The Chicago-based duo [melter], comprised of Jax Allos and Robert Hyman, has unveiled its latest video, “Catwalk”, a visual representation of personal torment. The release follows their July single, “blacklist”, and marks the continuation of a busy year that includes a recent tour with Hemlock for Socrates and the launch of their “Imperfect Waves Remix” EP.

[melter] is now preparing for the upcoming Imperfect Waves Tour across the US East Coast.

Initially, vocalist and lyricist Jax Allos hadn’t intended to address the heavy subject of suicide in “Catwalk” publicly. However, with the release coinciding with National Suicide Prevention Month, Jax decided to share more about the song’s origins: “What really helped me in that moment was writing down my thoughts and feelings, and eventually I crafted those into lyrics. [melter] entered my life at a pivotal time. ‘Catwalk’ was the first [melter] song I wrote lyrics for, and what started as a very difficult, challenging subject ultimately became a positive experience.[melter] made me feel welcome and really helped me find my voice. It has allowed me to reconnect with those aspects of my life that I needed so badly and, in its way, it saved my life.”

Known for blending industrial, dark alternative rock, punk, and noise, [melter] shifts their sound in “Catwalk” towards a moodier, post-punk style, reminiscent of The Cure’s albums “Pornography” and “Disintegration”. Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Rob Hyman from his side says this: “highlights the unique musical approach, describing the track as ambient, driven by piano sounds and a heavy, rumbling rhythm.“Within our repertoire, ‘Catwalk’ has an ambient feel – it’s dreamier and more abstract. The music for ‘Catwalk’ excited me. The rhythmic track is built off of piano sounds, believe it or not, and it has this overwhelming rumble to it that I really wanted to hear blasted over a PA at high volume.”

The video for “Catwalk” was entirely self-produced by the duo during a break between tours. Hyman envisions the visuals as a slow, introspective experience with blurred faces and deliberate movement. Jax Allos echoed these sentiments, adding that the intense color scheme was designed to reflect the internal struggle portrayed in the lyrics: “It’s an uncomfortable subject, and I hope the video conveys those feelings of desolation and resilience.”

[melter] Imperfect Waves Tour 2024 Dates

• 20 Sept: Lake Worth Beach, FL – Nights in Necropolis @ Propaganda
• 21 Sept: Tampa, FL – New World Brewery
• 23 Sept: Ypsilanti, MI – Ziggy’s
• 24 Sept: Pittsburgh, PA – Poetry Lounge
• 26 Sept: Philadelphia, PA – Sanctorium @ The Fire
• 27 Sept: Providence, RI – Fete Music Hall
• 28 Sept: Harrisburg, PA – JB Lovedraft’s Micropub
• 29 Sept: Richmond, VA – Fallout RVA

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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Supersimmetria is an Italian solo-project set up and driven by Armando Alibrandi. I always experienced his music as an intelligent composition mixing Industrial and IDM with Techno elements on top. Quite curiously I compared his work to science, this interview revealing Armando indeed is a scientist. His newest work “Double Helix” released by Hands however is first of all a sonic exposure of this artist’s genius.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: I noticed your debut album “Chimaera“ was released ten years ago now. That’s an opportunity to look back to what you’ve achieved so far. What did you keep in mind from the past ten years and how did you see Supersimmetria evolving from “Chimaera” towards the newest album “Double Helix”?

Armando: Whenever it happens I’m listening to old material of mine, especially the very early works, my first thought is mostly how sweet, technically unskilled, and young I was when I created that. That material awakes in me memories of my broke, care-free, and happy first years in Berlin.

It´s hard for me to judge my own sound evolution but often I was told that my tunes turned more mature and deep with time. What I believe remained unaltered across the years is the passion for scientific topics and the appreciation for a cold sense of obscurity in my sounds.

That appreciation for those scientific topics though changed with time, especially in the moment I also started to work in science. From a fuzzy and very general interest to something more thought through and related to my own daily work.  I work with microbial DNA in the field molecular biology lab investigating deep subsurface microbial ecology. The concept and track titles from “Double Helix” were inspired by my daily job. Prior to this current job I was working for bit more of a year in a research group of astrobiology.. hence the title and concept of the album “Abiogenesis”. At some point in my life, I encountered a very inspiring Venn diagram meme where in one circle was written ‘science’ the second circle ‘art’ and in the intersecting point ‘wonder’. Science and art, to be deeply meaningful, need each other.   

Q: But what means music and Supersimmetria to you? Tell us a bit more in your sound- and composing approach?

Armando: Music, as all art forms, is a way to express concepts where words, with exception of poetry, become ineffective. Nailed down to the core, music, in my opinion, is a way to express an emotional message. The message departs from a transmitter and can be felt and trigger the emotions of the receiver or not.

This is what Supersimmetria is to me, a mechanism to socialize at the emotional level with people I don´t know; finding receivers that can process and back inspiring me with new ideas and new aesthetics. Supersimmetria is to me also a pleasure that goes from the moment I sit down at my desk experimenting with sounds to the moments this sounds are blasted at high volume with a crowd dancing to it. Is a passion.

On regard of my composing approach that differs from track to track. Sometimes I listen to something and I want to recreate with my own touch, sometimes I just put myself in front of the machines and I play around until the combinations of sounds are satisfying me. Mostly is the latter.

Q: You clearly like to work with concepts and already revealed information about “Double Helix”? Can you give us more details?

Armando: Yes, I like to work with concepts… I’m not sure myself why I do that… I guess it’s because I like to share chunks of information that trigger my curiosity with my listeners with the hope to transfer my passion to them.

“Double Helix” is the last chapter of the four albums released on hands label. The first chapter was “Kosmogonie” (universe coming to existence), the second “Materia” (where all matter scattered around the universe and formed heavier elements), “Abiogenesis” (where inert chemicals turned into organics) and “Double Helix” (where these inert organic chemicals turned into a life coding system).

“Double Helix” is the album dedicated to the four letters alphabet that code life as we know it (RNA virus excluded lol). The album cover is the phylogenetic tree of life that starts from the center with the simplest common ancestor and evolved to the branches where we can admire the enormous variety of life as we know it. The album is a cheering to the fact that we are part of that tree ourselves and that we gathered the knowledge to figure out how this magnificent system casually evolved from inert chemicals produced in a nuclear fusion of a star until being part of sentient beings. 

All these topics are dear to me and are for me highly inspiring.

Q: How do you transpose the concept into sounds and songs? Did you way of working evolved and/or changed throughout the years? 

Armando: I don´t have a specific technique, the concept is associated, depending on the track, before, during or after the track is completed. Across time there has been a shift towards associating the concepts a posteriori.

Q: You’re based in Berlin which is a renowned and visionary place when it comes to Techno- and related music genres. What’s the impact of the Berliner scene on Supersimmetria?

Armando: I chose to live in Berlin because I wanted to live in a place that could give me a multifaceted inspiration. I think the Berlin Techno scene, although I’m myself not a particularly hardcore clubber, indeed has influenced my tunes. In which way exactly I cannot pinpoint. Maybe the dark and hazy aesthetics, maybe the deep  organic feeling of the kickdrums… hard to say.

Q: How important are live performances to you and what are your criteria to speak about a successful show?

Armando: Live shows are one of the motivations that kept me doing music across all this time. Often after a live show, once I´m back in my ‘cave’, I directly start doing music. Frequently on such occasions I have opportunity to assist to other artist performances and that is often inspiring.

Furthermore, the feeling of being on stage and see a nice bunch of people being driven by my tunes is exceptionally rewarding.  A successful show depends on multitude of factors ranging from lack of technical issues to good event organization but generally speaking, if the listeners are caught by my sounds and phase out into my tunes that is for me a good show.

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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Genre/Influences: Industrial-techno.

Background/Info: Blasted is an Italian producer who already has released a few numbers of EP’s. He now joined hands together with Depth.Request to unleash this new work. Notice by the way the digital edit features one extra song.

Content: There clearly is a new techno-format that never stops to grow. Blasted belongs to this industrial-techno movement, which you can also linked to a dark-techno approach. The tracks are hard and arousing, leading the listener into a hypnotic sensation.

+ + + : I fully enjoy this industrial-techno approach, which sounds hard, dark, a bit unpolished and ultra-danceable. It’s a tough production made with raw sound treatments and resulting in a great title track.

– – – : “Anvil” is a cool cut, but maybe not a potential hit. I like the sonic ideas running through this work although I’ve already heard more convincing productions in the genre.

Conclusion: Blasted is a fully appropriate name for this rough and haunting industrial-techno format.

Best songs: “Anvil”, “Jawbreaker”.

Rate: (6½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/kire.dam.58

Label: www.facebook.com/Depth.Request

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.

www.side-line.com