language cover of Maanam’s “Krakowski Spleen”, with a video assembled from AI-generated visuals, followed in March 2025. They also appeared on COP International’s 75-track wildfire relief compilation “Los Angeles – From The Ashes”. Habiba and Guellard met in Warsaw in October 2024 to record “Strong Inside” and “Temros”, and completed the rest of the album across a year of file exchange between Europe and the United States.

The single “Sellenno”, whose video was shot inside the disused Heinz ketchup factory in Pittsburgh, preceded the eleven-track concept album “444”, issued on Distortion Productions on CD and digital in February 2026 with a video for “Cosmic Power”. In July 2026 the duo put out “In Unity” as a set of remixes in tribute to the Polish act Wieloryb. “Królowa Świata” is their first release since.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Wagenius, the Norwegian heavy rock band assembled by vocalist Ole Aleksander Wagenius, released the single Fragment on 28 August 2026 with a video, and put the track on the digital platforms the same day. It runs 5:01 and is self-released through the band’s own Wagenius Music imprint. Swedish producer Fredrik Nordström mixed and mastered it at Studio Fredman in Gothenburg.

Who plays on the Wagenius single

The interest for readers of this site sits in the line-up. On keyboards is Geir Bratland, who spent fourteen years in Apoptygma Berzerk from 1995 to 2009, playing keyboards and singing backing vocals across the band’s Kathy’s Song era and beyond, and who has played keyboards with Dimmu Borgir since 2010. He has also worked with The Kovenant, God Seed, Satyricon and Emperor.

Kjell Åge “Damage” Karlsen plays guitar. He has been Dimmu Borgir’s live lead guitarist since 2025 and played guest lead guitar on their 2026 album “Grand Serpent Rising”; he also plays in Chrome Division and Gromth. On bass is the Finnish player Jari Kainulainen, who was in Stratovarius from 1993 to 2005, in Evergrey from 2007 to 2010, and has been in Masterplan since 2012. Stian Kristoffersen, drummer with the Norwegian progressive metal band Pagan’s Mind since 2000 and with Firewind from 2003 to 2005, completes the line-up. Ole Aleksander Wagenius sang in the progressive metal band Withem from 2011 and in Secret Chapter in 2019.

Wagenius has said his own reference point is 1980s-rooted heavy rock rather than the extreme metal his players are better known for. “Fragment” is credited to Wagenius and Stian Stensrud, with the music credited to the band. Madsen Visuals shot the video.

About Wagenius

Wagenius is the band Ole Aleksander Wagenius started under his own surname, drawing players from several corners of the Scandinavian scene rather than from one shared history. It has released only singles so far, all self-released, and no album has been announced.

The first three, “Headless Cross” on 3 June 2022, “Girl from Lebanon” on 2 December 2022 and “Soulburn” on 25 January 2023, were covers. “Mystic Ally”, released on 2 May 2025 and running 5:10, was the first original song under the name. “Fragment” is the second original and the fifth release overall.

Wagenius himself came up through Norwegian progressive metal, recording “The Point of You” in 2013 and “The Unforgiving Road” in 2016 with Withem for Frontiers Records, and “Chapter One” with Secret Chapter in 2019. He has also sung live with Pagan’s Mind and contributed backing and choir vocals to that band’s “God’s Equation” in 2007 and “Heavenly Ecstasy” in 2011, which is where the connection with Kristoffersen comes from. Fredrik Nordström, who mixed and mastered “Fragment”, has run Studio Fredman in Gothenburg since 1990 and worked on records by In Flames, At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Arch Enemy, Soilwork, Opeth and Dimmu Borgir.

Britta Pirkko

For almost 15 years I’ve been writing about music, interviewing artists and reviewing releases for Peek-A-Boo Magazine. Recently, I also launched my own WordPress website, where I continue to share interviews, reviews and news from the underground scene. The darker side of music has been part of my life for more than 30 years, with a passion for everything from ’80s synthpop and New Wave to EBM, Futurepop and dark electronic music in general. Also Metal and Rock is part of my world. Away from the scene, I work in a public library, where books are part of my everyday life. I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction, especially books on politics, religion, health and travel. I’m also a fan of thrillers and horror films. When I’m not listening to music or reading, you’ll usually find me exploring nature, enjoying a good sauna, experimenting with vegan cooking, or travelling to my second home, Finland. I’ve always believed the underground has the best stories. My job is simply to help tell them

GAMI, a trio from Marseille, released the single Anymore on 28 August 2026 through B-Side Prod, together with a lyrics video on the band’s own channel. It is the first track pulled from Underneath, their debut album, which follows on 23 October 2026 on the same label. The band play a rock built on trip-hop foundations, and the new single moves that further towards guitar and synth.

What GAMI put on ‘Anymore’

Rémi Bernard composed the track and Capucine Trotobas wrote the words. Rémi Gettliffe mixed and mastered it at Whitebat recorders. Trotobas sings and plays bass, Bernard plays guitar, and David Benzazon plays drums; the pair of instrumentalists share the arrangement credits across the band’s catalogue.

Trotobas described the subject of the song in a statement supplied with the release: “The idea behind this song is finding yourself alone beneath the surface, face-to-face with your own thoughts. It’s the feeling of being caught in a spiral of situations that might spin out of control. It’s an internal struggle, constantly telling yourself, ‘Stop, we don’t go back there! Watch out: DANGER.’ Because there is no desire to let your own demons catch up and overwhelm you. But in the end, can we really control it all?”

“Underneath” runs to eleven tracks: “Underneath”, “Face It”, “Anymore”, “Glass”, “Masking”, “Fragment”, “Move On”, “Pills”, “Settle”, “To Be Hears” and “Sweet Pea”. The album is on pre-order through Bandcamp; “Anymore” is also on the streaming platforms.

About GAMI

GAMI work out of Marseille as a three-piece: Capucine Trotobas on composition, vocals and bass, Rémi Bernard on guitar and arrangement, and David Benzazon on drums and arrangement. All three trained at conservatoires in the region, Trotobas in Aix-en-Provence and Nîmes, Bernard at the Cité de la Musique de Marseille and SATIS at Aix-Marseille Université, and Benzazon in Aix-en-Provence. The band describe their own sound as pop-rock with trip-hop underneath, and name Radiohead, Portishead and Jeff Buckley among their reference points.

Two of the three have other bands in the same city. Bernard fronts the psychedelic rock group Avee Mana, formed in 2018, on vocals and guitar. Benzazon drums in 1003, a Marseille act that mixes industrial and electronic textures into pop.

The recorded history starts with “Make A Path”, a six-track cassette released on Ganache Records on 27 October 2021 and later reissued digitally. The “Step by Step” EP followed on 17 November 2023, carrying “Step by Step (Moon)”, “Kid Memorial”, “Great Sorrow”, “Wasting” and “Sun Above The Clouds”, with its title track and “Kid Memorial” issued as singles that autumn. The band then put out “Broken Leg Unplugged” on 14 February 2025. “Anymore” is the first new GAMI release since, and the first from an album rather than an EP.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Every track has a voice on it this time. Trentemøller releases trentemøller, his self-titled album, on 13 November 2026 through his own label In My Room, on red vinyl, CD, cassette and digital. The first single, Terrified, arrived on 28 August with a video directed by Jonas Bjerre of the Danish band Mew, who also sings on it. It is the first Trentemøller album on which every one of the ten songs carries vocals.

Inside the new Trentemøller album

The running order is “Swerve”, “Terrified”, “Visceral”, “Johnny Boy”, “Halved”, “Your Love Walks Alone”, “To Mist”, “Coyote”, “Crash” and “White Hallways”. Anders Trentemøller wrote, played, produced and mixed the record himself and released it on his own label. The guest list runs through the tracklist: Vienna-based singer Sakura on “Swerve” and “Visceral”, Anika on “Johnny Boy”, Bjerre on “Terrified”, Sune Rose Wagner of The Raveonettes on “Your Love Walks Alone” and Madeline Johnston, who records as Midwife, on “Halved”, with Tan Cologne and Emma Acs also appearing. Acs now sings in his live band.

Trentemøller described how he cut the album down: “The noisy got noisier, the dreamy got dreamier, the melodic got even more melodic. I was ruthless this time. Okay, kill your darlings! If a track didn’t give me a feeling of freedom, wanderlust, sorrow, love or that pure ‘I don’t give a fuck’ feeling … It was gone.”

“Terrified” runs three minutes and was rebuilt after the fact. On the change he made to it, Trentemøller said: “‘Terrified’ is probably the poppiest song on the album. In its original form it sounded a lot more shoegazey, but I wanted it to be crisper and clearer, less washed out. So I went for synths that almost sound like human voices, with a magical, otherworldly quality to them. When the instrumental was done, I sent it to Jonas Bjerre with a few melody ideas, which he took further while adding new melodies of his own.” Bjerre wrote the lyrics and explained where they came from: “I think sometimes when you dream about things that make you fearful and uneasy, it’s your mind trying to prepare you for any scenario, like you’re processing catastrophes that have not and may not ever happen.” He also shot and compiled the video, with cinematography shared with Sarah Liisborg, and Mackenzie Stith, Yuting Liu and Agnete Hegelund appearing in it.

Trentemøller tour dates 2027

The full band play fourteen European shows in February and March 2027, opening in Berlin and closing at home in Copenhagen, with two nights at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels. Trentemøller said he intends to play the album in full on the run: “Now I can’t wait to play these songs live with my band. For the first time ever, I’m going to play the whole album, start to end. Every single song!”

• 27.02.2027 – Berlin, DE – Huxley’s Neue Welt
• 01.03.2027 – Munich, DE – Kesselhaus
• 02.03.2027 – Bern, CH – Bierhübeli
• 03.03.2027 – Paris, FR – La Cigale
• 05.03.2027 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
• 06.03.2027 – Brussels, BE – Ancienne Belgique
• 07.03.2027 – Luxembourg, LU – Den Atelier
• 09.03.2027 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
• 11.03.2027 – London, UK – Electric Ballroom
• 13.03.2027 – Cologne, DE – Carlswerk Victoria
• 17.03.2027 – Oslo, NO – Rockefeller
• 18.03.2027 – Gothenburg, SE – Pustervik
• 19.03.2027 – Stockholm, SE – Slaktkyrkan
• 20.03.2027 – Copenhagen, DK – VEGA

About Trentemøller

Anders Trentemøller was born on 16 October 1972 and works from Copenhagen. He came out of the Danish club scene in the early 2000s and released his debut album “The Last Resort” in October 2006 on Poker Flat Recordings, a record built on slow, textured electronics rather than dancefloor tempos. He founded his own label, In My Room, around 2010 and has released everything since through it.

“Into the Great Wide Yonder” arrived on 28 May 2010 and pulled guitars and live drums into the arrangements. “Lost” followed in September 2013 with a long guest list, then “Fixion” in September 2016 and “Obverse” on 27 September 2019. “Memoria” came out on 11 February 2022, trailed by the singles “In the Gloaming”, “All Too Soon” and “No More Kissing in the Rain”, and Side-Line reviewed it on release. “Dreamweaver”, with vocals by Dísa Jakobs throughout, followed on 13 September 2024.

Alongside his own records he has remixed widely. Side-Line has reported on his 2022 reworking of Blood’s “Type 9000” and on his 2025 remix of “And Nothing Is Forever” for The Cure‘s “Mixes of a Lost World”. Side-Line also reported in 2023 that he was among the acts announced to support Depeche Mode on their European tour. The self-titled album on 13 November is his first since “Dreamweaver”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Scheitan, the gothic rock band from Luleå in northern Sweden, released a lyric video for Queen of The Lions on 28 August 2026. The band describe the track as a dark and gloomy goth ballad, and it reaches the major streaming platforms on Friday 4 September. It is the first taste of a new, as yet untitled album that the band say will follow in 2027 through The Circle Music.

Who made ‘Queen of The Lions’

The song runs 3:50. Pierre Törnkvist wrote the lyrics, and the music is credited jointly to Törnkvist and Swedish producer Daniel Bergstrand, who also mixed the track at his Dugout Studio in Uppsala. Bergstrand’s engineering and production credits take in In Flames, Meshuggah, Soilwork, Dimmu Borgir, At The Gates and Behemoth, and he is not new to this band: he mixed Scheitan’s 2024 album “Songs For The Gothic People”. The single artwork is by ErlikWindsteel.

The band play the Hellsinki Industrial Festival in Finland on 19 November 2026. The eighth edition of the festival runs from 19 to 21 November, with the opening night at On The Rocks in central Helsinki and the two following nights at Tiivistämö. Scheitan share that first bill with Agent Side Grinder and Stuka; Gothminister and Extize are among the acts on the later nights.

About Scheitan

Scheitan formed in Luleå, in Norrbotten in northern Sweden, in 1996, around Pierre Törnkvist and Oskar Karlsson. The band’s first three albums ran through a fast stylistic arc, from black metal into a rougher rock idiom: “Travelling in Ancient Times” appeared in 1996 on the German label Invasion Records, “Berzerk 2000” followed on the same label in 1998, and “Nemesis” came out on Century Media in 1999. All three were recorded in Luleå with engineer Göran Norman. The band then stopped.

Törnkvist kept working. He plays in Helltrain, which he started with Karlsson and his younger brother Patrik Törnkvist, and in Devil’s Force. Karlsson died in 2016. Scheitan restarted in 2021 with the “Deathgoth” EP, and returned in earnest in 2023 with three singles, “Lost in Time”, “Fire at Dawn” and a cover of Billy Idol’s “White Wedding”, all pointing at gothic rock rather than the band’s 1990s output.

The Greek label The Circle Music has released the two albums since. “Songs For The Gothic People” came out on 22 May 2024, preceded by the single “Believe” in January that year, and was recorded in Luleå and mixed by Bergstrand. “Wine For a Tormented Soul” followed on 19 December 2025 with eight tracks written by Törnkvist, trailed by the singles “Carry Me Home” and “Heaven Tonight”. Törnkvist discussed the band’s second run in a 2024 Side-Line interview. “Queen of The Lions” is the first release since the standalone single “A Million Days” earlier in 2026, and the first from the album planned for 2027.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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A Certain Ratio have released two companion albums on the same day. The Joy of Sextet and Force Majeure both arrived on Mute on 28 August 2026 on limited coloured vinyl, CD and digital, marking 45 years since the Manchester group recorded “Sextet” and 40 years since the release of “Force”. Two extra UK tour dates have been added to the October run that goes with them.

Two different answers to two anniversaries

“Sextet” was recorded at Revolution Studios in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, in 1981 and released on Factory Records in 1982, the first A Certain Ratio album the band produced themselves. It spent 11 weeks in the UK Independent Chart and reached number one. The line-up on it was Donald Johnson, Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, Peter Terrell, Simon Topping and Martha “Tilly” Tilson, who the band had met in New York while recording “To Each…”. Kerr has said Tilson’s lyrics “reflect her take on life in Manchester, ‘walk along the waterline, see the ships passing by, grey skies, still water'”.

“The Joy of Sextet” is a new nine-track mix of that record, built by Andy Meecham of The Emperor Machine from the original 1981 two-inch multitrack tapes at Vertical Lab. It keeps six songs from the 1982 album, drops “Skipscada”, “Rub Down” and “Rialto”, and adds “Tumba Rumba”, a “Waterline” dub and a 12-inch version of “Knife Slits Water”. The running order is “Lucinda”, “Crystal” in a night version, “Gum”, “Knife Slits Water”, “Tumba Rumba”, “Day One”, “Below the Canal”, the “Waterline” dub and the “Knife Slits Water” 12-inch version, each carrying an EM credit. Meecham described the work as a return to the desk: “Taking on an epic album like this involved pushing up the faders again from the original 1981 2-inch multitracks adding some new dynamics while recapturing the sound of 1981 without losing the original raw energy and feel. The talent, innovation and sheer musicality blew me away every day I worked on this. A labour of love, one I would undertake again in a heartbeat.”

Side-Line covered two of the singles from it, the “Knife Slits Water” mix in July and “Tumba Rumba” in August, after the two albums were announced in May. Meecham had already reworked “Constant Curve” for the band in 2023. Two further tracks, “Gum” and “Take Me Down”, went up as official audio streams on release day.

“Force Majeure” works the other way round. Rather than remixing the 1986 album, it compiles nine earlier versions of songs from that period, produced by the band with Stuart “Jammer” James, who died in Manchester in July 2015. James had recorded the material on four-track as working demos and later handed the tapes back to the group. Moscrop explained how they resurfaced: “Stuart helped us record the tracks to review the songs for a possible album, to work on arrangements and practice playing them live. Listening to the recordings many years later I was surprised at how good they sounded, so we decided to share them with everyone for this Force companion album”. The album runs “Only Together”, “Bootsy”, “Naked and White”, “And Then She Smiles”, “Take Me Down”, “Anthem”, “The Runner”, “Force” and “Nostromo a Go Go”. Two of those, the title track “Force” and “The Runner”, were not on the 1986 record. That album, recorded and mixed at Yellow 2 Studios in Stockport in July and August 1986, was produced by James with the band and featured Kerr, Moscrop, Johnson, Andy Connell and Anthony Quigley alongside Tom Barnish and Corrine Drewery.

“The Joy of Sextet” is out on “The Joy of Curacao” coloured vinyl, CD and digital; “Force Majeure” is out on “Unforced Purple” coloured vinyl, CD and digital. Both are sold through Bandcamp and the band’s own store.

A Certain Ratio tour dates 2026

The anniversary tour plays both albums in full, in two sets with an interval and no support act. Three shows are sold out, and two dates have been added since the tour was announced: a second Manchester night on 25 October and a Nottingham show on 1 November. The band said of the run: “We’re celebrating these two milestones with this tour, to say we are very excited is an understatement. It will be a real challenge, which we’ve already started preparing for, with nine months to go! We will be playing two sets with no support.”

• 07.10.2026 – Birmingham, UK – Castle & Falcon
• 08.10.2026 – Bristol, UK – Exchange
• 09.10.2026 – London, UK – Dingwalls
• 10.10.2026 – Lewes, UK – Con Club (sold out)
• 13.10.2026 – Newcastle, UK – The Cluny
• 14.10.2026 – Edinburgh, UK – The Voodoo Rooms
• 15.10.2026 – Glasgow, UK – Òran Mór
• 16.10.2026 – Blackpool, UK – Bootleg Social
• 17.10.2026 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
• 22.10.2026 – Hebden Bridge, UK – Trades Club (sold out)
• 23.10.2026 – Stoke, UK – The Sugarmill
• 24.10.2026 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall (sold out)
• 25.10.2026 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall (added)
• 01.11.2026 – Nottingham, UK – JT Soarfest

About A Certain Ratio

A Certain Ratio formed in Greater Manchester in 1977 around Peter Terrell on guitar, Simon Topping on vocals and trumpet, Jez Kerr on bass and vocals, Martin Moscrop on trumpet and guitar and Donald Johnson on drums, with Martha Tilson joining soon after. They were among the first acts on Tony Wilson’s Factory Records, debuting in 1979 with “All Night Party”, produced by Martin Hannett, and mixing post-punk with funk, disco and Latin percussion at a point when few of their peers did.

Seven top-ten UK independent releases followed during the Factory years, among them “Flight” and “Waterline”. The studio albums ran from “The Graveyard and the Ballroom” in 1980 through “To Each…” in 1981, “Sextet” in 1982, “I’d Like to See You Again” later that year and “Force” in November 1986. Spells with A&M Records and Rob Gretton’s Robs Records came at the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, after which the band worked intermittently until “Mind Made Up” in 2008.

The current phase runs through Mute, which reissues the back catalogue and has released the recent studio records: “ACR Loco” in September 2020, the “A”, “C” and “R” EPs in 2021, “1982” in 2023 and “It All Comes Down to This” in 2024. The band’s Factory history sits alongside New Order and Happy Mondays in the label’s story, and Side-Line has covered the group’s Mute-era work since Andy Meecham’s “Constant Curve” rework in 2023. The line-up on the current tour is Jez Kerr, Donald Johnson, Martin Moscrop and Martha “Tilly” Tilson, who spend October playing “Sextet” and “Force” end to end.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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She Past Away are keeping the Mizantrop Tour on the road. The Turkish darkwave duo return to European stages on 23 September 2026 for a run that carries through to Christmas, and three Spanish shows have now been added for February 2027. The tour supports Mizantrop, the band’s fourth studio album, released on 11 February 2026 through Fabrika Records in Europe and Metropolis Records in North America.

The autumn leg opens in Dublin and moves through the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium and the Netherlands. Two December shows close the year, at the Darkstorm Festival in Chemnitz on 25 December and at Lido in Berlin on 26 December.

The newest additions are three Spanish dates in February 2027, presented by Fantaxtiks Events: Sala El Tren in Granada on 18 February, Sala Copérnico in Madrid on 19 February and Salamandra in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, on 20 February. Tickets start at 28 euro and the shows are 16 and over. Three further 2027 dates follow later in the year, in Hannover, Vienna and Leipzig.

She Past Away tour dates

• 23.09.2026 – Dublin, IE – Button Factory
• 25.09.2026 – Manchester, UK – Gorilla
• 26.09.2026 – Bristol, UK – Strange Brew
• 27.09.2026 – London, UK – EartH
• 23.10.2026 – Malmö, SE – Inkonst
• 24.10.2026 – Göteborg, SE – Musikens Hus
• 25.10.2026 – Oslo, NO – John Dee
• 28.10.2026 – Gdańsk, PL – Drizzly Grizzly
• 29.10.2026 – Warszawa, PL – Proxima
• 30.10.2026 – Poznań, PL – 2Progi
• 31.10.2026 – Kraków, PL – Kwadrat
• 03.11.2026 – Bielefeld, DE – Forum
• 04.11.2026 – Bremen, DE – Lagerhaus
• 05.11.2026 – Jena, DE – F-Haus
• 06.11.2026 – Kaiserslautern, DE – Kammgarn
• 07.11.2026 – München, DE – Katzenclub Festival
• 13.11.2026 – Prague, CZ – Futurum
• 14.11.2026 – Dresden, DE – Cold Hearted Festival
• 26.11.2026 – Sint-Niklaas, BE – De Casino
• 27.11.2026 – Heerlen, NL – Nieuwe Nor
• 28.11.2026 – Reutlingen, DE – franz.K
• 29.11.2026 – Haarlem, NL – Patronaat
• 25.12.2026 – Chemnitz, DE – Darkstorm Festival
• 26.12.2026 – Berlin, DE – Lido
• 18.02.2027 – Granada, ES – Sala El Tren
• 19.02.2027 – Madrid, ES – Sala Copérnico
• 20.02.2027 – Barcelona, ES – Salamandra
• 22.04.2027 – Hannover, DE – MusikZentrum
• 29.10.2027 – Wien, AT – Szene
• 06.11.2027 – Leipzig, DE – Täubchenthal

A Glasgow show at Stereo on 24 September, listed on earlier versions of the itinerary, no longer appears on the band’s own tour page.

About She Past Away

She Past Away formed in Bursa, Turkey, in 2006, around Volkan Caner on vocals and guitar and İdris Akbulut on bass. The pair sang in Turkish from the start and built their sound on chorused guitar, drum machine and low, declarative vocals. Akbulut left in 2015 and producer Doruk Öztürkcan, who had been working with the band on keyboards and drum machine, became the second permanent member. The duo has operated in that form since.

The EP “Kasvetli Kutlama” appeared in 2010 on the Turkish label Remoov. The debut album “Belirdi Gece” followed in 2012, first digitally and on CDr, then on vinyl through the Athens label Fabrika Records in 2013. “Narin Yalnızlık” arrived in 2015, again through Fabrika, and “Disko Anksiyete” in May 2019. Metropolis Records has handled North American editions of the catalogue since 2018, reissuing the first two albums that year and releasing “Disko Anksiyete” the following year.

Between albums the duo issued the live record “Part Time Punks Session” in 2020 and the covers album “X” the same year, the 2021 single “Excess” with Perturbator, and the standalone single “İnziva” in September 2024. That track later became part of “Mizantrop”, the seven-song album released on 11 February 2026 with lyrics by Caner, composition and arrangement by Caner and Kerim Doruk Öztürkcan, and mixing, mastering and Dolby Atmos work by Erdinç Kaya. Physical editions followed through Fabrika on CD, vinyl and cassette, and through Metropolis in the United States in May 2026. The Mizantrop Tour has been running since spring 2026, taking in Istanbul, a North American leg, Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig and summer festival dates in Greece and Finland before the autumn run now under way.

Britta Pirkko

For almost 15 years I’ve been writing about music, interviewing artists and reviewing releases for Peek-A-Boo Magazine. Recently, I also launched my own WordPress website, where I continue to share interviews, reviews and news from the underground scene. The darker side of music has been part of my life for more than 30 years, with a passion for everything from ’80s synthpop and New Wave to EBM, Futurepop and dark electronic music in general. Also Metal and Rock is part of my world. Away from the scene, I work in a public library, where books are part of my everyday life. I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction, especially books on politics, religion, health and travel. I’m also a fan of thrillers and horror films. When I’m not listening to music or reading, you’ll usually find me exploring nature, enjoying a good sauna, experimenting with vegan cooking, or travelling to my second home, Finland. I’ve always believed the underground has the best stories. My job is simply to help tell them

Four remixers, four tracks, one record. PIG, the industrial project of Raymond Watts, release Merciless on 25 September 2026 through Armalyte Industries, on vinyl and digital. All four source tracks come from the 2022 album “The Merciless Light”, and each is handed to a different name from the industrial and electronic underground.

What is on the PIG ‘Merciless’ remix record

The running order is “Obliteration Liberation” remixed by Clock DVA, “Speak Of Sin” in a StabWalt extended remix, “No Yes More Less” reworked by Pitchshifter, and “The Merciless Light” remixed by Günter Schulz. StabWalt is Walter Flakus of Stabbing Westward; Schulz played guitar in KMFDM and now plays in Slick Idiot, and his remix of “The Merciless Light” first appeared on the limited “Tree Of Blood” CD sold on PIG’s 2024 tour. Jules Seifert mastered the release at Epic Audio Media; the artwork is by Vlad McNeally.

Three of the four source tracks appear on “The Merciless Light”, issued on 23 September 2022 through Metropolis Records; “Speak Of Sin” had already surfaced on the “Baptise Bless & Bleed” EP of 27 May 2022. The record is therefore a second pass at that album, following the 12-track remix collection “The Merciful Night” that Armalyte issued in 2025.

Two vinyl editions are on sale through Bandcamp. The North American pressing runs to 200 copies on black-in-white coloured, engraved vinyl; the European pressing runs to 150 copies on black and white half-and-half coloured, engraved vinyl. Both come in a black inner sleeve inside a black UV spot gloss outer sleeve. A third variant, black splatter on clear vinyl with glitter, is sold only on the current tour. Every pre-order carries an immediate download of all four tracks. Martin Atkins of Pigface, Killing Joke and Public Image Ltd is quoted on the release page in praise of the pressing.

The release date lands mid-tour. PIG are on the road across North America on the Hurt People Tour with Cyanotic in support, a run Side-Line reported on when the dates were announced. The itinerary takes in three Cold Waves shows, at Pacific Electric in Los Angeles on 11 September, The Mohawk in Austin on 18 September and Metro in Chicago on 25 September, the same day “Merciless” is out. The Denver date on 28 August is a co-bill with Nitzer Ebb.

About PIG

PIG is the work of Raymond Watts, born 1 September 1961 in London. Watts was a founding member of KMFDM and has recorded and toured with Foetus, Psychic TV, Einstürzende Neubauten, Schaft and Schwein, as well as touring with Nine Inch Nails. He launched PIG under his own steam with “A Poke in the Eye… with a Sharp Stick” in 1988, followed by “Praise the Lard” in 1991 and “The Swining” in 1993, the last of those initially a Japan-only release.

“Sinsation” arrived in 1995 and reached the United States in 1996 through Trent Reznor’s Nothing imprint. “Wrecked” followed in Japan in 1996 and in the United States in 1997, with Schulz and Sascha Konietzko of KMFDM among its contributors. “Genuine American Monster” appeared in Japan in 1999 and in the United States in 2002. Watts then released “Pigmartyr” in 2004 under the name Watts, reissued the following year as “Pigmata”, and the project went quiet.

The return came with “The Gospel” in 2016, co-written and co-produced by Z. Marr, then “Risen” in 2018 and the covers album “Candy” in June 2019. “Pain Is God” followed on 20 November 2020 and “The Merciless Light” on 23 September 2022, both through Metropolis Records. “Red Room” arrived on 17 May 2024 and the “Feast of Agony” EP on 27 September that year, alongside remastered reissues of “Sinsation” in 2024 and “Wrecked” on 7 March 2025. Remix companions have run in parallel throughout: “Swine & Punishment” in 2017, “Stripped & Whipped” in 2019, “Pain Killer” in 2021 and “The Merciful Night” in 2025.

The most recent studio album, “Hurt People Hurt”, came out on 22 May 2026 through Metropolis Records with Armalyte handling the European side, and Side-Line published a full review in July. A “Dirt Box” EP is due on 4 September through Metropolis, with remixes by Cyanotic, Stabbing Westward, Combichrist and Rabbit Junk. “Merciless” arrives three weeks after that, and Watts spoke about his working method at length in a recent Side-Line interview.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange / Apollon press release) Sometimes you’ll get a need to wind down a bit, let your mind drift off in solemn music instead of hard beating EBM rhythms. For that purpose the guitar- and synthdriven album “Change” released today by the Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Dan Heide would be a good fit.

“Change” is the first solo album from Tønsberg’s Dan Heide, known for his guitar work in bands like Ljungblut, Zeromancer, X-Pleasure and many more. The album collects his previous one-off singles, spanning works all the way back from 2019, including the two new tracks “Change” and “I Byen et Sted”. Apollon Records issued it on 28 August 2026.

The album is on Spotify, Tidal, YouTube Music, Deezer, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Bandcamp and Beatport, and is also available as a limited edition LP: 180g splatter vinyl with a 4-page booklet, limited to 200 copies. Bandcamp gives the vinyl a ship date of 28 September 2026; Apollon Records lists no date on its own product page.

The philosophy and thoughts behind the album

Heide sets out the album’s scope and its division of production work:

Dan Heide: “”Change” is a ten-track album, featuring nine original songs written by me and one song by Bob Dylan. I produced eight of the album’s tracks, while two were produced by Terje Johannesen.

Musically, “Change” is a genre-defying album that reflects the breadth of my own musical taste, bringing together different genres, textures and forms of musical expression. The need to release a solo album is something that has gradually evolved over time. Having worked across numerous bands and projects, my solo project has become a small creative playground – a space where anything is possible, where I can follow my own inspiration freely and without commercial considerations.

At the heart of “Change” is a common thread exploring change and the emotions that surround it. The songs approach the theme from different perspectives, touching on personal reflections, shifting moods and the many emotional states we can find ourselves in.

“Change” is, for the most part, a quiet and understated record. Yet beneath its calm surface lies a subtle, but powerful expression, allowing the music, the atmosphere and the emotions to unfold at their own pace.

It’s a deeply personal album: an honest reflection of my musical curiosity, my influences and my desire to create freely, without boundaries.”

Dan Heide ‘Change’: the ten tracks

1. “Are You All Right?”
2. “Change”
3. “I Byen et Sted”
4. “Close to Me”
5. “Sometimes”
6. “The Night Sky”
7. “Dine Øyne”
8. “The Times They Are A-Changin'”
9. “Every Now and Then”
10. “In God’s Country”

The Bob Dylan song Heide refers to is “The Times They Are A-Changin'”, recorded with Kjell Arne Strøm-Olsen. Six of the other nine appeared first as one-off singles: “Sometimes” in October 2019, “In God’s Country” in September 2020, “Close to Me” in May 2023, “Are You All Right?” in October 2024, “Every Now and Then” in January 2025 and “The Night Sky” in April 2025. “In God’s Country” and “Sometimes” were also paired on a 2021 7-inch for Apollon Records and Gymnocal Industries. The album leaves out three other singles from the same stretch, “Awkward Star” (2023), the “Ambient in C Major” EP (2023) and “This Old Feeling” (2024).

Listen to “Change” on Spotify | Tidal | YouTube Music | Deezer | Apple Music/iTunes | Amazon Music | Bandcamp | Beatport | Qobuz | Soundcloud, or buy the vinyl directly from Apollon Records.

About Dan Heide

Dan-André Heide Syversen, who records as Dan Heide, is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer from Tønsberg, Norway. He first appeared on record with X-Pleasure, playing guitar and singing on the band’s self-titled 2003 album alongside his brother Ruben Heide Syversen; the group returned in 2024 with “His Master’s Voice”, written by Heide and arranged by the band.

He played guitar in Zeromancer from 2003 to 2018, and is credited on “Sinners International” (2009), “The Death of Romance” (2010) and “Bye-Bye Borderline” (2013). He also recorded a double album with Kim Ljung as Ljungblut, playing guitar on “Capitals” (2007) and appearing on the project’s releases since. Further credits include guitar on Red 7‘s “Silence Hotel” (2016) and a performing credit on Pigface‘s “6” (2009).

His solo work began as a run of singles rather than albums, starting with “Sometimes” in 2019 and continuing at roughly one or two releases a year. Side-Line spoke to him in June 2025 around the single “Change”, in an interview about the single ‘Change’ in which he discussed the writing behind it. That single now opens the second slot on the album of the same name, his first full-length under his own name.

Do also check his YouTube profile for more music and videos.

Jan Ronald Stange

Sometimes – when I’m not cooking, biking, listening to music or attending concerts, I write stuff for Side-Line.com. Mostly about Norwegian bands, but it’s been some Swedish, English, American, Danish, German and others too… 😉

www.facebook.com/jrstange

London post-punk project Blow Dry released the video for “Mighty Crimes” on 26 August 2026, a month after the single went out digitally on 28 July. Blair Gauld directed the clip in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, around Kalgoorlie, the Coolgardie Caravan Park and the Broad Arrow Tavern.

Frontwoman Genevieve Welsh wrote the video and stars in it as a woman on the run after killing her boss. Ryan Murphy shot it, Spike Luke Wright graded it, and the crew numbered three people working without permits.

How Blow Dry wrote ‘Mighty Crimes’

Welsh wrote the track with Jorge Elbrecht, who also produced it. She describes the session as a fast one:

“Mighty Crimes came about really quickly, in only a couple of hours. I was in LA with Jorge Elbrecht, who co-wrote the track – he had this awesome drum beat going that had me dancing about the room, and we came up with a narrative about a woman who’s so sick of the corporate world that she kills her boss and goes on the run. She’s a little on the unhinged side of life, and that comes out more and more as the song goes on. Maybe it was writing from a character’s POV rather than a direct life experience that made it come out so quickly.”

Welsh separates the joke in the premise from what sits under it: “On the surface it’s a relatable laugh – ugh, I want to kill my boss – I mean, how many people have said that before?! But there are real emotions under the humour too: the freedom and release of throwing everything away and heading out into the unknown, tangled up with the anxiety of ‘what have I done,’ and then comes the self-talk you do to convince yourself that yes you were right to make the choices you’ve made… whether you actually were or not. Or at least, that’s the mental olympics my brain goes through.”

On the setting, she says the reference points were cinematic rather than musical: “It’s such a playful track combined with the Blow Dry dark humour – as soon as we recorded it I could see the imagery – a Thelma & Louise meets Tarantino meets Priscilla, Queen of the Desert getaway film, but set in the Australian outback. An off-kilter homage to my homeland.”

Welsh has said the shoot itself was improvised: “There were just three of us shooting around Kalgoorlie, WA. No permissions, a rough plan, and the rest we were winging – turning up and asking on the spot. Everyone we met was so accommodating, generous and game, lots of banter and getting involved. […]” She has also said the next track goes the other way: “Our next track is softer, slower, quieter – a new frontier for us.”

About Blow Dry

Blow Dry is a project led by Genevieve Welsh, a Sydney-born singer based in London. She came to music from fashion and modelling, and had not sung or worked in a studio before starting the project during Covid lockdown in Sydney. She developed it after moving to London and meeting producer Jorge Elbrecht, whose other credits include Japanese Breakfast, Sky Ferreira and Angel Olsen. Welsh describes the sound as raw and theatrical, and post-punk as the closest genre label.

The project has released four digital singles. “Deadbeat Guys” came out on 4 September 2025 and “Wait ‘Til Dawn” on 27 November 2025, followed by “MR. BIG” on 7 May 2026 and “Mighty Crimes” on 28 July 2026. Welsh and Elbrecht share the writing credits, Elbrecht produces, and the recordings are issued through Welsh’s own Australian entity Catalyst Distractions.

Welsh also co-runs Tainted Pleasure, a Blitz Club-inspired night at The Social in London, with stylist Matt King. The “Mighty Crimes” video is Blow Dry’s third, after clips for “Wait ‘Til Dawn” in November 2025 and “MR. BIG” in July 2026. No album or EP has been announced.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Texan electro-industrial act Mentallo & The Fixer see their 1994 album “Where Angels Fear To Tread” reissued by Re:Mission Entertainment on 16 October 2026. The record has never appeared on vinyl before: this edition arrives as a 2LP gatefold pressed on yellow and red inverted splatter vinyl, limited to 250 copies worldwide. Discogs lists no prior vinyl pressing in any territory.

Both formats carry a new remaster by Jeff Mortimer at JM Mastering. The edition also restores the album’s original 1994 artwork, replacing the new cover the record was given for its last reissue; the artwork restoration and vinyl layout are credited to Nathan Winter at Industriarts.

The vinyl gatefold prints the full lyrics alongside commentary from Gary Dassing on the making of the record. Re:Mission estimates the LP will ship on 20 November and sells it through the band’s own Big Cartel store, where a line of shirts, hoodies, tanks and posters accompanies it. The digital edition is on pre-order at Bandcamp now and reaches streaming and download platforms on 16 October.

Re:Mission states the reissue exists because “it’s been important for Re:Mission to maintain high quality restorations of the original art and proper masters”, and describes the aim as bringing the record back “for the fans who’ve kept it in rotation all these years”.

What the two Mentallo & The Fixer editions hold

The vinyl runs to 15 tracks and the digital edition to 20. One point needs flagging: Re:Mission describes the LP as the original thirteen tracks plus two remixes, while Discogs and Wikipedia both list the 1994 Zoth Ommog CD as a fourteen-track album whose closing piece is already “Sacrilege (Grimpen Ward)”. The digital running order is:

1. “Gargantua”
2. “Decomposed (Trampled)”
3. “Sacrilege”
4. “Virtually Hopeless”
5. “Bring To A Boil”
6. “Coward (Submerged)”
7. “Ruthless”
8. “Afterglow”
9. “Battered States Of Euphoria”
10. “Abominations Unleashed”
11. “Dead Days”
12. “Atom Smasher”
13. “Power Struggle”
14. “Sacrilege (Grimpen Ward)”
15. “Decomposed (Grimpen Ward)”
16. “Sacrilege (Angel Of Death Mix)”
17. “Decomposed (Original Mix)”
18. “Rapid Suffocation (Lesionary Mix)”
19. “Grim Reality (Blister Mix)”
20. “Battered States Of Euphoria (Medina Mix)”

The “Grimpen Ward” tag on tracks 14 and 15 is a remix name the brothers used during their Zoth Ommog years, and it predates the 2001 album of that name. A “Decomposed (Grimpen Ward Mix)” was already circulating on the 1995 Ras Dva compilation “There Is No Time”.

The 1994 album and the editions that came before this one

“Where Angels Fear To Tread” first appeared on 16 May 1994 on the German label Zoth Ommog, then a division of Music Research. Metropolis Records licensed it from Zoth Ommog and issued it in North America on 18 July 1995 with the same running order and no extra material. The album carries “Decomposed”, “Sacrilege” and “Atom Smasher”, the three tracks that reached club sets.

Its most recent outing was as part of “Zothera”, the 3CD box Alfa Matrix issued in September 2014, which paired a remastered “Where Angels Fear To Tread” with a remastered “Revelations 23” and a disc of unreleased remixes titled “Apocrypha”. That box came with new cover art, which is what the 2026 edition reverses.

About Mentallo & The Fixer

Mentallo & The Fixer are the Texan brothers Gary Dassing, who takes the Mentallo half of the name, and Dwayne Dassing, who takes The Fixer. The two had been buying synthesizers since the mid-1980s and first recorded together in San Antonio as Benestrophe, a trio completed by vocalist Richard Mendez, whom Gary met in his final year of high school. Benestrophe cut its first song, “Pig Butcher”, in the summer of 1988 and went quiet in 1990 when the Dassings moved to Austin, where the brothers restarted as Mentallo & The Fixer.

The debut album “No Rest For The Wicked” came out in 1992 on the Portuguese label Simbiose Records. “Revelations 23” followed in February 1993, the first of their records for Zoth Ommog, with Metropolis handling the US edition in 1995. “Where Angels Fear To Tread” arrived in 1994, the same year as the remix set “Mentallo & The Fixer Meets Mainesthai”. Benestrophe was revived after 1995 for the Ras Dva label, which released “Auric Fires” in 1997, and Alfa Matrix later collected that project’s archive as “Turner’s All Night Drugstore (Rare & Unreleased 1987-1997)” in 2018, covered here at the time.

Dwayne Dassing left after 1997’s “Burnt Beyond Recognition”, and Gary Dassing continued alone through “Algorythum” (1999), “Love Is The Law” (2000), “Return To Grimpen Ward” and “Vengeance Is Mine” (both 2001), “Enlightenment Through A Chemical Catalyst” (2007), “Music From The Eather” (2012) and “Arrange The Molecule” (2017).

Re:Mission Entertainment, which opened an official Mentallo And The Fixer merch store in 2021, has been working through the catalogue since. It put out “No Rest For The Wicked” as a 30th-anniversary edition in October 2022, a “Vengeance Is Mine” remaster in June 2025 and a 25th-anniversary “Love Is The Law” in September 2025. The label also released “Thorns”, the 2024 debut album by Dwayne Dassing’s Reign Of Roses.

The brothers reunited as a duo in early 2025, when they announced a new album and their first US tour since 2006. The tour ran from September to November 2025 and took in ColdWaves XIII in Chicago, dates on the Industrial Nation run alongside Front Line Assembly, Clock DVA, Lead Into Gold and Nitzer Ebb, and a Resurrection Tour leg with labelmates Pygmy Children. No title, tracklist or release date has been made public for that new studio album since the February 2025 announcement, and this reissue is a catalogue release rather than the record announced then.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Chilean band Amöniacö released the single “En algún momento” on 27 August 2026, the second track lifted from the re-recorded version of their 2011 debut album “Tu Fuego”. Carlos Vandal and Felipe Alarcón wrote the song, Vandal produced it at Noiser Studio in Santiago, and Fernando Cubillos mastered it at Riot Diva Studio.

The song is not new. It sat fifth on the original “Tu Fuego”, released in October 2011, an album the band has said never got the promotion it needed at the time. Across 2025 and 2026 Amöniacö re-recorded, remixed and remastered the whole record, and a vinyl edition of the new version is planned. “En algún momento” follows “Aprendo a Morir (Sudden death version)”, issued on 8 May 2026 as the first preview, and pairs the same treatment with a restoration of the band’s earliest audiovisual material.

Amöniacö mix alternative rock with post-punk and darkwave, and this track leans on the more atmospheric end of that: layered guitars, melodic lines and a driving rhythm underneath. The lyric deals with memories that return without permission, and with what stays behind after someone has gone.

The single is on Spotify and across digital stores. It has not been posted to the band’s Bandcamp page, where the rest of the catalogue sits.

What the Amöniacö ‘Tu Fuego’ relaunch covers

The relaunch is a full re-recording rather than a remaster of the 2011 tapes. Every song from the original eleven-track album is being redone, with Vandal handling production at Noiser Studio and Cubillos mastering, the same pairing behind both singles released so far. Alongside the audio work, the band has restored the video material that goes with the earliest songs. The vinyl pressing has been confirmed but not dated.

About Amöniacö

Amöniacö began in the mid-2000s with Carlos Vandal writing the first songs, and put its first track, “Aprendo a Morir”, online in 2006. The band was formally constituted in Santiago de Chile in 2008. The current line-up is Vandal on vocals, guitars, bass and sequences, and Rod García on drums; the 2011 recordings featured Vandal with Jano Perverso on bass and Gabrielle on keyboards.

The debut album “Tu Fuego” arrived in October 2011 with limited distribution. In 2012 the band reached the final of the Peugeot Music platform, and in April 2013 it opened for The Cure at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago on the group’s Latin American tour, selected by Robert Smith, who chose the support acts for each country himself.

The single “Time to Change” followed, recorded and mixed by British engineer Barry Sage and mastered by Martin Bowes at The Cage Studios in Coventry. In 2015 Amöniacö played Lima with Cardenales and was selected for the third Converse Rubber Tracks call, which produced “No Volveré” with Pablo Giadach at Estudio Lautaro. “Castigarás” was recorded at Indómito Records with André Valenzuela, mastered by Mariano Pavez, played live in November 2017 and released digitally in January 2018.

In 2017 the band joined the roster of the Santiago Noiser production company. The “Azul Prusia” EP, produced by José Ignacio Jaras, followed and was later taken into the catalogue of Cleopatra Records in the United States. Through the early 2020s the band issued the singles “Ritos”, “And Then It Rains” and “Regrets”, and in April 2024 opened for Clan of Xymox at Blondie in Santiago. “Live at Unisono”, recorded at Gustavo Cerati’s Estudio Unísono in Buenos Aires and mixed and mastered by Fernando Cubillos, came out in February 2025, and later that year the band issued a version of Soda Stereo’s “Canción Animal” through Scent Air Records. The “Tu Fuego” re-recording began in 2025, and “En algún momento” is its second instalment.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Die Krupps, the German industrial and EBM band from Düsseldorf, released “V – Metal Machine Music” on 28 August 2015 through Oblivion and Steamhammer, with distribution by SPV. The album turns 11 this year. Metropolis Records handled the North American edition. It was the ninth Die Krupps studio album and the follow-up to “The Machinists of Joy” from 2013, and it appeared as a double CD in a six-panel digipak, as a digital download and as a limited box set.

Side-Line’s own pre-order item of 5 August 2015, Die Krupps announce ‘V: Metal Machine’ 2CD album for September – pre-orders accepted now!, put the release in September. Wikipedia, Discogs and MusicBrainz all give 28 August 2015 for the German edition, and that is the date used here.

The title reaches back into the band’s own catalogue. “Metal Machine Music” was a 1992 single from the album “I”, named in turn after Lou Reed’s 1975 record, which Jürgen Engler has credited as an influence on the band. Engler and Marcel Zürcher wrote the music except where noted, with lyrics split between Engler and Ralf Dörper. Engler and Chris Lietz produced the record, Alex Henke recorded additional guitar and Sascha Osterland made the artwork.

Disc one runs thirteen tracks: “Die Verdammten (Prelude)”, “Kaltes Herz”, “Battle Extreme”, “Fly Martyrs Fly”, “The Truth”, “Road Rage Warrior”, “The Vampire Strikes Back”, “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Branded”, “Kaos Reigns”, “The Red Line”, “Bonded by Blood” and “Volle Kraft Voraus”. Several of those are older pieces revisited. The prelude reworks the intro tape the band used on its 2011 and 2014 tours and takes its music from Maurice Jarre. “The Vampire Strikes Back” first surfaced on a Wing Commander soundtrack in 1998, the last song the band recorded before its 1997 break. “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Road Rage Warrior” and “Volle Kraft Voraus” are re-recordings, the last of them the title track of the 1982 album. “The Red Line” had already appeared in a different version as the B-side to the 2014 single “Robo Sapien”.

Side-Line reviewed the album on 10 October 2015 and placed it next to the band’s 1990s run of “I”, “II – The Final Option”, “III – Odyssey Of The Mind” and “Paradise Now”, with the guitars sitting further forward. The review stated: “Mastermind Jurgen Engler, currently living in Austin-Texas (USA), still can’t choose between pure electronic music and guitars and succeeds in combining both in a powerful way!” The full text is in Die Krupps – V – Metal Machine Music (DCD Album – SPV/Steamhammer/Oblivion Records).

Die Krupps’ ‘V – Metal Machine Music’ singles and bonus disc

“Battle Extreme” / “Fly Martyrs Fly” arrived two weeks ahead of the album, on 14 August 2015, with a lyric video for the A-side that Side-Line covered in New Die Krupps video hits the net: ‘Battle Extreme’. “Kaltes Herz” followed on 16 October 2015 with “Branded” as its B-side and a promo video directed by Faderhead. “Alive in a Glass Cage” came out on 28 July 2016, re-recorded with Caliban and issued before the band’s first Wacken Open Air appearance.

The second disc carries eight tracks: a Darkhaus rework of “Kaltes Herz”, a Faderhead remix of “Alive in a Glass Cage”, “Road Rage Warrior ’82” and demo versions of “Battle Extreme”, “Kaos Reigns”, “The Vampire Strikes Back”, “Kaltes Herz” and “Alive in a Glass Cage”. Dependent Records reissued both the standard and the deluxe running order digitally in 2025.

About Die Krupps

Jürgen Engler, Ralf Dörper and Bernward Malaka formed Die Krupps in Düsseldorf in 1980. The name comes from the Krupp industrial dynasty, and the band has pointed to Luchino Visconti’s 1969 film “The Damned” as the starting point. The debut album “Stahlwerksynfonie” appeared in 1981 and set factory noise and metallic percussion against conventional instruments. The EP “Wahre Arbeit, wahrer Lohn” followed the same year. Dörper left in 1982 to form Propaganda.

“Volle Kraft voraus!” arrived in 1982 and moved toward synthesizers while keeping the metal percussion. “Entering the Arena” in 1985 dropped most of that percussion and carried the band’s first English-language material. Engler then ran the Atom-H label, signing thrash metal and hardcore punk acts, and that catalogue fed back into the band’s next decade.

In 1989 Dörper started a collaboration with Nitzer Ebb on “Machineries of Joy”, a new version of the early track “Wahre Arbeit, wahrer Lohn”, which he produced with Engler. Its chart placing led to the band restarting with Engler and Dörper at the front. Guitars entered the sound in 1992 with the album “I” and the Metallica covers EP “A Tribute to Metallica”. “II – The Final Option” followed in 1993, “III – Odyssey of the Mind” in 1995 and “Paradise Now” in 1997, after which the band stopped. Engler started DKay.com the same year and released “Decaydenz” in 2000 and “Deeper into the Heart of Dysfunction” in 2002.

Die Krupps returned to the stage for their 25th anniversary across 2005 and 2006, and the two “Too Much History” compilations appeared in autumn 2007. The remix album “Volle Kraft Null Acht” came in 2009 and the EP “Als wären wir für immer” in 2010, the first new material since 1997. A joint European tour with Nitzer Ebb followed in 2011. “The Machinists of Joy” arrived in 2013 as the first full album in sixteen years, and “V – Metal Machine Music” came two years later.

The band re-recorded its debut as “Stahlwerkrequiem” in 2016, reported in Die Krupps re-records 1981 debut album ‘Stahlwerksinfonie’ for vinyl (incl. CD) release, and the live set “Live im Schatten der Ringe”, taped in 2014, followed on DVD, Blu-ray and 2CD, covered in Watch trailer new Die Krupps live DVD & Blu-ray (incl. 2CD) ‘Live Im Schatten Der Ringe’ – out this Friday. Engler launched the EBM side project Die Robo Sapiens in February 2018, announced in Die Krupps frontman Jürgen Engler launches EBM-only project Die Robo Sapiens, and its debut album “Robo Sapien Race” arrived in October 2022. The same spring the band announced a single and a tour with Front Line Assembly.

“Vision 2020 Vision” was announced for November 2019 in Die Krupps return with a new album in November: ‘Vision 2020 Vision’, and Engler formed the industrial metal group Die Klute that year with Dino Cazares of Fear Factory and Claus Larsen of Leæther Strip. The covers album Songs from the Dark Side of Heaven came in March 2021, and the band’s first live recording, from 1981, was issued as The Big Industrial Bang on CD and DVD in April of the same year.

Marcel Zürcher, guitarist since 2005, left in 2023, and Nils Finkeisen covered guitar until 2024. The line-up is now Engler on vocals, guitars and keyboards, Dörper on keyboards, synthesizers and programming, Paul Keller on drums and Dylan Smith on guitars. In August 2025 the band signed a multi-album deal with Dependent Records, reported in Die Krupps sign multi-album deal with Dependent Records; new album due in 2026, and followed it with the tour-only EP Will nicht – MUSS! / On Collision Course. Engler and Dörper looked back across the run in Ralf Dörper interview on why Die Krupps still won’t behave and Die Krupps interview on the 45 Years of Industrial Steel North America Tour. Eleven years on, “V – Metal Machine Music” sits between “The Machinists of Joy” and “Vision 2020 Vision” in that sequence.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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German electronic composer Michael Brückner released “The Egg in the Cosmic Crack” through the Argentine label Cyclical Dreams on 28 August 2026. The album runs six tracks and 77 minutes of Berlin School sequencing and ambient, and is out on digital platforms, as a download and on CD.

Two of those tracks are almost twenty years old. The opener “The Egg of Ecquirlo” began as a giveaway Brückner made in 2007 for members of a Last.fm group he had founded, a track he kept meaning to place on a proper album. “Cracked Egg Mystification” came out of the same set of preoccupations and went to the Cerebral Audio compilation “The Rift: Volume 1” in 2016. Both were remixed, partly rearranged, remastered and given new detail for this release. From unused material left over from the 2007 sessions, plus fresh parts, Brückner assembled “The Egg of Ecquirlo – Part 2”, then recorded further pieces to complete the record.

The thread running through all of it is a book. Brückner started making music at 21, prompted by meditative yoga practice, and through those studies read Joseph Chilton Pearce’s “The Crack in the Cosmic Egg”.

Cyclical Dreams describes the result as “music based on the idea of the egg as a universal symbol”, and the album notes report that those early influences still inform Brückner’s music decades on.

There is wordplay underneath the concept. The word “eye” appears in two of the titles, “Joseph’s Eye” and “The Eye of Cyclops”, and sounds like the German “Ei”, meaning egg.

Brückner built the album on a wide spread of hardware and software instruments: the Waldorf Blofeld, Behringer DeepMind 6 and Model D, Moog Labyrinth, Korg Z1, NI Absynth, Cherry Audio Rhodes Chroma, GX-80 and Elka-X, u-he Hive 2 and the Moog Theremini. Cyclical Dreams handled the artwork, with photography by Amp Puttipong.

Michael Brückner’s six tracks and where to hear them

1. “The Egg of Ecquirlo – Part 1” (22:23)
2. “Coda (A Pure Oval Shape)” (4:54)
3. “Joseph’s Eye” (13:28)
4. “Cracked Egg Mystification (Revisited)” (13:52)
5. “The Egg of Ecquirlo – Part 2” (10:08)
6. “The Eye of Cyclops” (12:49)

The album is on Bandcamp and across digital platforms, with a download edition through Payhip and a CD pressed on demand through the label’s Kunaki storefront. Cyclical Dreams has also put the full album on YouTube.

About Michael Brückner

Michael Brückner was born in Heidelberg in 1969 and settled near Mainz, where he works as a graphic designer. He began composing and recording electronic music in 1992 without formal training, after the experience of mantra chanting in a yoga group, and started circulating his work through online networks from 2006. His output has run to well over a hundred albums, most of them downloads and CDrs, and he has performed live at smaller festivals and solo since 2012.

His music sits mainly in ambient and Berlin School, with long sequenced passages and drifting synth layers. He records with several groups alongside his solo work, including P’Faun, Bridge To Imla and La Mansarde Hérmetique, and has collaborated with Mathias Grassow, Volker Lankow and Mathias Brüssel among others.

Brückner has released steadily through Cyclical Dreams, the Buenos Aires label whose catalogue covers Berlin School, ambient, soundscape, space music and drone. His albums for it include “Footprints”, “Recycled Life”, “Twenty-Five Light Years”, “The Morphic Cycle”, “The Seven Planes of Dreams” in 2024 and “A Sequence of Colours” in December 2025. Side-Line has followed the label’s recent output, including D*Time’s “Nightwoven” and Christian Wittman‘s “Andromeda”. “The Egg in the Cosmic Crack” reaches further back than any of them, finishing a piece of music Brückner has carried since 2007.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Buzz Kull released a video for “In the Cut” on 26 August 2026, two weeks before the Sydney project starts a North American tour with Kontravoid. The track comes from “Deep Hate”, the EP Marc Dwyer issued through Heartworm Press on 13 February 2026.

Chris Fatseas directed the video, which puts Dwyer opposite Sydney model Andrea.

Buzz Kull’s ‘Deep Hate’ EP and its remix edition

“Deep Hate” holds four tracks: “Black Gate”, “In The Cut”, “Just A Memory” and “Human Force”. Dwyer wrote and recorded all four, Ewan Kay mixed and mastered them, and Jonathan Schenke added mixing on “In The Cut”. Wes Eisold of Cold Cave sings on “Human Force”, which also carries an additional drum mix by Alex Garcia-Rivera. Amy Lee handled design and Shaun Daniel the photography.

Heartworm Press pressed the EP as a 12-inch at 45 RPM in a black-and-white split variant and in a red-and-black marble “Bloodlust” edition limited to 100 copies. The CD and digital editions add four remixes: “Black Gate” reworked by PIG, “In The Cut” by Kontravoid, “Just A Memory” by Cold Cave and “Human Force” by Spike Hellis.

Buzz Kull and Kontravoid tour dates

The co-headline run opens on 10 September at Elysium in Austin as part of Levitation and closes on 24 October at Below at The Belasco in Los Angeles. Normal Bias supports the Brooklyn show, and Spike Hellis and Normal Bias join the Spokane, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and Sacramento dates.

• 10 September 2026 – Austin, TX, US – Elysium (Levitation)
• 11 September 2026 – Houston, TX, US – Barbarella
• 12 September 2026 – New Orleans, LA, US – Santos Bar
• 13 September 2026 – Atlanta, GA, US – The EARL
• 15 September 2026 – Tampa, FL, US – The Orpheum
• 16 September 2026 – Orlando, FL, US – Will’s Pub
• 18 September 2026 – Baltimore, MD, US – Metro Baltimore
• 19 September 2026 – Philadelphia, PA, US – Nikki Lopez
• 20 September 2026 – Brooklyn, NY, US – Saint Vitus
• 22 September 2026 – Montreal, QC, Canada – Foufounes Electriques
• 24 September 2026 – Toronto, ON, Canada – Cafeteria
• 25 September 2026 – Millvale, PA, US – The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls
• 26 September 2026 – Milwaukee, WI, US – Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co.
• 28 September 2026 – Minneapolis, MN, US – Icehouse
• 1 October 2026 – Indianapolis, IN, US – The 808 at Indy CD & Vinyl
• 2 October 2026 – Kansas City, MO, US – Encore at Uptown
• 3 October 2026 – Denver, CO, US – HQ
• 4 October 2026 – Salt Lake City, UT, US – Metro Music Hall
• 6 October 2026 – Spokane, WA, US – The Big Dipper
• 8 October 2026 – Vancouver, BC, Canada – Biltmore Cabaret
• 9 October 2026 – Seattle, WA, US – El Corazon
• 10 October 2026 – Portland, OR, US – Star Theater
• 13 October 2026 – Reno, NV, US – The Holland Project
• 15 October 2026 – Sacramento, CA, US – The Starlet Room
• 16 October 2026 – Las Vegas, NV, US – Backstage Bar & Billiards
• 23 October 2026 – San Francisco, CA, US – Great American Music Hall (Substance)
• 24 October 2026 – Los Angeles, CA, US – Below at The Belasco (Substance)

Side-Line published the tour announcement in Buzz Kull and Kontravoid announce 2026 North American tour.

About Buzz Kull

Buzz Kull is the solo project of Sydney musician Marc Dwyer, active since 2012. He mixes darkwave, EBM and minimal synth, and has worked with Rebecca Liston in the live line-up.

The project’s first singles, “I Disappear” and “Dreams”, appeared through Fabrika Records in 2013 and 2014. The debut album “Chroma” followed in 2017 and “New Kind of Cross” in 2018, with a run of singles including “Nausea”, “Avoiding The Light”, “Last In The Club”, “Rise From Yur Grave” and “Dancing With Machines” issued through Avant! Records between 2017 and 2022. Side-Line covered the return in Australia’s dark electro act Buzz Kull returns with all new album, the first new work since 2019, which announced the third album “Fascination” on Avant! Records in 2022.

Dwyer moved to Eskimo Recordings for the 2023 single “A Place That’s Meant To Be”, then to Cleopatra Records for four singles across 2024 and 2025. “Just A Memory” opened his run on Heartworm Press in 2025 and led into “Deep Hate”, his first release for the label, in February 2026. The “In the Cut” video is the project’s latest, arriving as the North American dates begin.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Boy Harsher released a lyric video for “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)” on 26 August 2026, the third advance single from “Get Mean”, out 18 September 2026 on Atlantic Records. The Northampton duo of Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller follow “Jeans” and “Hard Beat” with a track built around a repeated “I’m OK” and the line “Do you even know my name?”.

Los Angeles video artist Sean McGuirk assembled the clip on vintage video gear, styling it as an analog karaoke screen: a CRT television, cold blue background, thick yellow capitals and visible scan lines, with cards reading “IN THE STYLE OF” and “INSTRUMENTAL BREAK”. Jesse Korman shot the footage at PropHaus Brooklyn.

What Boy Harsher put on ‘Get Mean’

The album runs twelve tracks: “Ronny”, “Jeans”, “Break Me”, “Tough Luck (When You Don’t Call)”, “Faulty”, “Coming Home”, “Hard Beat”, “Ice Pick (Walk Away)”, “Ivy’s Spiral”, “Pray 4 Me”, “Falling” and “Bleed”. Matthews and Muller recorded it across eight locations in the United States, Mexico and Italy, after Matthews wrote much of the material travelling through West Texas, the Pacific Northwest and South Florida. The pair ended their romantic relationship in early 2024 and the writing period also took in family loss.

Matthews has kept her description of the record short. She calls it “what I had to give during the most extreme period of my life.”

The sound picks up detuned pads, abrasive synth leads, pedal-steel bends, new wave guitar and unprocessed phone recordings. It is the duo’s first album since the 2022 short film and soundtrack “The Runner”.

Atlantic issues “Get Mean” on 140g black vinyl with a 12 x 24 inch poster, on an indie-exclusive blue marble pressing, on a Record Store Day blue variant and on CD. Pre-orders run through Bandcamp via Nude Club Records, the duo’s own imprint, and through record shops. Side-Line covered the signing and the album announcement in Boy Harsher signs to Atlantic Records, announces ‘Get Mean’.

The Heartbreak Tour reaches North America from 25 September and Europe and the UK from 14 November, closing in Antwerp on 4 December. Dates in Denver, Paris, Glasgow and Bristol have now sold out, joining the Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Los Angeles shows already gone. The full itinerary is listed in Boy Harsher announce ‘The Heartbreak Tour’ North American dates for 2026.

Matthews and Muller have also directed and scored a feature-length horror thriller, “The Lonely Woman”, with a cast including Chloë Sevigny, FKA twigs, Sturgill Simpson, Will Oldham and Jake Weary.

About Boy Harsher

Jae Matthews and Augustus Muller met at film school in Savannah, Georgia, and began working together in 2013 as Teen Dreamz, with Matthews performing spoken word over Muller’s backing. They took the name Boy Harsher in January 2014 and issued the home-recorded “Lesser Man” EP as a cassette.

DKA Records released their first album, “Yr Body Is Nothing”, in 2016, followed by the “Country Girl” EP in 2017 and singles including “Motion”, “Run” and “Face the Fire”. The pair founded their own label, Nude Club, in 2018 and reissued the back catalogue through it. “Pain II” arrived that year with a remix by The Soft Moon. The album “Careful” followed in 2019, with “Country Girl Uncut” and a remix set the same year. Side-Line rated “Careful” 8½ on release.

The duo relocated to Northampton, Massachusetts. In January 2022 they released “The Runner”, a short film starring Kristina Esfandiari that streamed on Shudder, together with its soundtrack and the “Burn It Down” EP. Festival appearances between 2022 and 2024 included Primavera Sound, Roadburn, Cruel World and Coachella, and in November 2024 they featured on the Pet Shop Boys double A-side “New London Boy / All The Young Dudes”. Muller also runs Safe Mind with Cooper B. Handy, whose album “Cutting the Stone” appeared on 25 July 2025.

Boy Harsher signed to Atlantic Records in July 2026. “Get Mean” is their first album for the label and their first full-length in four years.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Bradford post-punk band 1919 release the two-track single “Last Dance of the Departed” on 13 November 2026, backed with “Satellite Man”. It is the group’s first 7-inch since the “Cry Wolf” single of 1983 and their first studio release since 2021.

Pre-orders run through Bandcamp in four formats: a black 7-inch, a limited green 7-inch pressed in an edition of 300, a CD single, and a digital download at 24-bit/96kHz. Physical copies ship on or around the release date. The single is credited to Cry Wolf/Engineer Records.

1919 line-up and recording credits

Simon “Ding” Archer recorded both tracks at 6db Studios in Salford. He plays bass and handles programming in the current line-up, alongside Rio Goldhammer on vocals, Sam Evans on guitar and founding drummer Mick Reed. Goldhammer wrote the lyrics and produced the sleeve design.

Goldhammer also directed the video for “Last Dance of the Departed”, posted to the band’s YouTube channel on 21 August 2026. It cuts together live and archive footage contributed by more than a dozen photographers, DJs and promoters, each credited by name.

The B-side title is not new to the catalogue. 1919 self-released a digital EP called “Satellite Man” on 24 December 2021, which was until now their most recent studio material.

About 1919

1919 formed in Bradford, England, in 1980 around guitarist Mark Tighe and vocalist Ian Tilleard, who had started out as Heaven Seventeen before taking the name 1919 from a book in Tighe’s collection. Bassist Nick Hiles and drummer Mick Reed completed the first settled line-up. Reed described the intent as “to create a heavy melodic intense dance band with no frills and no intentions”.

The band issued “Repulsion” / “Tear Down These Walls” as a white-label 7-inch promo in 1982, then re-released it through Red Rhino Records, which also released the “Caged” single and the mini-album “Machine” in March 1983. They recorded a first John Peel session in May 1982 and a second on 4 May 1983. Steve Madden replaced Hiles that year. Abstract Records issued the “Cry Wolf” 7-inch and 12-inch in 1983 and the “Earth Song” 12-inch in July 1984, after the group had already split. Kev Aston on saxophone and Paul “Sputnik” Drake on synthesizer appeared with the band at various points. Members went on to 1919 AD, The Hive and Another Cinema, all of which had ended by 1986.

Tighe restarted the band in 2014 with bassist and vocalist Rio Goldhammer, self-releasing the download “Revenge” in 2015. Reed returned on drums on 30 August 2015 and Karl Donner joined on bass, moving Goldhammer to vocals. Westworld Recordings released the album “Bloodline” on 3 March 2017. Tighe died on 28 January 2017 at the age of 56, after a cancer diagnosis the previous year, and the band published an obituary in four languages; Side-Line reported it in British post-punk legends 1919 announce death guitar player Mark Tighe.

Sam Evans joined as full-time guitarist in April 2017. Steve Madden died shortly before “Futurecide” appeared on Cleopatra Records on 12 April 2019; the album carries Tighe’s last recorded performance, on “Stop the World”, and Madden’s, on “Isolation”. Side-Line ran the first play of that album and its video in Side-Line exclusive: UK post-punk band 1919 premieres new video and album!.

Archer, previously a bassist and producer with The Fall, PJ Harvey and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, replaced Donner on 31 August 2020. The Paris label Manic Depression released the album “Citizens of Nowhere” on 25 June 2021, and the self-released “Satellite Man” EP followed that December. The band made their US debut in Los Angeles in 2023 after a Wave-Gotik-Treffen appearance in Leipzig. “Last Dance of the Departed” is their first new studio recording since 2021.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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