NØIR release ‘Breath and Taxes’ EP on Distortion Productions
NOIR release the “Breath and Taxes” EP on Distortion Productions on 5 June 2026, with remixes by genCAB and Iszoloscope and roots in vocalist Athan Maroulis.
Darkwave and industrial project NØIR (aka Athan Maroulis) has released the “Breath and Taxes” 4-track EP through the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based label Distortion Productions. NØIR’s “Breath and Taxes” EP collects the title track with remixes by genCAB and Iszoloscope, and is available across all streaming and digital platforms.
The EP features cellist Tracey Di Lascio-Martinuk, programmer Dominic Smelt and engineer Xris Smack among its collaborators. NØIR is the project of vocalist Athan Maroulis.
The story behind NØIR’s ‘Breath and Taxes’
The title track has a long history. “Breath and Taxes” was the first song Maroulis co-wrote as a member of Spahn Ranch in 1993. The lyric idea even existed before when Maroulis was in Executive Slacks and the band was about to play at Scream in Los Angeles. Maroulis had attended a serial-killer art exhibit at a Hollywood gallery and later wrote the lyrics based on what he saw there. It eventually became a surreally sarcastic song about the contradictions of cults and capitalism.
About NØIR
NØIR is a New York-based project led by Athan Maroulis, a vocalist whose career runs through several dark electronic and industrial acts. Maroulis fronted Executive Slacks in the late 1980s and later joined the Los Angeles trio Spahn Ranch, which released a series of albums through the 1990s. At Side-Line we covered the reissue of the 1995 Spahn Ranch LP “The Coiled One”. He then performed and recorded with Black Tape for a Blue Girl before launching NØIR.
NØIR debuted with the “My Dear” single in 2012, followed by the album “Darkly Near” in 2013. Maroulis described the project in a 2020 Side-Line interview as “an amalgamation of each band I have ever been in”. The project has continued issuing EPs and singles, including the 2023 “Fallen” EP.
Daniel McCullough (Silver Walks) and Athan Maroulis (NØIR) also issued a new collaborative cover of Cyberaktif’s Wax Trax! single “Nothing Stays”, released September 19, 2025 via Distortion Productions. The four-track digital EP paired the core version with remixes by S Y Z Y G Y X, genCAB, and KLACK.
The new “Breath and Taxes” EP brings a song Maroulis first sketched in the early 1990s.
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