I had the chance to interview The Italian artist Maxx Maryan, who is nobody else but the male half of cult band HELALYN FLOWERS, for the release of his new album, “Viscerheart”, of his solo-project IMJUDAS that is fusing dark pop, post-punk and cold-wave. He brought us behind the veils of this poignant and so intimately  intense release…

You can get the album right now from Bandcamp as download and on CD (plus special packages) and all other digital stores.

SL: “Viscerheart” is described as an exploration of love, suffering, obsession, and self-discovery. What inspired you to delve into these intense emotional themes, and how did they shape the overall narrative of this IMJUDAS album?

MM: I like to think that this new album was born from the unsustainability on my part of keeping inside many of my emotional and sentimental disorders and instabilities, because at a certain point I found myself feeling like I was scratching the bottom, so I pulled myself by the ear and I poured my discouragement into music and words. Above all the words, those throughout “Viscerheart”, are very important because they are my sung confession, my most tormented prayer. This is an album of cowardice, because I sing things that I would never have had the courage to say if not by singing them, just as I sing in the title track of the album “I have the courage to shout it but not write it. Why this cowardice? What doesn’t flow between heart and gut?”. Or again, in the song “Lost my faith in nirvana”, with clenched teeth I emit my most painful mantra “my chest is the seat of hate”. Here I call for help. This is not the album of the stupid basking in negativity as a banner of one’s nihilism, NO. There is great hope here.

SL: Your music has been characterized as ‘Electro-synth Pop with a Goth soul.’ How do you balance these genres, and what elements do you incorporate to maintain this unique blend in “Viscerheart”?

MM: As far as I’m concerned, I’m convinced that knowing how to bypass intentionality can give rise to the manifestation of part of our authenticity. At least that’s what I hope for and what holds together everything I’ve written and done. Probably my extreme curiosity on a musical level, therefore my not being stuck in just one musical area, the joy that learning from different styles and genres gives me and a certain shamelessness and contempt for the ‘safe mode’ are all elements that go to stratify my music. “Electro/Synth-Pop” is technically the result of everything, the ‘roof’ under which everything takes shape. While “Goth soul”, in fact, is what animates it. With this I am referring to a precise spiritual approach inherent above all in early Gothic.

SL: The album features a fusion of synth pop, dark wave, and post-punk. Can you discuss your influences from bands like DEPECHE MODE and GARY NUMAN, and how they have impacted your sound on tracks like “Tazebao” or yet “Go Away” for example?

MM: I think Depeche Mode are now so ingrained in me that any reference to them is unintentional! I discovered them as a child when they showed video clips of “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy the Silence” on TV, between 1989 and 1990, and I haven’t left them since. With all the importance of an album like “Violator”, when I think of them my heart can only turn to the follow-up “Songs of Faith and Devotion”. When it came out it shocked me and from then on it remained for me a cornerstone of the meeting between electronic music and pop and rock. This is why I think that a song like my “Tazebao” is in some way the daughter of that inspiration, even if this is a consideration I make in hindsight; when I write and record, I don’t think about who or what my music might remember. Only when I listen back then do I enjoy finding correspondences, a ‘vice’, this one, quite journalistic and probably reminiscent of my very distant background as a fanzine-maker, ha ha… I can’t tell you how much Gary Numan in my opinion can be in a song like “Go Away”, probably a lot, according to many, given that in almost everything I do people find a reference to this great artist who I listened to a lot in a certain period of my life which coincided with the first years of Helalyn Flowers. I have to say that I really like his more pop records from the 80s.

SL: “Viscerheart” pushes sonic boundaries and ventures into EDM/Dance-Pop and sonic abstraction. What was your creative process in incorporating these diverse sounds, and how do you feel they enhance the album’s emotional journey?

MM: It’s all about picking up the signs. It is a simultaneity of inspiration between words and the “first” sequence, the “right” one. For me it’s all about abandoning yourself to this but also knowing how to control the creative flow so as not to disperse it between the jaws of reason. I think a certain underlying principle of reversibility is also fundamental in this; the more the container fills with beats the more it is about to pour out to empty itself, and there the beat becomes abstraction, absence of beats, rarefaction. The song “Lost my faith in nirvana” is a perfect example of this. But it’s like a yin-yang; these two concepts are not separate but mutually confluent, so that in one of them there is also a part of the other. This is why it happens that even in songs with a strong dance-pop flavour you can hear a ‘cosmic’ dimension in the background made up of hiss, manipulated and dilated vocoders, noise, drowned in the metaphysical distance of the reverb.

SL: The track “I Love You” from the previous single release is described as a Dark Pop / Post-Punk / Cold-Wave anthem. Can you talk about the creation of this song and what message or emotion you hope to convey through it?

MM: “I Love You” was one of the first songs written for the new album, so I think it represents a bit of its embryo and potential state. The love I speak of is not “another” love, because love is only one when it is authentic. I’m talking about how some ways of achieving it can hurt. Possessiveness, for example. When we are possessive, like someone who ends up excluding you from the world to protect you, we do it because in our minds we think we are pursuing a positive goal, but what results is disastrous. It’s about how good can turn bad, but only because desperation in love can get out of control and turn bad. In this case, evil, if you think about it, is a form of good, albeit degenerate, because it derives from it. It is up to us to discern and recognize these metamorphoses. However, I don’t want “I Love You” to remain, in its meaning, a mere description of how certain things happen (I think that in this song each of us can find at least a piece of our own existence) but that it transcends them, and that do through forgiveness.

SL: Your production on this album features intricate instrumentation, driving basslines, and wave-y guitars. How did you approach the production process to achieve this lush and polished sonic palette?

MM: It’s like a kind of multidimensional awareness. Once you have explored, for example, the rhythmic dimension, then you set off on a new journey such as the search for harmonies, and then again for noise etc. It all depends on how I conceive these emanations and how I don’t so much superimpose them as make sure that they flow into each other. Obviously, an important ingredient is fun. I enjoy. And a lot, too. For example, when, in the production phase, I find myself dealing with the bass, I enjoy thinking about putting into it something of what I have learned from listening to dub music. Or, for guitars, to use tones and drives that I loved hearing on an Andy Summers album and so on. I bring with me pieces of my experience as a true music lover, on a universal level.

SL: “Viscerheart” is said to invite listeners on a hauntingly beautiful journey through human emotions. What do you hope your audience takes away from this journey, and how do you want them to feel after listening to the album?

MM: I would like them, when they have finished listening, to feel a desire for joy. And that “Viscerheart” makes them reflect on not hiding from their own fallibility, so that they can admit all the evil inside us before letting it go and forgiving it. You must know how to cry to love this album. The emotional journey that “Viscerheart” guides is a warning: pay attention to your emotions and nourish your feelings instead. The world needs this, and we need it even more.

SL: As a solo project, how does IMJUDAS differ from your work with HELALYN FLOWERS, and what new creative freedoms or challenges did you encounter while producing “Viscerheart”?

MM: When you’re in a band what you must do is also consider a general vision, agreed with those who share the journey, so your individuality works at the service of a sort of entity, and however intimate your communicative style may be, never this must become synonymous with arbitrariness and mere selfish satisfaction. There are several good ways to be selfish but some of them will never match the needs of a band. This is why the solo-project path exists. And at least for me, having a side-project means transposing your person as much as possible without intermediaries, which might seem like an enviable freedom, but implies total responsibility. At the same time, the constant mirroring of yourself is a double-edged sword that you must know how to handle through periods of waiting. It’s like hunting yourself. Returning more specifically to your question, I think my “challenge” is to obtain a non-analytical but synthetic vision of myself. And I think this challenge is still ongoing. I love the idea of going beyond musical analysis and exegesis, beyond the charm of fragmentation and instead going to the heart of musical inspiration, the one of which I am the vehicle. Regarding, however, my creative freedoms, well, there is no doubt that my love for the most exotic soul of post-punk, the one that has its roots in black African music, as in dub-reggae and the Middle East, has been revealed, at least to the most attentive ears. I think the same also applies to certain industrial abstractionism as well as to a decidedly new wave and non-metal approach to the guitar.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

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Rocket 88 Books, a London-based publishing house who previously released excellent (photo) books books from Devo, The Clash, Lacuna Coil, John Cleese, The Sex Pistols, Mark Hollis (Talk Talk) and so on is now set to release a book from drummer Stewart Copeland. Titled “Police Diaries”, it holds hand-penned, day-to-day chronicles providing an inside look into the making of The Police. Publication is planned for Autumn 2023.

Just like with our “Electronic Resistance” book, fans also had the chance here to have their name listed in the edition as an early patron.

The book is reminiscent to Andy Summers’ 2006 book “One Train Later” which recounts his personal journey from birth to the day the Police disbanded. Copeland from his side book zeroes in on his experience forming a band that quickly struck gold.

The book holds 224 pages and gives you access to Copeland’s hurriedly penned daily diaries from 1976 to 1979, complemented with additional context, photographs of important artifacts, locations, people, and events. Note that the 2 deluxe editions come with a demo CD of Copeland’s 1977-1978 material, some of which would become The Police songs.

The “Ultimate Edition” already sold out at a price of 600 Euros in pre-order, the less expensive “Signature Edition” is still available for 300 Euros. The “Classic Edition” is yours for 50 Euros.

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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Pete Burns started playing guitar when he was nine years old and has always retained a passion for creating music. He was the outsider kid at school who listened to alternative music and didn’t conform even at that age. Some things never change. Pete was (and still is) a big fan of Modern Eon’s “Fiction Tales” and that album epitomises Post-Punk for him. Other notable and influential releases from that time included “Quiet Life” and “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” by Japan, “Systems Of Romance” by Ultravox, “JuJu” and “Peek-A-Boo” by Siouxsie And The Banshees, “Black Celebration”, “Music For The Masses” and “Violator” by Depeche Mode, and the early Sister Of Mercy singles as well as “First And Last And Always”. Laterally bands like She Past Away, Trentemøller, The Soft Moon,  Soft Kill, M!R!M and the now disbanded Ascetic have all, amongst many others, played a part in refueling Pete’s for the genre. Kill Shelter stands for pure Cold-Wave music. A first album “Damage” got released in 2018 by Unknown Pleasures Records. Four years later he strikes back with “Asylum” –released by Manic Depression Records for Europe and Metropolis for the US. Pete Burns worked together with guest singers and accomplished a true masterpiece. I talked about Kill Shelter with this genius Scottish multi-instrumentalist and producer.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You’re a so-called ‘multi-instrumentalist’ playing guitar, bass, e-bow, synths. Do you’ve a favourite instrument and is there a kind of hierarchy in the instruments when composing songs?

Pete: Definitely. I always start on the guitar. In some cases like “The Necklace”, it’s the bass but mainly my go-to instrument is the guitar. I’ll write the main riffs and themes first and once I’ve got those down, that forms the basis of the demo. In some cases those guitars will stay to the final edit or some may be completely removed. I’ll put down the bass after that and then start to work on the drums. Synths, guitar processing and textures come last. The vocals will always come in after the song has most of the parts written. I’ll then arrange the song around the vocals before doing final production work.

Q: I’m deeply impressed by your guitar play injecting a true, dark, spirit into your work. How do you see yourself as a guitarist? Who are your favorite guitar players and what do you especially like in their play?

Pete: Thank you so much. That really means a lot to me. I still see myself as a guitarist first but I think most people know me for my production work.

When it comes to guitar I will happily listen to a lot of stuff even if I don’t particularly like it from a style perspective. I’m always open to learning. I prefer guitarists who have tried to do something different like Christian Fennesz, Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Robin Simon, Rob Dean, Tony Iommi, Mick Karn, Andy Summers and John McGeoch. Gary Marx wasn’t a technical guitarist but he had a wonderful sense of melody and he’s one of my favourite guitarists because of it.

I’ve been working on something that isn’t for Kill Shelter which is mainly guitars. I’ve developed Dupuytren’s disease and arthritis in my hands so I’m keen to get as much recorded as possible before playing becomes impossible. I already struggle on some days but, whatever happens, I’ll find a way to make a noise in one way or another.

Q: Your new album “Asylum” comes four years after the great debut album “Damage”. How do you look back at “Damage” and how did the transition in between both albums happen? Did you focus on new/different elements of the production?

Pete: I was extremely fortunate with “Damage” to have the support and buy-in from so many like-minded people from around the world. I am still very grateful that they agreed to work with me, especially as I was (and still am to some extent) a totally unknown artist. I think I was finding my feet with Kill Shelter through “Damage” and the early remixes but I’ve had a plan for the trilogy of multi-collaboration albums from the outset.

At the time, “Damage” focussed solely on emerging talent. In contrast, I wanted “Asylum” to reflect the last four decades of Dark-Wave. At first I thought “Asylum” was going to be a double album but the delivery was fraught with difficulties as people who were scheduled to appear could no longer commit for one reason or another. It wasn’t straightforward and that’s one of the reasons it was four years in the making.

I think I was more confident and determined tackling “Asylum”. Adding my own vocals and having a guitar-only track (“Time Will Come”) were very conscious decisions that pushed me out of my comfort zone. I think working with others always pushes my production skills but I find that harder to achieve when I’m working on my own, especially when it comes to gauging if it’s good or not. I am undoubtedly my harshest critic.

Q: “Asylum” sounds like a dark and tormented title which is also reflected in the lyrical themes. What did you, together with the guest singers, try to express and/or eventually externalize? What is it all about?

Pete: I always work with an overriding concept when I tackle albums be it “Damage”, “A Haunted Place” or “Asylum”. It makes the collaborations more cohesive. The core approach with “Asylum” was to explore the duality of the meaning of the word, highlight global humanitarian issues such as human trafficking, domestic violence, exploitation and the plight of asylum seekers, as well as exploring themes of personal disillusionment and mental health. For example, domestic abuse has risen by 33% and over 75,000 migrant deaths have been recorded globally – these numbers speak for themselves.
Remembering that “Asylum” was written with the backdrop of a global pandemic, Brexit here in the UK, destructive international politics, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, increased effects of global warming and, more recently, the war in Ukraine.

We’ve seen a lot of things happen in the last few years. It’s not an overtly political album but these threads run through the overall themes and narrative and, as with many of my lyrics, they can be interpreted in various ways.

Q: Kill Shelter is much more than simply a solo-project as you’re working with guest singers –and even very famous ones like Ronny Moorings. What are your main criteria to work with a guest singer and how do the collaborations happen? The most surprising name among the list is for sure Stefan Netschio so how did you come to work together?

Pete: The starting place for me is always people with outstanding vocals and that have written songs that I think ‘I wish I’d written that’. I’m not a great singer and I also like to work with other people – it always takes the material in an unexpected direction and I can listen more objectively when someone else is involved.

I write demos with specific people in mind and I think that really helps the process. I don’t just write a track for the sake of it then try to desperately find someone to sing on it. It’s far from that. I’ll either have the demo ready or float the idea with the artist first. I always ensure that they are part of the process and that they are totally happy with the way that they are represented.
Stefan has an incredible voice and “Daisy Cutter” is one of my all time favourite songs. He is very personable and professional and is a producer’s dream to work with. I was delighted he was so open-minded as he hadn’t heard of Kill Shelter when I originally spoke to him so there was a big leap of faith on his part to work with me. We got on really well through the process and I had the absolute pleasure of meeting up with him recently. They say never meet your idols but in this case I would say that definitely doesn’t apply.

I was absolutely delighted when “In This Place” reached number one in the Deutsche Alternative Charts and I really hope we can work together again soon.

Q: In between “Damage” and “Asylum” you also released an album together with Antipole. I noticed a true chemistry between both of you, but how do you look back at this experience, which I think was inspired by personal themes like loss, addiction, isolation and remorse? Can we expect a new album? Any other plans in the pipeline?

Pete: Karl has become a really good friend of mine. After sharing the same label (UPR) for our debut albums, working on remixes together then Karl appearing on “Damage” we have kept in touch for years now. We got the chance to meet at the Cold Transmission Festival in 2019 where I did a Rule of Three DJ set. We got on incredibly well over that weekend and decided there and then we should do an album together. We are very like-minded. Troubled and sensitive but determined at the same time. We share a lot of ideals and philosophies.

Karl really supported the idea of me doing vocals on “A Haunted Place” even though it was originally going to be an instrumental album featuring mainly guitars. Because it was entirely my voice on the album, the songs had to be very personal to me. I always wear my heart on my sleeve and, in a way, writing the songs on “A Haunted Place” was a very cathartic process for me.
We still chat most days and I’m looking forward to the day I either head to Norway or he visits here. We do have plans to do another album together but there’s no immediate rush or pressure on that. I have the working title and concept and we have a few demos already so the process has started. I want it to be different from our last album though. It needs to feel like a development not more of the same.

I contracted Covid in August and have had some ongoing issues following that so, unfortunately, I’m having to take some time away. Both my hearing and voice have been affected so I need that to settle down before I begin that journey again. I’ve had to pull quite a few things from my schedule and it’s never great to have to let people down but things aren’t great at the moment.
I’m looking forward to things getting better all round for all of us…

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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(Photo by A&M) On 20 October 1978 The Police played a gig at the CBGB in New York. That recording will now be released so the band’s guitarist Andy Summers has revealed in a new interview with Q104.3 New York’s Out of the Box with Jonathan Clarke.

Andy Summers: “I think we did CBGB’s three times on that first tour, I think we did two nights, the first night we got off the place and we’re on stage [right away] and it went down a storm. We went, ‘Oh my god!’ We were so excited to be in New York City. Then we went off and did our little tour and we ended it with another gig at CBGB’s.”

A&M Records recorded that gig on a 16-track recorder so the band recently learned. You may expect a pretty raw recording (if you know bootlegs from that time you know what to expect) but, and this is key this time, the audio source seems to be in perfect shape. Don’t expect super stereo, incredible reverbs and all that, but the result will be rather interesting nevertheless.

Here’s a short impression…

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