Here’s some history which few people remember but since Ben Watkins (Juno Reactor) mentioned it on his Facebook page – and since many think it’s an April Fools joke – we are going to unearth some old history also including Alan Wilder (ex-Depeche Mode, Recoil) and a band called The Hitmen.

The Hitmen were an English new wave band formed in 1979. They released seven singles and two albums on the Columbia label. Members of the band would later go on to have successful careers in other notable bands and in music production.

The band was formed in 1979 and consisted of members Ben Watkins (vocals, guitar), Pete Glenister (guitar), Stan Shaw (keyboards), Neil Brockbank (bass) and Mike Gaffey (drums). Shaw and Brockbank were later replaced by Alan Wilder (indeed) and John Jay (of Ian Mitchell Band) respectively. Alan Wilder had ended up with the band after playing in the bands The Dragons, Daphne & The Tenderspots, Real to Real and The Flatbackers.

In Australia, the band were known as The London Hitmen due to a naming conflict with the local band of the same name.

The band released two studio albums; “Aim for the Feet” in 1980 and “Torn Together” in 1981. The 1981 single “Bates Motel” became a minor hit, being played widely on UK radio and having its video featured on the newly-launched MTV channel in the United States.

After The Hitmen Ben Watkins went on to join Brilliant then later form the electronic bands the Flowerpot Men and Juno Reactor, as well as working with Killing Joke’s Martin ‘Youth’ Glover in the duo The Empty Quarter. Pete Glenister went on to play guitar, write and produce for other artists such as Kirsty MacColl, Alison Moyet, Terence Trent D’Arby, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Bruce Foxton, Fischer-Z and Bryan Ferry, among many others. Alan Wilder became the keyboardist for Depeche Mode in 1982, produced Nitzer Ebb and then continued his solo project Recoil (which he had started in 1986) after leaving the band in 1995. Neil Brockbank became an audio engineer and producer for many artists including Nick Lowe, Mary Coughlan, Alison Moyet, Tanita Tikaram, Bryan Ferry and Ocean Colour Scene. He died in 2017 of cancer.

Here are two tracks featuring Alan Wilder and Ben Watkins.

Further production work and collaborations from Alan Wilder

Throughout his career, Alan Wilder has been involved in numerous collaborations. In 1989, he produced the Euro-Tech Version of Toni Halliday’s “Time Turns Around”. Two years later, in 1991, Wilder created the Wilder Mix Full Version of Nitzer Ebb’s “I Give to You” and mixed Nitzer Ebb’s “Come Alive” for their “As Is” EP. That same year, Wilder and Flood joined forces to produce Nitzer Ebb’s “Ebbhead” album.

Fast forward to 2001, Wilder contributed strings and ambient sounds to the song “Polaroid” from the album “Gift” by Curve. A couple of years later, in 2003, he provided strings and sounds for The Digital Intervention’s track “Coma Idyllique” from the album “Capture”. One of its members is ‘PK’, a longtime collaborator of Recoil, which also includes Olivia Louvel.

In 2010, he produced a remix for Nitzer Ebb’s “I Am Undone”. Following that, in 2011, he revisited his Depeche Mode roots by remixing their song “In Chains”, which became an instant fan favourite. That same year, he also created the Expansion Mix for Sonoio’s “Minutes.”

In 2012, Wilder took part in covering two tracks for a Talk Talk tribute album (double) CD/book set called “Spirit of Talk Talk”. The tracks were “Inheritance” featuring Linton Kwesi Johnson & Paul Marshall and “Dum Dum Girl” featuring Shara Worden. Additionally, he became the executive music producer for the album.

In 2016, Wilder provided music and arrangements for “Calling the Clock” by Dede, featuring his contributions as well.

About Ben Watkins

In 1979 Ben Watkins fronted the London new wave band The Hitmen, singing and playing guitar. The group released the albums “Aim for the Feet” in 1980 and “Torn Together” in 1981, while the single “Bates Motel” became their best-known release. After The Hitmen, Watkins moved briefly into Brilliant, the band formed by Martin “Youth” Glover after leaving Killing Joke.

That period led directly into Watkins’ first fully electronic work. He met Youth in 1982, joined Brilliant for a short spell, toured the UK and Spain, and then recorded with him as The Youth & Ben Watkins on “The Empty Quarter”. That 1984 release was issued as the soundtrack to Jonathan Moore’s stage play “Street Captives”. A second album, “Delirium”, followed under the name The Empty Quarter and musically went further into a rhythm-led electronic direction.

Watkins then formed The Flowerpot Men with Adam Peters. That project produced the singles and EPs “Jo’s So Mean”, “Walk On Gilded Splinters”, “Alligator Bait”, and “Watching the Pharoahs”. The duo toured with Dead Or Alive and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Not surprisingly Steven Severin produced their debut single. The Flowerpot Men also recorded “Beat City”, which was used in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. When Watkins and Peters signed to Polydor, they continued as Sunsonic and released the album “Melting Down On Motor Angel” in 1990.

Juno Reactor began in 1990 as Watkins’ art-driven project, with the first single “Laughing Gas” arriving in 1993 followed by the albums “Transmissions” (1993), “Luciana” (1994), “Beyond the Infinite” (1995), “Bible of Dreams” (1997), “Shango” (2000), “Labyrinth” (2004), “Gods & Monsters” (2008), “The Golden Sun of the Great East” (2013), and “The Mutant Theatre” (2018). Across that period, Juno Reactor released material through NovaMute, Inter-Modo, Blue Room Released, and later Metropolis Records.

Watkins’ work with Juno Reactor later entered film on a larger scale through “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions”, which is why “Mona Lisa Overdrive” remains one of the key titles in his catalogue.

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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British electronic act Juno Reactor have released the digital single “Mona Lisa Overdrive (Reaky Reakson Remix)” via Metropolis Records.

The track returns to material Ben Watkins wrote for “The Matrix Reloaded”. “Mona Lisa Overdrive” was used in the film’s freeway chase sequence, appeared on “The Matrix Reloaded” soundtrack in 2003, and later appeared in a different form on Juno Reactor’s album “Labyrinth” in 2004.

Watkins says: “The track has always held a special place for me, as it was the very first piece I was asked to write for “The Matrix Reloaded”. Reaky has given it a fresh intensity and perspective that feels both respectful and boldly new. To hear it now, years later, transformed through someone else’s passion and imagination, is a rare and rewarding thing. I hope you enjoy this new version as much as I have enjoyed thundering it out to dance crowds.”

The single arrives after Juno Reactor presented “Inside The Matrix” at the Tenerife Noir festival in March 2026 built around music written for “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions”.

About Juno Reactor

Juno Reactor is the long-running project of Ben Watkins, but his recording history started well before that name appeared. In 1979 he fronted the London new wave band The Hitmen, singing and playing guitar. That band also featured Alan Wilder who would later on join Depeche Mode. The group released the albums “Aim for the Feet” in 1980 and “Torn Together” in 1981, while the single “Bates Motel” became their best-known release. After The Hitmen, Watkins moved briefly into Brilliant, the band formed by Martin “Youth” Glover after leaving Killing Joke.

That period led directly into Watkins’ first fully electronic work. He met Youth in 1982, joined Brilliant for a short spell, toured the UK and Spain, and then recorded with him as The Youth & Ben Watkins on “The Empty Quarter”. That 1984 release was issued as the soundtrack to Jonathan Moore’s stage play “Street Captives”. A second album, “Delirium”, followed under the name The Empty Quarter and musically went further into a rhythm-led electronic direction.

Watkins then formed The Flowerpot Men with Adam Peters. That project produced the singles and EPs “Jo’s So Mean”, “Walk On Gilded Splinters”, “Alligator Bait”, and “Watching the Pharoahs”. The duo toured with Dead Or Alive and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Not surprisingly Steven Severin produced their debut single. The Flowerpot Men also recorded “Beat City”, which was used in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. When Watkins and Peters signed to Polydor, they continued as Sunsonic and released the album “Melting Down On Motor Angel” in 1990.

Juno Reactor began in 1990 as Watkins’ art-driven project, with the first single “Laughing Gas” arriving in 1993 followed by the albums “Transmissions” (1993), “Luciana” (1994), “Beyond the Infinite” (1995), “Bible of Dreams” (1997), “Shango” (2000), “Labyrinth” (2004), “Gods & Monsters” (2008), “The Golden Sun of the Great East” (2013), and “The Mutant Theatre” (2018). Across that period, Juno Reactor released material through NovaMute, Inter-Modo, Blue Room Released, and later Metropolis Records.

Watkins’ work with Juno Reactor later entered film on a larger scale through “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions”, which is why “Mona Lisa Overdrive” remains one of the key titles in his catalogue.

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘Let The Flowers Grow’.

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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English singer Peter Murphy and Culture Club frontman Boy George have issued a new digital single, “Let The Flowers Grow (Juno Reactor Remix)”, via Metropolis Records. The track reworks their 2024 orchestral collaboration “Let The Flowers Grow“, originally released as a duet single and later added as a bonus track to Murphy’s 2025 studio album “Silver Shade”.

Brighton-based electronic project Juno Reactor, led by composer and producer Ben Watkins, reshapes the song into a long-form electronic piece that runs just over six and a half minutes. Known for combining electronica, psy-trance, world music and orchestral textures, Juno Reactor brings its characteristic cinematic and global sound to the remix, fusing electronic, tribal and symphonic elements.

“Let The Flowers Grow” was first issued as a digital single on 8 November 2024 through Metropolis Records, with Youth (Killing Joke) producing and co-writing. The song began as a personal reflection on George’s experience of accepting his sexuality, then broadened to address identity across race, gender, creed and religion. The original version was later included as a bonus track on “Silver Shade”, Murphy’s eleventh solo album, which was released on 9 May 2025.

About Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy (born 11 July 1957 in Northampton, England) first came to prominence as vocalist of Bauhaus, the post-punk band he co-founded in 1978 with Daniel Ash, David J and Kevin Haskins. Bauhaus’ debut single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (1979) is widely cited as a foundational goth rock track and was followed by albums such as “In the Flat Field” (1980), “Mask” (1981), “The Sky’s Gone Out” (1982) and “Burning from the Inside” (1983) before the group initially disbanded.

After a one-off project with Mick Karn as Dalis Car and the album “The Waking Hour” (1984), Murphy began a solo career with “Should the World Fail to Fall Apart” (1986) and “Love Hysteria” (1988). His 1989 album “Deep” brought him broader exposure, helped by the single “Cuts You Up”, which entered the US charts. Subsequent records included “Holy Smoke” (1992), “Cascade” (1995), “Dust” (2002), “Ninth” (2011) and “Lion” (2014), the latter also produced by Youth.

Bauhaus reunited for tours in 1998 and again in the mid-2000s, releasing a final studio album, “Go Away White”, in 2008. Murphy has continued solo touring and recording into the 2020s, although a 2025 summer tour for “Silver Shade” was cancelled due to health issues. “Silver Shade”, released on 9 May 2025 via Metropolis Records, is his first studio album in eleven years and includes collaborations with Boy George and Trent Reznor among others.

About Boy George

Boy George (George O’Dowd, born 14 June 1961 in London) is best known as the vocalist of Culture Club, the new wave group he formed with Mikey Craig, Jon Moss and Roy Hay in the early 1980s. The band released hits such as “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, “Karma Chameleon” and “Church of the Poison Mind”, becoming one of the most recognisable UK pop acts of the decade.

Following Culture Club’s initial split in 1986, Boy George launched a solo career with the album “Sold” (1987), which produced several UK chart singles including “Everything I Own”. Further albums in the late 1980s and 1990s followed, while he also worked as a DJ and songwriter. He has continued to record and tour both with Culture Club reunions and as a solo artist, and more recently has prepared a solo album titled “SE18”, scheduled for release in 2025.

About Juno Reactor

Juno Reactor is a long-running electronic and performance project founded by Ben Watkins in 1990. Initially conceived as an art-driven collaborative platform, it developed a hybrid style that merges electronica, psy-trance, tribal percussion, rock instrumentation and orchestral arrangements. The project’s early discography includes the albums “Transmissions” (1993), “Luciana” (1994), “Beyond the Infinite” (1995) and “Bible of Dreams” (1997), followed by releases such as “Shango” (2000), “Labyrinth” (2004) and “The Mutant Theatre” (2017), several of which were released on Metropolis Records.

Juno Reactor’s music has also been used extensively in film and game soundtracks, including major contributions to the scores of “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” in collaboration with composer Don Davis.

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘Mona Lisa Overdrive’.

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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István Gazdag, the mastermind behind First Aid 4 Souls, unveiled the debut EP of his latest project, First Aid Tech, last year. The 4 tracks from this self-titled EP are now featured on his ambitious full-length album, which boasts a staggering 22 songs. On this release, Gazdag dives headfirst into sonic experimentation, seamlessly blending genres like EBM, Hard-Techno, Acid, and Psy-Trance. His signature EBM basslines remain a standout feature, expertly intertwined with infectious, Acid-tinged sequences. These elements are propelled by thunderous Techno kicks and occasionally accented with trippy Psychedelic layers. While many tracks are instrumental, a few feature vocal elements that add a touch of accessibility to the album. The soundscape occasionally feels like a hypnotic fusion of Frontline Assembly and Juno Reactor, with subtle nods to Front 242. Gazdag’s brilliance as a sound architect shines throughout, demonstrating his boundless creativity and production prowess. Though additional vocal contributions might elevate the record even further, this album is already a triumph of composition and sound design. (Rating:8½).

Listen to “The Fortress”:

About First Aid Tech

First Aid Tech is a project of Hungarian electronic artist István Gazdag, who is also the driving force behind First Aid 4 Souls and Stahlgeist. Gazdag performed and DJed under the First Aid Tech moniker for years before the project’s first official release, the self-titled techno body EP, came out in December 2023 on Alfa Matrix with 4 tracks and 4 bonus remixes.

First Aid 4 Souls has been active since 2007, mixing industrial, EBM, dark ambient, trance, and new wave, often with guest vocalists. Stahlgeist delivers old-school EBM. In 2025 Gazdag discussed First Aid Tech in the Side-Line interview ‘Exploring a Pulsating Universe’.

“Tech Under Your Skin”, the first First Aid Tech full-length, expands the four EP tracks into a 22-track album and is the release reviewed here.

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

Genre/Influences: Goa-Trance, Psy-Trance, Electro.

Format: Digital, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Set up in 1990 British collective Juno Reactor released its official debut “Transmissions” in 1993 by NovaMute. This work already got multiple re-releases and is now again re-released on vinyl format by London based Demon Records. The album was released thirty years ago and featured core member Ben Watkins next to Mike Maguire, Stephane Holweck, Jens Walderback and singers Maria Naylor and Annie Fontaine.

Content: Back in time”Transmissions” clearly sounded like a visionary work. Inspired by Goa-Trance influences but also driven by personal elements like Tribal rhythms and mysterious female chants, you clearly notice a sonic  basis for the greater work that would come later. I also recognized solid bass lines which would become Watkins’ trademark. There’re also passages featuring a  Minimal-Electro touch reminding me of Kraftwerk. Last but not least “Transmission” also has this dreamy, prosper, space-like atmosphere.

+ + + : Thirty years later “Transmissions” still has its original part of magic. “High Energy Protons” and “Laughing Gas” both remain ‘hits’ from the early years but I also have to mention “Luna-Tic” and “Man To Ray”. The last mentioned cut is into pure early Goa-Trance. The songs reflect a sophisticated writing and mature production process so that’s why “Transmissions” still have the power to bring dancefloors on fire.

– – – : The work also has a versatile touch. There are different influences running through the work so in the end it’s less compact and sometimes still a bit hesitant than on the further albums.

Conclusion: “Transmissions” showed from the very beginning a very strong potential which would lead the band to become one of the absolute leading Psy-Trance formations.

Best songs: “Laughing Gas”, “High Energy Protons”, “Man To Ray”, “Luna-Tic”, “Contact”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.junoreactor.com / www.facebook.com/junoreactorofficial

Label: www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk / www.facebook.com/DemonMusicGroup

About Juno Reactor

Juno Reactor formed in 1990 in Brighton, England, as an art project by Ben Watkins and Stephane Holweck, initially built to soundtrack sculptor Norma Fletcher’s “The Missile Project” installation. Watkins has remained the core figure since, working with a changing roster of musicians on a cinematic style that fuses electronic production with global and orchestral elements. The project issued its official debut album, “Transmissions”, in 1993 on NovaMute, with core contributors Mike Maguire, Stephane Holweck and Jens Walderback alongside singers Maria Naylor and Annie Fontaine. Demon Records reissued “Transmissions” on vinyl thirty years after its original release.

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

Genre/Influences: Garage-Punk, Electro, Rockabilly.

Format: Digital, Vinyl.

Background/Info: This album brings us back to the early 80s. The Flowerpot Men were a British group driven by Adam Peters (once involved with Echo & The Bunnymen next to other bands) and Ben Watkins (Juno Reactor). They released several maxi’s in the 80s, the first one (cf. “Jo’s So Mean”) was even produced by Steven Severin (Siouxsie & The Banshees). “1984” is a kind of retrospective featuring songs taken from different EP’s released between 1984 and 1988.

Content: The music takes off an Electro-Industrial style reminding me to Suicide; solid bass line mixed with electronics and guitar power. Quite progressively the work appears to be a true melting pot between different influences. From Garage-Punk to Rockabilly to Electronics to Post-Punk the sound clearly revealed a ‘no compromises’ attitude.

+ + + : This work is a great opportunity to get back -and for some even discover, to what Ben Watkins was dealing with before his great Juno Reactor odyssey. You’ll recognize his unique bass lines but the work also reveals a band which was clearly inspired by their time which means Post-Punk music. They simply mixed all elements together obtaining a versatile but enjoyable work. The opening piece “Jo’s So Mean To Josephine” is a great piece of music; kind of sonic anarchy reminding the one and only Suicide. There’s also something to say about “Alligator Bait” which moves into Garage-Punk influences with an extra Psychedelic touch on top. “Watching The Pharaohs” reminds me of the B52’s. and if you’re into Rockabilly you for sure are going to like “Walk On Gilded Splinters”.

– – – : The work is pretty diversified, maybe a bit too varied as there’s a huge difference between the songs.

Conclusion: The Flowerpot Men sounds eclectic but definitely underground-like. It sounds like pure nostalgia bringing me back to the teenager I was in 1984.

Best songs: “Jo’s So Mean To Josephine”, “Alligator Bait”, “Watching The Pharaohs”, “Walk On Gilded Splinters”.

Rate: 7½.

Label: www.demonmusicgroup.co.uk / www.facebook.com/DemonMusicGroup

About The Flowerpot Men

The Flowerpot Men were a British group led by Adam Peters, also known for his work with Echo & The Bunnymen, and Ben Watkins, who later founded Juno Reactor. The band released a series of maxi-singles through the 1980s; the first, “Jo’s So Mean”, was produced by Steven Severin of Siouxsie & The Banshees. Their music mixed Garage-Punk, Rockabilly and electronics with a Post-Punk attitude. “1984” collects tracks from the band’s EPs released between 1984 and 1988, released on vinyl and digital formats by Demon Records.

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

Genre/Influences: Ambient-Techno, Cinematic.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: This EP resulted from the common efforts between Michael Kohlbecker (Eternal Basement) and Ben Watkins (Juno Reactor).

Content: The work features 3 songs. With the exception of the second cut which sounds like a wink to Psy-Trance both cuts reveal a strong Cinematic appeal. The tracks have been progressively built up, revealing numerous effects while carried by low sound vibrations.

+ + + : I first of all salute the collaboration between 2 geniuses of the Electro/Trance scene. You clearly will recognize influences from both artists. “Beyond The Black Hole” is the ‘hardest cut from this collaboration and a perfect song for dancefloors. Both Cinematic songs have been meticulously built up and I especially like the final part of “Home” leading to an apotheosis.

– – – : The last song “Memory Vortex” is the single piece that couldn’t totally convince me and serves a bit as an antithesis after the brilliant “Beyond The Black Hole”.

Conclusion: A fascinating collaboration between two artists symbolizing the revival of Blue Room.

Best songs: “Beyond The Black Hole”, “Home”.

Rate: 8.

Artists: www.facebook.com/eternalbasement / www.ben-watkins.com / www.facebook.com/junoreactorofficial

Label: www.blueroomsounds.com / www.facebook.com/BlueRoomSounds

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

In a rather short lapse of time Greek solo-project Metal Disco has released an impressive number of productions. Driven by Werkstatt Recordings label owner -and involved with other music projects like Paradox Obscur, Beatbox Machinery, Resistance Of Independent Music, Hardware Pulse… Kostas Stavropoulos aka ‘Toxic Razor’, the sound of Metal Disco is composed by only hardware equipment. The sound features different influences mixing EBM, Minimal-Electro, Electro-Wave, Electroclash ao. 2021 has been an extremely prolific year for Metal Disco while a new EP has been already released this year. Time for an interview and introduction in the world of this great project. (Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You’re involved with multiple projects so what makes the specificity of Metal Disco in comparison with all others? What kind of sound and production did you have in mind when setting up Metal Disco?

TR: Metal Disco delivers a more darkened electro sound especially in the first releases. What I had in mind when starting this project was having punchy drum rhythms with dirty driven basslines in a kinda more minimal approach with not many instruments/sounds involved.

Q: The way of composing your music is very important and especially the use of hardware equipment! Tell us a bit more about your way of working? And does it mean you have something against software equipment and tools?

TR: Indeed hardware instruments is more fun to work with and play, feels like becoming one with a synth or a drum machine when recording or rehearsing and that is something that I can’t find in the virtual software world. The sound is much more richer and breathes like a living entity unlike the sterile virtual instruments which no matter how good they sound it’s like something’s missing..  sitting in front of a screen making music is not my cup of tea, I have tried it in the past and had absolutely no fun but I don’t have something against software as for other people might work better.

Q: Metal Disco has been very prolific during the past few years. Where does this inspiration come from and what’s the usual way of composing when working on Metal Disco?

TR: Inspiration comes mostly after jamming in the studio, synthesizers can offer a wide palette of sounds and mood, sometimes feels like these waveforms devour me, luring me into their deep endless spiral of synthesis.

When starting a new track I mostly give emphasis and work on the bassline parts along with some basic drum rhythm, from there I try to find a fitting lead/melody and later come back to the drums again in order to build the main groove, fills, changes etc. But once the main idea is set the song drives me by itself until it takes the final shape.

Q: You clearly like to release EP’s while each EP sounds like having a different focus and own influences. Tell us a bit more about the most recent productions and how did you see the project evolving throughout the years?

TR: 2021 was a very busy year with one compilation and 3 EPs released, while also working in the collaboration EP with Incirrina and trying to put together ideas for the next full-length album.

In the “Καμία Εξουσία”-EP I also tried for the first time Greek lyrics in the Metal Disco project since I had the self-titled track sitting for around a decade in my studio, so I thought why not record a few more tracks in Greek.. this how “Καμία Εξουσία”-EP was born.

The recent “Misbehave”-EP delivers a more Electronic sound with groovy basslines and I feel it turned out more melodic than what I expected and had in mind when started composing it.

As for evolving this is something I could say for my other band Paradox Obscur since we always try to explore new paths, but for Metal Disco things are simpler, music is more raw, stripped and direct.

Q: You already mentioned the new EP entitled “In Motion” featuring Incirrina. How did this collaborative work happened and what has been the input of Incirrina?

TR: I have collaborated with many other artists for the Metal Disco project in the past and Irini from Incirrina was also part of the latest full-length album “Sex, Drugs & Hardware”.

Since I was looking for someone to take over the vocals in the new EP I thought Irini would fit great in these new songs and all evolved very naturally.

She has taken over the vocal parts in all songs of the “In Motion”-EP and I think this must be the more melodic work for Metal Disco so far..

Q: I can’t get away from the idea you’re devoted to 80s Electronics. What made the magic of this decade and what are your personal ‘masters’ when it comes to musicians?  And do you have contemporary ‘masters’ or simply musicians/producers you respect for their way of working?

 TR: The 80s was a rather obscure weird era in many aspects but had a great renaissance in the music scenery in various genres It’s impossible to mention all the artists I listen but names like Mylene Farmer, Sandra, Jean-Michel Jarre, Pet Shop Boys, Yello etc are on my top preferences together with some Metal acts like Venom, Bathory, Celtic Frost, Slayer, W.A.S.P. which are not Electronic but evolved and experimented over the years and always has been a great inspiration to my musical ventures.

Concerning the contemporary scene I listen a lot to Electro, Tech-House, Progressive Techno, Trance, EBM, Future-Pop, Synth-Wave, Italo and artists like Motor, Arnaud Rebotini, Black Asteroid, John Dahlbäck, Mind.In.A.Box, Soman, Juno Reactor, Apoptygma Berzerk is always a pleasure to listen their work.

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

Genre/Influences: Cinematic, Trance, Electro, EBM.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: Ben Watkins’ sonic brain child Juno Reactor doesn’t need any further introduction. “Navras” is a song he originally wrote together with Don Davis for the legendary “Matrix Revolutions” and released in 2004 on the “Labyrinth”-album. “Navras” has been now exposed to the remix skills of contemporary artists.

Content: The song has been remixed by Israelian producer Bliss, Slovenian DJ/producer Reaky Reakson and a mysterious, young UK producer System Of The Abyss. The remixes are moving from pure cinematic music without the original power and epic arrangements (Bliss) to a harder remix reminding the original (Reaky Reakson) to a harsher and aggressive remix with some EBM elements on top (System Of The Abyss).

+ + + : In an interview I made with Ben Watkins last year, he said “Navras” is the biggest song he ever wrote. It’s for sure one of the best tracks he has ever written. The original version with its heavy, powerful Epic arrangements still gives me goosebumps. This song hasn’t lost its original magic and  serves as great inspiration for young composers. I’m totally convinced by the remix of Reaky Reakson featuring the essential elements of the original song. System Of The Abyss is an interesting project who accomplished a surprising remix driven by aggressive sequences. Ben Watkins revealed to me who’s hiding behind this project and I can tell you the legacy of Juno Reactor is guaranteed… I also like this EP being released by Blue Room Sounds, which resurrected out of Blue Room Released. That’s really great news!

– – – : I personally regret Ben Watkins didn’t remix “Navras” himself for this EP. The original song remains a brilliant piece of music, transforming the original Juno Reactor style into a Cinematic experience.

Conclusion: This EP sounds a bit like an ode to the genius of Juno Reactor and one of the project’s greatest tracks ever.

Best songs: “Navras – Reaky Reakson Remix”, “Navras – System Of The Abyss Remix”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.ben-watkins.com /  www.facebook.com/junoreactorofficial

Label: www.blueroomsounds.com / www.facebook.com/BlueRoomSounds

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

Over the past 12 months Inferno Sound Diaries‘ Stéphane Froidcoeur selected nearly 750 productions of which 600 also got a review on Side-Line. Some productions have been refused because the style of music didn’t fit, while a lot of reviews are still to be published in 2022.

Stéphane: “I’m really grateful to all labels, bands and promoters considering my work and efforts and I hope they’ll keep on providing me new promos next year. My greatest gratitude and thank goes once again to Rich Bova (NEIKKA RPM) who for years and years now is reading, correcting and improving the reviews. I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude and without Rich I simply would have to stop this job. No need to say I’ve been once again disappointed by a few so-called ‘artists’ and label owners. The attitude and lack of respect shown by those people -luckily a very few number, is just disgusting… but I’m afraid it reflects the world we’re living in… Behind a genius artist is not always hiding a great person…”

2021 has been also a very special year for Stéphane as he celebrated his 30th anniversary of journalism with an impressive series of interviews featuring very different people from this scene. Stéphane : “Big thanks to Séba Dolimont, Suicide Commando, Juno Reactor, Raison D’Être, Jürgen Vanvlasselaer, Rich Bova, Armageddon Dildos and Bernard Van Isacker who kindly accepted to contribute to this celebration.”

Here are the interviews conducted:

• Celebration Interview with Bernard Van Isacker (Side-Line & Alfa Matrix)
• Celebration Interview’ with Uwe Kanka / Armageddon Dildos
• Celebration Interview’ with ‘Music Lover’ Jürgen Vanvlasselaer
• Celebration Interview’ with Rich Bova / Neikka RPM
• Celebration Interview’ with Peter Andersson / Raison D’Être
• Celebration Interview’ with Ben Watkins aka Juno Reactor
• Celebration Interview’ with Johan Van Roy (Suicide Commando)
• Celebration Interview’ with Seba Dolimont (Alfa Matrix)

Like every year Stéphane has made a selection from the best albums of the year. This Top 25 covers different styles like EBM, Dark-Electro, IDM, Synth-Pop, Ethereal, Dark-Ambient, Industrial, Cinematographic, Gothic, Post-Punk, Dark-Techno and a few related genres and is taken from the promotional material we got while compilations, ‘best of’-productions, EP’s and singles were not considered for this ‘best of’.

But now, here are the 25 best albums!

1. Rome – “Parlez-Vous Hate?” – Trisol
2. Circumpolar – “Awaiting The Dawn” – Alfa Matrix
3. Clicks – “Goth” – Dependent Records
4. Of The Wand And The Moon – “Your Love Can’t Hold This Wrath Of Sorrow” – Heidrunar Mykrunar
5. Crystal Geometry – “Distressing Visions” – Sonic Groove
6. Mechanimal – “Θόρυβος” – Inner Ear Records
7. Raison D’être – “Demonum“ – Cyclic Law
8. Zwaremachine – “Conquest 3000” – Phage Tapes
9. Eclipsed – “Holyiens” – Electro Frequent
10. Nattskiftet – “Stamplar In” – Progress Productions
11. Nnhmn – “Deception Island 2” – Zoharum
12. This Morn’omina – “The Roots Of Saraswati” – Dependent Records
13. Skrika – “Fifth Nature” – Cryo Chamber
14. Llumen – “Polygon Heart” – Alfa Matrix
15. Not My God – “Simulacra” – Metropolis
16. Seasurfer – “Metropolis” – Reptile Music
17. Ps Stamps Back – “Au Bout De La Nuit” – Ant-Zen
18. The Illusion Of Silence – “Gardens In The Dark” – Shadowplay
19. She Spread Sorrow – “Huntress” – Cold Spring Records
20. Blutengel – “Fountain Of Destiny” – Out Of Line
21. Agonoize – “Revelation Six Six Sick” – Reporecords
22. The Force Dimension – “Mortal Cable” – Sonic Groove Experiments
23. Cubic – “The Cubic Alphabet” – Alfa Matrix
24. Pyrroline – “Struggling” – Electro Aggression Records
25. Beckahesten – “Tydor” – Cyclic Law

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.

www.side-line.com

Metropolis Records was set up in 1994 by Dave Heckman. In no time the American label became a truly reference when it comes to Electronic and Industrial music. The label licensed –and still does, European productions, but also signed new artists. Among the Metropolis roster you’ll find bands as VNV Nation, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Wumpsuct, Project Pitchfork, Juno Reactor, Assemblage 23, The Birthday Massacre, KMFDM, Numb, Haujobb, Leather Strip, Apoptygma Berzerk, Velvet Acid Christ, God Module, Covenant, Informatik and many, many more

(Stéphane Froidcoeur / Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Was there a kind of ‘philosophy’ when you set up your label and did it evolve over the years? How would you define your label activities today?

Dave: No philosophy per se. It was just something I wanted to do for a living, so I needed to go about things in a very professional manner and always stay focused on that goal.

I am going to presume you mean label activities as compared to my activities at the label, although I will go into both.

The first step is to find the talent and that has always been my job. I am the owner and the A&R guy. Then, of course, a deal needs to be worked out and again that has always been my job too.

After a deal is done, we have to assemble the assets for the release such as artwork, photos, masters, videos, and publishing information. This is all needed to setup the releases with our worldwide distributors and to manufacture the albums themselves.

Then comes promotion. Retail, club, radio, video, press, touring, social media, etc. A lot of this is done internally, but sometimes we hire outside companies, particularly for video, radio, press, and booking tours.

Finally, the royalty statements need to be processed and payments made. A tedious and important part of the business.

So, believe it or not, as much as the industry has changed, the setup and promotion is really quite similar to what it was years ago. The revenue just comes from different sources.

Q: I can imagine you must have specific and explicit criteria to sign an artist/band. Can you give us more details about this aspect and how important is it for you to know the person(s) hiding behind the ‘artist(s)’?

Dave: Not really. In general, I sign bands I like and there is no particular sound I am looking for. I cannot really tell you why I liked Numb or Project Pitchfork, I just did. When it comes to art, whether music, film, or paintings I cannot tell you why I like what I do. In some way it has to move me.

That said, I do have a tendency to like or lean towards things dark, edgy, and innovative. Some of the bands that I was interested in were never signed, because we could not come to an agreement. Sometimes the bands had higher expectations than I did and the advance they wanted was too large or we had different ideas on promotional aspects of a campaign.

Metropolis has released over 1200 albums with over 200 different artists, so I did not get to meet and know everyone. In the beginning I just licensed from a few European labels like Zoth Ommog, KK Records and Hyperium. So, my relationships were with my licensing partners. However, as things progressed and we brought the bands over to tour and I went overseas to festivals and conferences and finally met these artists, my relationships with them developed. Always liked to travel and visit the artists where they lived and liked hanging out with them during and after shows. As we got to know each other better it just made everything smoother.

Q: You are already active for numerous years now so you must have seen a lot of things changing and evolving; think about social media, streaming platforms, Youtube channels… but also economic crisis etc. What are the pros and cons of these changes/evolutions and in, which way did you had to adapt/change your strategy and activities?

Dave: The biggest change was the death of retail record stores. That was how I started consuming music as a 10 year old kid. I mean I just did not go there to buy music, but to discover it. The cool stores played cool music and I also would just go through the record bins to find something new that caught my eye. Retail was still a force in music in the 90’s, but went really downhill after 2002 or so. As I mentioned above, retail promotion was important, but now it is almost gone.

So, of course digital comes along and I knew tons of artists and labels that were vehemently opposed to the format. Don’t get me wrong I thought 128 bit rate MP3 played on a computer sucked compared to a Compact Disc on a good stereo system. However, that is the way people wanted to consume, so we sold digital downloads.

At present, hardly anyone buys downloads and streaming revenue is going through the roof. Of course, I have artists complaining about this. More arguments / discussions with artists about streaming than any other industry issue, but it has saved the industry not destroyed it. Illegal downloads and CD burning where the real culprits.

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime, Deezer, Pandora are great platforms. However, YouTube sucks. They pay a fraction of what everyone else does, but people are complaining about Spotify instead of them. That I do not understand.

The bottom line is to adapt fast to a changing industry.

The benefit of the digital world is the massive savings on manufacturing, storage, and shipping, which of course is also good for the environment.

As far as the economic downturn, we go through these all the time and readjust.

Q: The ongoing pandemic has affected all artistic life and activities so what’s the true impact on your label activities and do you think it will also affect your long term objectives?

Dave: The pandemic has hurt the industry considerably. We had a dozen tours lined up for last spring including Lords Of Acid, Clan Of Xymox, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly, The Birthday Massacre, and many more. All cancelled and the bands lost money to varying degrees. However, the recorded music industry saw their revenue grow since almost everything is digital or online even including physical sales. In the long run and this intermediate period, nothing will change much, people will go back to their old habits for the most part.

Q: Do you think media (magazines, online platforms etc…) still have an impact and a role to play today? What’s your relationship with ‘journalists’ and how important is their work?

Dave: Yes, that medium is still important. All promotional activity counts. You have to spread the word around wherever you can. However, I really cannot comment on my relationship with the journalists as I never really had one. I am talking about me, not the label. Publicity and press is one of the few things I have always delegated to someone else.

Q: What do you consider as your biggest accomplishment(s)? Do you have specific goals/dreams you want to achieve and how do you prepare and see the future of the label(s)? And what are your biggest regret(s)?

Dave: Even though I eventually worked with some big names in the industry what I liked most was taking bands that were once small and introduce them to the scene, promoting them and then selling reasonable amounts of records for them. Covenant, Haujobb, Velvet Acid Christ, Wumpscut, Combichrist, Apoptygma Berzerk, And One, Assemblage 23 were all selling just a couple thousand copies and eventually sold 20,000 to 50,000 albums in North America alone. These are good numbers for alternative music. VNV Nation sold even much more than that. Just to put it in perspective only one in a hundred artists sold over 10,000 copies back then no matter what the genre.

I have met my goals. As I mentioned I wanted to do this for a living and I did. Also, Metropolis has a good brand name and I got to meet a lot of great artists who are now my friends. I wish I could have pushed the boundaries more and could have done more outside the Goth / Industrial genre. However, that did not work out that well except with the a few bands like Mindless Self Indulgence and Electric Six.

I am content with the label’s accomplishments. The label is 27 years old and I was well into my thirties when I started in the music business. So, we will continue to do what we do and improve where we can, remembering that adopting to change is important.

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

Back in 1991 I started writing my first reviews for Side-Line magazine. I would have never thought to go on writing reviews and making interviews non-stop for 30 years. So 2021 is a special year to me, a kind of ‘celebration year’. I got the idea to celebrate this special event by interviewing people from the scene who all have a special meaning to me. ‘Journalists’ have to remain neutral, but it doesn’t take a way we all have our own favorite artists. Juno Reactor is one of my all-time favorites. Instigator Ben Watkins is an artist who each time again takes me by surprise. His work is mixing influences like Psy-Trance, Tribal and Cinematographic music. The Juno Reactor sound has something special featuring elements you directly recognize; a true sound-DNA. I already got the opportunity to interview Ben Watkins before, but I’ve been deeply touched he accepted to answer questions for this special interview. Great artists aren’t only composing great music; they’re still accessible and humble persons. I’d an endless number of questions to ask. Ben took his time to answer and it finally resulted in one of the most informative and complete Juno Reactor interviews ever. Thanks Ben and respect!

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

‘I Was Smitten By Girls And Rock’

Q: What have been your first experiments as a musician? What have been the triggers and, which were your favorite bands as a teenager? 

Ben: I was born into a family of five kids, I was the second, my parents had both been actor’s. When I was between 5 and 6 years old I would wait for my brother in my classroom to finish his school -I would have about an hour, so about 10 of us kids and a teacher would do drawing, games etc. One day I suggested we do a “Top Of The Pops” (a popular TV show); I formed a band with air-minus-everything, sat my mate Jason down on drums as he had the biggest nose like Ringo Star, can’t remember the others; we would make what surely was a cacophony of made-up words and stamping to the beat. “She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah” must have rung out beyond the classroom as the headmaster, a demonstrative man, with a liking for beating kids with his sports shoe would appear at the window looking very irritated. As it was not the first time I had had the unwarranted shoe across my backside, a shiver would go down my back as his eyes and Hitler moustache bobbed above the door partition. 

These pleasant heady afternoons were soon banned due to the repetition of “She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah”. I noticed the rather large female teacher was pretty good at the piano, So I asked if I could have lessons, even her non-stop smoking didn’t not put me off. 

The headmaster had too much of a liking for giving me a sore ass, so I asked my parents if I could move school. I had joined the parish choir, the choirmaster was a man named Roy Massey. Roy Massey was cool and pushed me as he liked my voice. He suggested I go to a Cathedral Choir school and apply for a scholarship. 

First I went to audition at St Pauls Cathedral in London. It was a bleak audition, I didn’t prepare enough, and glad I escaped what reminded me of a Charles Dickens movie. Next was Chichester. I could breathe in this atmosphere, I passed the audition of 200 kids for one place and felt very puffed up with myself, knowing my parents didn’t have to pay for my education. 

Violin followed, along with daily practise -7 am wake up, 30 minutes piano or violin practise. 8 am breakfast, 8:30 practise piano violin, 9 am going to the classroom, 12:00 choir practise, lunch then school, sports, choir practise, choir service, dinner, do homework, play free games, practise then bed. This went on for 4 years along with a new disciplinary teacher who equally enjoyed punishment -this time a cane, up the wide massive stairs of the bishops palace, down a long dark corridor, knock, explain my crime, ‘Ben-d over Watkins’, a leather chair which when bent over lifted my behind into the perfect position. 6 whacks later, my hands firmly on my butt, dark bruises would appear later in the night. I had been born again to the boy I should have been in the first place. 

Music school and punishment always seemed interlinked. Even now it annoys me that the first headmaster refused to put my name on the scholarship board, what a cunt. His name was Mr. Sandford.

 I survived Chichester, I became the head of House, by this time I was no longer beaten, and had a champion in Mr. Ross, the disciplinary teacher, sports freak alto in the choir with a certain eye for pubescent males. I was good at winning in Rugby, as we had the biggest 13-year-old god or whoever made him, like a superhero he would destroy other schools and me riding on his coattails basked in his glory. Mr. Ross showed me how to take down a man, so we did with as much aggression as possible when he joined in. 

I left Chichester, a remnant from the stone age of how not to teach a dyslexic kid like me through corporal punishment on how to learn -I didn’t. My choirmaster at Chichester I must say was equally odd, looking like Eric Malcombe (a British comedian). He again had a draconian delight in making sure the boys of the choir feared him, his eyes would hover over you like the follow spots of a prison camp from high above us in the organ loft. He had two mirrors focused on us, and if you looked up, the Vampire of Bela Lugosi would be there. I can’t say I cried when he died a few years ago, as I still hold a dagger that was thrown too many times my way. 

So Wells Cathedral school was next, my introduction to the female sex… well, bye bye learning, OK practise the violin, do all the rest, then focus on bands, Led Zep, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Alice Cooper, Queen, glam rock. I was smitten by girls and rock. My mate Simon Baggs was older and had a car, we would venture out of the school across to Glastonbury plateaus, a labyrinthian set of roads through old mash lands, country pubs to drink cider, smoke John Players Special fags, and listen to his 8 tracks (?) as the beams of his car entered the mists of the backcountry lanes. Alice Cooper’s “Love It To Death” album never sounded so sweet. I continued exploring musical possibilities by experimenting with my first band Spiritual Sky, influenced by David Bowie, whose concerts was the first I went to, the Aladdin Sane tour at the Earls Court Stadium.

‘I Was Listening To D.A.F. And I Realised This Is The Future’

Q: Hailing from London (UK) I can imagine the late 70s and 80s have been fascinating years when it comes to music and the (r)evolution of Electronic music. What did these years mean to you and do you still feel an impact today? 

Ben: I left school when I was 16/17 with the intent of going to a music college. At that time I played classical guitar, and would practise 8 hours a day, and got quite OK on it. I flunked the first audition as I didn’t present a second instrument. This depressing point changed the course of my life, I was so annoyed by myself, I stopped playing classical guitar and got more into songs of Dylan and people like John Martin. Smoked a ton of dope, started busking, went off to Paris with a semi pyscho guy called Lynn, a man with an addiction to Valium and a crushing right hand as a rhythm guitarist, and spent the summer playing on the streets of Saint Michelle and the Champs Elysée. After months of being arrested (and sometimes put into prison -the police were quite nice and would give me beers to play) I had had enough. I wanted to form a band! Due to my parents lengthily separation and all the conflicts attached to it, starting since I was 9, and final divorce shortly after my return home from Paris, life diverted and I ended up establishing a rehearsal room in the now deserted parental house, where I and my older brother would continue living alone, experiencing the newly found peace and evolving musical projects while rehearsing with my first band Panther. I started gigging, Punk-Rock was kicking off! I was playing, now with my band Rainstorm, the same pubs as the Sex Pistols, Japan, The Stranglers amongst others, we did a tour withThe Frankie Miller Band. A Glasgow singer that should have been born in Memphis -a great singer, wild and very much a Glaswegian. Back then I was booking shows from a red phone box -coins every 30 seconds. Rainstorm turning into I.O.U., we played pretty much every music pub in the country. I really wish I’d kept my bass player from I.O.U. for my next musical project, a guy named Ian Taylor, who I had a natural affinity with.

I was bored of being skint and driving up and down the country for 2 years in our Box Transit with 6 aircraft seats, a PA we had on HP (higher purchase/credit) and going nowhere, fun but nowhere. One time we had to be rescued by the police near Shropshire in Winter, heavy snow blocked the roads at midnight, and the Transit was stranded and being snowed in, the guitarist, also called Ben, had icicles forming on his moustache. I remember crossing fields alone to find a house, first one wouldn’t help us, onto another who did ring the rescue, six of us stuff into a police car -never felt so good.

I partnered up with some musicians an A&R man from CBS suggested. The A&R man was a guy called Chas de Whalley, the brother of a friend of mine from back in the days of the headmaster with a penchant for corporal punishment. We, The Hitmen, went on to be signed to CBS after a year of rehearsals and songs that sounded like a primitive AI had made for a pop audience. Much to the chagrin of CBS, the management and the band, we were incredibly unsuccessful despite all the money and machinery CBS provide. I hated it, the mentality of playing the same notes, in-jokes and seriously underwhelming emotions. I had to leave as I couldn’t stomach The Hitmen any more, the characters in the band were the antithesis of my mental state or desire. Luckily the second album decided to shoot itself in the head, due to too much fighting, no focus and CBS’s realisation The Hitmen were doomed.  

Phil Manzanero’s studio (the guitarist of Roxy Music) was a white circular house -I had never seen anything like it! The engineer was a guy called Ian Little. We had made the last Hitmen record there, and I got on with him well. We talked nearly the same language, as opposed to the disconnect with the band. He wanted to make an avant-garde album, free of doctrine -just do what you want. So for a few tracks I threw away all concern and I was to be David Bowie, imagining myself on an alternative “Lodger”-album. Nothing was written, all just improvised. The band was called New Asia… This set my brain off into new ways of writing, like Brian Eno, as studios were expensive and this gave me a chance to experiment. 

So in the ’70s and ’80s it felt like I was always playing catch up with what other people were doing. I had had the band signed to CBS – it sounded like another band (Elvis Costello mix), or my previous bands -we didn’t sound particularly individual. It was only when I was sick enough of all the ego’s, bullshit or the hatred that you got from possibly jealous band members, that when I got introduced to a drum machine and a sequencer I realised I could get rid of half the band. I was listening to D.A.F. -it was a two-piece and I realised this is the future.

I met Youth (the bass player of Killing Joke) in ’82, around the time when he had just left Killing Joke and was looking to start a new band, which became Brilliant. I was the only guy he knew with a sequencer so for a short time I joined. Toured UK and Spain. We went on to record under the Name The Youth & Ben Watkins on the “The Empty Quarter”-album and “The Empty Quarter” on the “Delirium” album. Both albums were extremely quick in making;  first album -the official soundtrack to Jonathan Moore’s stage play “Street Captives” -2 days. Written, recorded and mixed with predominantly pulsating bass lines, drums, early Greengate samplers and synthesizers. Second album -5 days. We recorded “Delirium”, focusing more on rhythms and Electronic elements with still some instrumental aspect, ranging from Tribal to Industrial to Gothic-Funk. So many funny stories with Youth -the time in Spain on the evacuation of the tour, as it all fell apart after Barcelona; we took all our equipment back on the train, decided to eat all of our dope before the French border. By the time we arrived at midnight, the French border police wanted to play games with this group of English stoners. ‘Who is this woman’ they said, referring to a passport. We all looked and couldn’t identify her? ‘Go find her…’ so we all went looking on the train platform, bewildered and laughing, about an hour later we returned to their pigeon hole and asked to look again, as no way was she still on the platform. Upon second look we realised it was me they were referring to… Ha. Ha.

I heard DAF and Suicide around this time, I was saved! This music spoke to me. My grandmother died and left me 200£ which I immediately spent on a Roland MC 202, a sequencer with one monophonic synth. On HP I bought a cheap drum machine and a Moog Rogue. I formed The Flowerpot Men with Adam Peters, a classical cellist, who later became Echo And The Bunnymen’s orchestrator. 

 Our first single sold well for an underground track. We toured with Dead Or Alive and Siouxsie And The Banshees. Steven Severin of the Banshee’s produced the first “Single Joe’s So Mean to Josephine”, a dark murderous story I had read in the papers. The police knew who had killed the woman in bed, but couldn’t work out how Joe had managed to tie himself up. For the track I expanded on the story a bit. The 202 was driving this with the added influences of T.Rex, sort of a suicide inspired track. It charted in the indie charts and you could hear it being played by John Peel on BBC Radio 1 and loads of underground Gothic Dj’s. “Jo’s So Mean (to Josephine)” was also on our own independent record label, Compost Records.

In 1985 we recorded a cover of Dr Johns “Walk On Gilded Splinters” with Dr John on guest vocals, at Run DMC’s Studio In Nostrand Ave, Brooklyn NY. The B side featured a track called “Melting Down On Motor Angel” which was an elongation of the new drug MDMA, which we sampled on a roof garden on 8th Street watching a shoot-out down below. “Melting Down On Motor Angel” was also the album title to Sunsonic’s only album.

Around this time also, Sigue Sigue Sputnik started turning up to our gigs in full dress, noting down all we were doing, later to make their own version of our madness. A single a year, then along came Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986 completely out of the blue.

Another EP “Alligator Bait”, four songs inspired again by the time in New York… what wasn’t great about New York at that time? So much vibe, parties, gigs, the Danceteria, hanging out with artists, musicians, actors, painters, just walking down the street was like being in a Kojak episode, I loved it!

We were building a nice audience when Adam decided to go produce a Punk band in Denmark instead of headlining the Temple of Gothic achievement -the Camden Palace. The Flowerpot Men were no more.

 Yello had come into my life with the “80 – 85”-remix album, it never left the record player, Sonic Youth, Front 242, most of the Mute Records catalogue, Beggars Banquet label, ZTT were making records I could only dream of creating…

So rethink time, 9 months of thinking, writing; rave music came in 86/87, early parties hanging out with KLF in their squat. Sometimes engineering their remixes, or going on the highland adventures with the KLF, making a copy of “The Wicker Man” for all KLF’s licencees, flown onto a small island on the Western Isles (the same place they burnt a million pounds in the name of art and cocaine), so like a twat, as again I was skint I did the opposite of good, and tried and succeed in going and signing with another major label, this time Polydor Records and with my Flowerpot partner, I started Sunsonic. Part of the deal was they build us a studio to save on costs, so what seemed a cool idea -and was in some ways -was us investing into learning how (and not) to become an engineer, an album that should have taken a few months turned into two years and sounded like it: over thought under inspired.

I worked with Alex Paterson (The Orb) again and formed a short-lived band called Peace In The Middle East, same name as the track we created, a sort of goodwill floppy dance sounding workout, nothing special.

 When there was so much great quick music being made we were in creative limbo. So the impact changed. Find a new way to present a band, no longer did I want the ego of one partner, I wanted a collective or collaborators and keep the vibe and atmosphere good and exciting. 

Adam left for the USA, I stayed and started Juno Reactor.

‘Juno Reactor Was Set Up As An Art Collective’

Q: I think Juno Reactor was originally set up as an art collective/gallery, right? Who was involved? What was it all about and how did it finally become a music collective centred around you? 

Ben:  Juno Reactor was set up as an art collective, with writers, installation artists, filmmakers, etc. Norma Fetcher, my girlfriend, took a surface to air missile and we drove it around London down past Parliament Square, Big Ben, Whitehall on a flatbed truck, with armoured personal carriers front and back whilst dressed as Arabs -an anti Gulf War protest, and installed it into an art Gallery, the Diorama, that was owned by the Queen and had a perfect silo shape in the middle where the rocket was newly erected. For this, I wrote “Luciana” -really Juno Reactor’s first album, which was also a suggestion of Jimmy Cauty (KLF) that I should do an hour mix as he had just done, as an experiment. The trouble with art was funding and much easier for me to get musical backing so it folded as soon as it began. Although R&S Records did sponsor that show as I had released a track called “I Love You” under the name of Electrotete with future JR musician Stephan Holweck (who later became Total Eclipse), a crazy French guy and brilliant bass player who also lived in the Benio squat with Jimmy.

The main people in the first two Juno Reactor albums were: Mike Maquire, a great guy I met at the distribution company Greyhound, when releasing a self-released title “Pycho SlapHead”, a brutal rave track with a sense of murderous humour. Mike was great, he had been in India many times and loved the early scene where DJ’s were already playing my tracks. I had to find out more, so we went into my studio in Bowl Court and Mike turned me on to the current sound of India. As it was so close to my Electronic sound it was an easy hop onto a train – Sci-Fi Landscapes, my 202 still purring like a train, we made the track “High Energy Protons”. Mike took it to India and immediately it became a big track there and abroad: Japan, Greece, France, Germany and UK. Tracks kept on hoping out in two or three days, with Stephan Holweck and Mike and soon we had about nine or ten tracks, so I took them up to Mute Records, intending to only perhaps sell one track. They loved it and wanted the album!

No one knew what this music was, so they called it intelligent Techno, albums were selling, gigs were happening, I was feeling more comfortable about the debts of Sunsonic being paid off. 

‘For Me It Was A Sci-Fi Scene For Acid Party People’

Q: The singles “Laughing Gas” and “High Energy Protons” plus the debut album “Transmissions” (1993) were into Goa-Trance. Back in time this genre was something totally new and often introduced as ‘Electronics for hippies’. What did you keep in mind from this album and how did you see the Goa-Trance movement evolving? 

Ben: Well, I never saw it as music for hippies -for me it was a Sci-fi scene for acid party people, hippies were still listening to Dylan in my mind. I had come from the Industrial-Rock routes, with heavy sense or brutal Electronica, which was also being played out in India, so for me, it was not much of a diversion, more like an extension of what I had already been doing. So I hooked up with Mike and Johann Bley, a great writer and drummer, who lived in Goa for 6 months of the year whilst I stayed in the UK and carried on writing tracks. Youth by this time was also indulging in holidays out there. It was a great way to write with no commercial interest, and just get what was great feedback from India and the parties. Essentially it was a very positive way of producing after what was a rather grim time whilst with Sunsonic. 

“Transmissions” was the first real beginning of something special, Mike Maguire – Stephan Holweck – Johann Bley even Turnip the Swede Jens Walderbeck, had an important part to play in the new playground. Mike and Johann would go to Goa and live there for 6 months of the year, send feedback on tracks, that even in these days of fire hilltop communication, managed to pass on the vibe of the parties, as I worked on new tracks to send out, or wait for their return. I had no idea of the lazy days on the beaches, rented houses year round, with cleaners and cooks, small or large jungle parties where monkeys would be interactive with the monkeys our tracks (“Jungle High”) -I have sampled a lot of monkey sounds.

These new Cyber-Punks would network in the blessed out Goa sun, to return to their homelands, far away from paradise and the free love of this un-celebrated underground unknown music, their generation accepting of all ages, colours race. Would telegraph their passion, create parties in on hidden mountains in Japan, sex clubs in L.A, warehouse London, gymnasiums in Paris, disused airports in Germany, Outback volcanos in Australia. We were invisible to the industry of wannabe stars and bankrupt music.

This kinetic energy of knowing you were onto something new was the drug, like a secret society that anyone could join, if you had digested the shared psychedelic values.

Our new world was fresh, driven, invited around the world, “Transmissions” was transmitting on a global level, that music magazines and house DJs couldn’t fathom.

 The studio building was from the time of Jack the Ripper, a 3 story warehouse used for  god knows what, the atmosphere had not left it, along with some of the rather back street people you might expect in that area of London. Prostitutes would use the car park at the back, working their trade. Sometime city guys in suits would be aggressive and attack the women, so we kept a baseball bat by the door and if we heard their screams we would run out in the name of protection.

Q: Your next album “Luciana” (1994) was something totally different and not exactly the most familiar album from your discography. But I think there’re a few interesting things to say about this work; it revealed your interest in Soundtracks while it got released on Alex Paterson’s (The Orb) own label Inter-Modo. What brought you to write this album and how did you get in touch with Alex Paterson? 

Ben: This goes back to the Missile Project and the involvement in installation art. Alex (THE ORB) heard the album and loved it, he said ‘Can I release it?’, why not I thought, so I spent an afternoon with Alex in the studio, he added some elements over the stereo track and that became the album. I met Alex in 1986, as he is Youth oldest and best friend, an ex roadie of Killing Joke with an amazing record collection, a massive ability to smoke more than London can produce and speak in a way you need a hearing aid to listen. 

Q: I’ve always linked Juno Reactor with solid bass lines and transcendental drums. “Beyond The Infinite” (1995) perfectly symbolizes these elements, but also your interest to explore new ideas like Tribal drums. What did this work say about your perception of ‘sound’ and eventually your passion for drums? 

Ben: “Beyond The Infinite”, by this time Mute and cool London were not fans of Goa or Trance anymore, and decided to call it ‘Tarquin Techno’ in the media, because of the image that rich kids were behind the scene, which -looking at myself, was obviously bollocks, but in Goa there certainly were a few, and maybe the other scenes sensing danger, ridiculed it. They were about to steal the name of trance. Paul Oakenfold(like ‘Sique Sique Sputnick’) was hanging out at parties, listening, collecting ideas and tracks, the house was moving to Trance. Clever, to take this and add all the crap vocals and sell it off to the sheep… Their power and media savvy then became ‘Trance’. Not sure what our scene was, Psychedelic-Trance? Along come all these pigeon holes. Name it, sell it. We didn’t give a shit and stayed as far away from the cliché as possible. Mike was so great at this time, he had the best tunes of anyone, and was in great demand as an international DJ, from the USA to Japan and sometimes we would join him as a live three-piece. Brilliant days, we were a family. 

Q: I think you’re an artist with a very unique sound DNA! What I’m trying to say is that I instantly can recognize your work by the bass lines, the orchestral arrangements, the hypnotic drum sections… What makes this DNA and where does it come from? 

Ben: I have no idea. Like all musicians, I have collected and been inspired by what I needed and wanted. I love all types of music, still do, these DNA strands are unique, the hard part is how to lay them out for others to share and enjoy. I wanted to be a photographer when very young, my dad said it was too expensive, so film, TV, pictures, music all collided and formed whatever I am in my tastes for music.

‘I Decided To Become More Grounded In Earthly Sounds From The Percussion’

Q: It’s impossible not evoking “Bible Of Dreams” (1997), which revealed new ideas and collaborations. I consider this work as your magnum opus, which even today hasn’t lost its original magic. How do you look back at this work 24 years later and are there some aspects of the production you would do differently? 

Ben:  So the time of “Bible Of Dreams” came along. Robert Trunz, CEO of MELT2000 -the umbrella company which ran Blue Room, and Simon Ghahary, the managing director of Blue Room -a sub-label based in the UK specialising in Electronic music, had signed Juno Reactor to Blue Room/Melt 2000 for “Beyond The Infinite”, as Mute didn’t want it. Robert was a jazz freak, and he got me involved in his great love for African music. Robert and Simon were different, business was easy, as Robert was pretty loaded and loved to invest in his artists. He took over my shabby warehouse studio, put in a massive Raindurk Symphony Desk, massive monitors that would be anyone’s wet dream, 9 bass drivers aside, they blew the roof off. He took over landlord costs, God I was free of all these costs, and could make music without the fear of losing it all.  

I had been introduced to the African musicians on Melt 2000. All the scene was doing was still making chemical noises, and stick in an alien landscape for the acid heads. Although this is enjoyable, it became very repetitive. So I decided to become more grounded in earthly sounds from the percussion. The only percussionists I had been introduced to before Amampondo were generally white guys, flipping away on drums in a sloppy-sloppy fashion, or German-style timpani military way which I had found pretty useless and saw no advantage in it on a track. So my mind was blown away by Mabi -power, rhythmic complexity, fun, tradition, amazing rhythms that propelled the track! My eyes were opened and I felt stupid I had not seen what so many others had -say for example my favourite drummer Ginger Baker -why hadn’t I noticed African drumming that years before? Anyway, I was now awake to its potential in my world of cross over, not interested in world music in its pure form and wanted to create a fusion with electronic music and see what comes out. 

Working with Mabi was so instinctive, we both saw tracks in the same way as pictures and thoughts, I literally fell over him in a music studio corridor where he was asleep on the floor when I was producing a Zulu Band for Melt 2000 in South Africa. We got talking and I invited him and Amampondo to play all the percussion, so in a way, our future was laid out there.

I felt I knew what I was doing, none of my UK band wanted to tour the USA with Moby for just 30 minutes a night, so I called Mabi and Amampondo , did a few rehearsals and off on tour! This moment diverted the future of the project for the next 12 years where I would tour with Amampondo.

 “God Is God” could finally be added to a Juno Reactor album, as now JUNO RREACTOR was more interested in the earth sounds, leaving sci-fi behind. “God Is God” was written around the end of “Transmissions”, needed a better mix, but was ready. The album fell into place so easily. 

I wouldn’t touch “Bible Of Dreams” as it is a record of where I was musically at the time. I firmly believe people walk on our path for a reason, be it for a short or long period. How we interact with them is up to us. Some people unexpectedly turn out to be far more important than you could ever have imagined. Some you will love until you die, while other return to the mist of being.

Q: I read somewhere that after “Bible Of Dreams” you got the feeling to be done with Electronic music. What was it all about? Was it a kind of exhaustion or blank page syndrome?

Ben: It happens a lot to me, especially with Electronic music. Far too many people seem to be happy to create a platform. Be it Trance, Techno, Ambient, Drum’n’Bass, Bass music, whatever. It gets like an L.A motorway full of polluting gases all sounding the same. So I go left, maybe my mistake there, but as I am totally useless at being commercial, I prefer my way. And hope others enjoy it.

‘The Track Was Built Around My Love For Tarantino And Westerns, Clint Eastwood And “Once Upon A Time In The West”’

Q: The opening song “Pistolero” from the “Shango”-album (2000) probably became your biggest hit ever. It sounds differently because of this guitar play and yet it remains 100% Juno Reactor! I remember my reaction when I heard it for the very first time: ‘this guy is crazy’! Was this song a kind of antithesis to all what you’ve done before? And how did you imagine the future of the project right at the new millennium? 

Ben: On tour I met up with Steve Stevens. After speaking with him on the phone about the recent Traci Lords album that I produced, I invited him to play on a show in L.A, a great venue, like an old-fashioned sports hall with a running track above. Now, I think how freaked out he must have been, as I patched him into my desk, he would play, and I would cut him off at random, he kept on looking over as if to say ‘WHAT THE FUCK?!’, he must have thought I was crazy, he didn’t complain but you don’t do this to a Rock Legend. Anyway, we got on, he asked me to produce a track for his album – yep, “Pistolero”.

Steve wasn’t used to my regime of endless hours in the studio and I think after six days his eyes were somewhere down near his guitar swaying hips, exhausted he returned to the USA. He wasn’t that impressed, so I agreed to pay his costs, and I would release it. I worked on it a ton more, and out popped the track we know.

The track was built around my love for Tarantino and Westerns, Clint Eastwood and “Once Upon A Time In The West”. When it was released I named it the “Tarantino Radio Edit”. Quentin loved it and Robert Rodriguez and Tarantino then wrote “Once Upon A Time In Mexico” after being inspired by my “Pistolero” track, which they credited in the CD booklet.

Currently, I’m working on the new album, Steve Stevens, Sugizo and Amir Haddad will hopefully all on the same track.

Working with Amampondo was a dream, we never argued, just laughed a lot, after having lived in each other’s pockets on tour we got on well. I learnt more from them than they did of me. Their sense of rhythm, spontaneity, improvisation, the humour of dance, the humour of anything. We would do shows, stop the machines and go into full-on Tribal rhythms, songs of the Pondo’s. Every night was different. Mandla and Simpewe would perform acrobatics when we played “Feel The Universe”, crowds loved this, even though injuries happened, the next night they would do it again. I carried on working with them for 12 years until it became impossible to bring them from South Africa due to rising costs and falling promoters budgets. 

I should add that Traci Lords was also very cool to work with, and had several enjoyable sessions with her, which led to a top 5 USA billboard track titled “Control” and a number of movie syncs from these sessions.

‘“Matrix” Was Like Being Shot And Landing In Heaven With A Ticket Back To Earth’

Q: Your songs got more and more featured in movies and you wrote different songs for Soundtracks. I can imagine the “Matrix”-experiences must have been a kind of ultimate dream and accomplishment? But what has been the impact of all these experiences –and more especially “The Matrix”, on your career?

Ben: I love films, first of all, so for it to combine with my music is a dream job no matter what the film is. I will score a bug on a wall, and still enjoy it. “Matrix” was like being shot and landing in heaven with a ticket back to earth. After the initial meeting with the Wachowski’s I had to smash nails into my boots to keep me from flying off to the stars. Reality hit in a good way and was the toughest discipline mixed with the excitement of being able to please the directors and myself. What do I take away from it? A sense of achievement that I did something very special. I still get composers coming up to me and saying it is a landmark film for integration of Electronics and orchestra which is what the Wachowski’s wanted. It helped me believe in my writing al lot more, although confidence is like the wind, some days you have it others not.

The daily routine of waking up in heaven is not always as easy as it sounds, as even in my camp I would experience jealousy, I had brought with me a programmer (Stephan Holweck) an engineer (Greg Hunter) Singer (Taz) Stephan more turned into a cook and this frustrated his, as he wanted to be more involved, but the way out worked out there was no real room for him. Greg brought in his friend, which added to the annoyance of Greg; Greg would come in and say as I was working on “The Burly Brawl”, ‘that is a load of crap’ in-front of his friend as a light heated joke, which they all found very funny, I took Greg outside and suggested he return back to London as he wasn’t on my team, either buck up or go home. I should have sacked Greg as he would do things like after a mix was finished, he wanted to polish it more, so first time I agreed and I went back to the Paramore to sleep. I got a call from the dub stage early in the morning saying ‘what is this mix, it is horrible!!!’ I asked what time it was made they said 8 am, I replied please listen to mix from 1:00 am . They did and said thank you this is great.

Greg Hunter had in the hours between, added noises, effects I knew would be unwanted, and a rebalance uncalled for. He had become a liability to me, as now Warner were clocking his over times. I could not get rid of him as I didn’t know another great engineer in L.A. I would never use him again. These unexpected invasions add a colour I would have preferred had not happened, as these were not the only times he tried to unravel the job.

 Zig Gron (my Music Editor)  on the other hand, a man I did not know previously was my guardian angel. He walked me through all of the landmines, I asked him to teach me all he could, and I was in a 100 milesper hour world on information upload. Zig was funny, informative and such a bloody relief to have near me. God save Zig Gron and all who sail around him.

Q: The Soundtrack you composed for the “Brave Story”-animation film (2006) must have been something really special. For the very first time you composed the entire Soundtrack and here again I discovered some new aspects like the song “Juno Waltz”. How did you prepare and finally composed this work? 

Ben: This was composed under my name Ben Watkins rather than Juno Reactor. I had done another one, like “Beowulf”. I asked them why they wanted me to write for mainly orchestra, and they said we would like to hear how it sounds. So I sort of did my impression of ‘a man who knew what he was doing and what they were talking about’. There were a few production problems re-budget, as it wasn’t cheap for an Anime film. Once that was over, it was surprisingly easy, maybe a lot easier than writing for pure Electronics as the orchestra tone is defined by what you want, and once set, you have your pallet of sounds more or less. “Juno Waltz”, funny you mention that one, as it was the one I most feared to write, as again it has been so defined by other writers. I wrote it last, and it just popped out, it was also the one I felt the orchestra liked the most as they would tap their music stands like clapping. 

We recorded the Orchestra and choir in Bratislava, The Bratislavian Symphony Orchestra and a Vienna choir. I remember on the way to the massive radio sound stage all the older ladies at the bus stops had bright blue/purple hair. A hangover from communist times maybe, thought it looked great and definitely a way I wouldn’t mind my hair, like Quintan Crisp on acid.

Q: You also composed music for animation games. Does it need a different approach than for soundtracks? Any preference and/or favorite? 

Ben: “The Mark Of Kri” was a sort of nightmare, in as far as I had to create on each level two hours of non repeating music, on 0.5 MB, which now sounds insane huh. So you have an excitement engine, 0 – 100, fight mode is 50 plus. I had to build the macros to enable this. So deep learning curve, endless nights on the phone to Scott in San Francisco. This is a bit like the early beginning maybe of programs like WWise.com -which is a sampler on Crack, and hold so many possibilities for AI and VR, which makes me really excited for the future of music and sonic displacement for composers. My preference for games is really to write and hand over in stereo or 5.1. 

“PS4 Gran Turismo” -I made special mixes of tracks from the not so soon to be released album “The Mutant Theatre”, I didn’t have much involvement on this as they loved the tracks I presented and it was done.

Thanks of the Galaxy was a scored mobile game. Despite it being for mobile-only, I really enjoyed working with the team in Finland, in which I presented a Sci-fi industrial orchestral score made from orchestra libraries by George Strezov well worth checking out.

www.strezov.net  www.strezov-sampling.com

‘“Navras” Is The Biggest Track I Have Written’

Q: “Labyrinth” (2004), “Gods & Monsters” (2008), “Inside The Reactor” (2011), “The Golden Sun Of The Great East” (2013) and “The Mutant Theatre” (2018) are the studio-albums released after 2000. How would you analyze the evolution of these productions considering items like influences, technology vs. production and new collaborations? 

Ben: “Labyrinth” is “The Matrix”-album, and after the experience of the last track for “The Matrix Revolutions”, “Navras”, I couldn’t write a thing. “Navras” is the biggest track I have written, or been involved in with 120-piece orchestra, 80-piece choir, soloists, percussionists… So for three months after that I was bashing my head against a wall back in the UK. I think mainly as I was still missing the vibe of L.A, the people always around, the buzz. Until “Conquistador” Parts 1 & 2 came to save me along with guitarist Eduardo Niebla. I was mainly working very analogue, real drums, humans playing, and I still do, but now I am 75% out of the box and 25% in the box. Loads of new software have enabled me to make it more expansive. 

“Gods & Monsters”-I wanted it less epic than “Labyrinth”, write some songs that spoke to me at the time, and try a sort of Jazzy feel to some of it. Not very popular with the Juno Reactor dance crowd at the time, I still love certain tracks. A lot of artists musicians feel constrained by the genre they are in, main thing to me is to stand by what you write, and try it, it ain’t going to kill you. 

One track for example, “Tanta Pena” from “Gods & Monsters” -I was driving to the studio at Ridge Farm when a voice came on the BBC world music show, I had to stop and listen. A cross between a butterfly and a thunderstorm, it took the wind out of my lungs. As soon as the song was over I rang the station and asked who it was. Yasmin Levy! I contacted her husband who was also her agent/manager and asked if she would be interested in recording with me. 

Yasmin and the manager arrived on a beautiful Summer’s day. Ridge Farm is in the Surrey countryside, an Elizabethan Estate with grounds, a swimming pool, beautifully landscaped gardens, all made possible by Frank Andrews never-ending building work on his estate. 

I had moved into Ridge Farm after “The Matrix” films when I heard the studio on the estate was laying bare. I was able to bring my equipment and use one of Englands classic studio’s. Muse, Queen, Ozzie Osbourne and so many more had recorded here… 

Yasmin was shy, and maybe only 20yrs old when she visited the farm. I played her my idea’s, talked a little, not much really and went into record! With one take it was done on both tracks, no need to do any more, she had nailed it! It is quite amazing when this happens, like Lakshmi Shankar on “Navras”. 

I carried on working the track to bring it to her level, with an amazing Zook player from Arminia, Tigran Aleksanyan with the merciless drumming of Greg Ellis, who, when I started working with him in the studio, sounded a bit like a session player. His appearance was that of a typical tattoed L.A drummer, calm, spiritually balanced in appearance -and a very amiable personality.

I asked Greg to let his rage out for this track, really hit those fuckers! I unleashed a beast, a monster, his whole countenance changed, Fire and brimstone drumming, an apocalypse of anger and frustration came out! Drum skins didn’t last long, an inverted blister would appear on the snare within one take! Greg loved this approach, which you can also hear on “The Immaculate Crucifixion”. After this, “Tanta Pena” was complete. 

The original song dates back to the time when the Spanish ejected the Jewish population or made them convert to Christianity around 1492. It is sung in Ladino by Yasmin Levy whose father was a famous archivist of Ladino music, “No More Blood” –“Tanta Pena”.

 “Golden Sun Of The Great East” -I went to India to record a lot of the soloists, and this opened up my world to new horizons, as I found Bombay very “Blade Runner”-ish, ancient and modern all running parallel, crazy, mad, tragic and beautiful. 

Magical things happen, even when you are not looking, I was on a day trip around the studio’s of Mumbai with a potential agent for me in India. We entered a black and gold studio, very camp, I would expect Freddie Mercury of Queen to pop out and say ‘Hello darlings, welcome to my fuck fest!’ instead it was a wonderful Panjabi singer being recorded for a film. Our next appointment was with the Mozart of Indian film music, A R Rahmen. Excited I jumped in the taxi, horns blaring, rain falling, a bright night journey. Next to me in the taxi was the Panjabi singer, ‘Hey can you sing me a song into my zoom recorder, as we wait for my agent to say his goodbyes’. 4 minutes later, a song that never varied off its pitch, was in my data control. Leaving out the A R Rahmen meeting as it was nice, but nothing special, I returned to the hotel where eagles would fly high above in the morning light, I listened back, to the Mumbai traffic and the voice of a celestial being. I started writing “Invisible”, the second track on the album.

“The Mutant Theatre” was written for the show -a Sci-Fi extravaganza where choreographed performance really took over the direction. 

For me, the last two albums speak to me how I want to hear them, and possibly my favourite albums.

“The Mutant Theatre” was designed as a show album. In 2015 I was asked by the Ozora Festival to come back the next year with a new show, I had thought of a show to be called “The Mutant Theatre” 5 years before when in Russia and working with two amazing Performance groups, Agnivo, from Moscow, and Stigma Show from St.Petersburg. I presented this idea in pictures to Ozora, which they loved. It was expensive as it involved around 18 people.

Eyal Yankovich had been my agent for 5 years or so, also the head of Hommega Records. He was an OK agent, getting me the occasional gig or tour, what he was really good at was igniting my imagination with tunes, and suggest I listen to many great tracks, ‘How about a new “Pistolero” Ben?’

Eyal Hung himself before he could listen to the final “Return Of The Pistolero”-version or the album, which still a saddens me.

 Sanja Music, our tour manager, started to really help me, not only from a business perspective, but also from a listening view point. Despite being unable to discuss in a musical language, she would always hit it on the head, find a way to describe the best versions, enthusiasm, insights, referenced insights how fans can view it, how it might work on stage. Spend hours discussing and evolving ideas. I met Sanja many years before in Slovenia when we were playing with Laibach. A tall shiny girl in Japanese fashion appeared solo waiting for the doors to open, a Sugizo fan I believed. We stayed in contact through Myspace and later meeting up in Japan when I was having tours there. She came to the 2015 Ozora Festival and I’ve asked her to photograph Juno Reactor. After we went to Budapest to sight see the city, when I realised what a great addition she would me to Juno Reactor, little did I know how central to my thinking and the project she would become.

‘I Want To Give Something To The Audience That They Might Not Have Seen Before’

Q: You’ve always worked and composed your albums with guest musicians and –singers while going on tour with dance companies, drummers ao. It all feels a bit like the initial goal of creating a ‘collective’ has never changed. What did you learn from all these meetings, collaborations and exchanges? 

Ben: I want to give something to the audience that they might not have seen before. Maybe this goes back to my days of loving David Bowie, and his great performances, always looking for a new way. I feel a sense of family when we are on the road, not always possible with some people, but when it is good it is great. I am still learning how best to be, and how to navigate the waters of human interaction. I feel most comfortable in my studio along with all the other me’s talking.

Q: Your brother Simon Watkins has been often involved in the artwork of Juno Reactor. It all looks like arts is a family thing. Where does it come from and is there a next Watkins generation to hold on this artistic fire? 

Ben: Simon, my brother, helped me focus on art and how to look at it. He always had an unusual taste, a black comedy in his work that I loved. My parents were actors, and despite we were a family of 5 kids, and totally squint, I have no clue why our blood directs us to the arts, as it would be much simpler if we had just wanted a normal life. My parents gave up on their careers too early I always felt, and so I have to live with the musical sword in my hand.

Django, my younger son, is at film university learning the art of script writing and direction, Tim, my older son, is a great musician and records tracks I love. Scarlet and her friend wrote a track for a Japanese singer that was pretty successful. Scarlet at one time wanted to take over Juno Reactor, maybe she still does who knows, but she has chose marine photography for now.

‘AI, VR & AR Have So Much Potential For Young Musicians To Escape The Old Models Of Creation And Start A New Chapter In Music’

Q: A lot of things have changed/evolved since the early Juno Reactor years; think about technology, new equipment & music programs, streaming, social media etc… What have been the pros and cons? 

Ben: I started out on an MC 202 and now I have a museum, a laboratory, loads of instruments that I play. I miss the hangouts in the studio, as everyone has a studio, so we became moles. I love the independence of starting a Juno Reactor label, which I and Sanja Karin Music, who is my manager and for a number of years has also collaborated on artwork, future NFTs on knownorigin.io and other platforms, and a variety of creative projects and activities, which we will be rolling out in the coming year.

The new possibilities of NFT’s and blockchain, which might well help the independent musician into a new economic model. AI, VR & AR have so much potential for young musicians to escape the old models of creation and start a new chapter in music, independent from middlemen and greedy manipulators from the dark alleys of the old music industry. A new world awaits in the decade to come, and I am excited by it, and what it will become. This doesn’t in any way exclude the old ways, or purity of the orchestra, classical musicians, just a new voice in the galaxy.

Q: Covid-19 has seriously affected artistic activities all over the world. How did you keep yourself busy and what are you actually working on? 

Ben: I am learning the Viola, this has kept me in focus at times, writing new tracks with this has been very enjoyable, as well as testing, as I am still learning, and it will take me a long time to play the way I would like. I swim in the sea, this I love when I can afford the time -a sea swim now takes me about 2:30 hours compared to the pool of 1 hour. It blows all the cobwebs and bad thoughts away -of which there have been many through the past year, no question. I think a lot of artists had a very hard time, a lot of artists might have been forced to stop doing what they love, which is very sad. Like many others as well, I have been forced to look into the paperwork side of the project and face all the different misdemeanours and manipulations from a number of people I preferred not to face while gigs were still bringing in enough money to keep going.

‘Sooner Or Later An Autobiography Could Certainly Happen’

Q: I read in a post you got the idea to write an autobiography, which I think is a real interesting idea. Is it something concrete and are there some next ‘big’ dreams you want to accomplish?  

Ben: Well, it is odd, as I have lived long enough to tell stories other people find interesting, or so they say. Sometimes I get caught up in them, and it reminds me of talking to family members before they died. As you can ask them a historic question of how life was, and you can see their eyes glaze over as they reminisce as if they are walking the streets and cafes they used to. It is beautiful to see and hear. I don’t want to become a broken record and recite story after story, so maybe one time if I can write it OK, it might be interesting. My manager Sanja has been pushing me to write down or talk about times in my life and slowly collect all these to be turned into an entity at some point, so sooner or later an autobiography could certainly happen. It might have been silly of me to suggest I’m writing it on a simple social media travel picture that looked to me like a book cover, but perhaps having the public know and expect it will give me an extra boost to keep working on it, with my managers help, as an dyslexic person I was surprised to find that I’m really enjoying this process.

‘The Older I Get The More I Want To Do Music, Scuba, Swim, And Exploring New Horizons’

Q: An interesting item for the autobiography could be to know what you would have done in life without music? And do you have specific hobbies/passions next to music? 

Ben: I remember one day my father said ‘If you pass this exam, I will buy you a pony’. I tried my best, but still failed, and thus had to grow up pony-less. I wonder what would have happened had I passed the exam. Would I really have gotten a pony? Would I perhaps be in a completely different profession today? I should ring up my dad and ask if he actually planned to get that pony …

A lot of people through-out my life have mistook my dreamy exterior to think I am lazy, when in fact my brain has never stopped talking, the conversations I have in my mind seem to me to be more interesting than the ones outside, so I can be non responsive, come over as aloof. The reality is I have drifted off into my own world again. Where I might think I have answered a question asked by someone, just to realise it was only answered in my head. Dyslexia has strange traits, and for me it is this, I am word blinded sometimes that also raises my pulse to a train, panic. I envy people who can be logical, and competent in social exchanges. Stage is my way out, a sort of nether world between reality and dreams where I feel confident of its power.

Without music, I would be a shadow, maybe worked in a stable or farm all my life, something that didn’t need a searching brain. The older I get the more I want to do music, scuba, swim, and exploring new horizons.

Q: “Pistolero” is the Juno Reactor-song I make people listen to, who aren’t familiar with your work. Which one would you choose? 

Ben: At the moment, Ummm my latest one: “Coyote You Me And The Stars”. As it was written for a very special moment and one I will forever remember. I bought an amazing keyboard at the beginning of the crisis, which has been my main frame and primary sound source, the Quantum keyboard by Waldorf, it is such an unusual instrument. It is possible to create sonic textures I haven’t heard before, a 3D motion I have been looking for, this along with the viola.

I am more interested in how I can hold the sound in the stereo field to give depth and spatial pleasures. Political events don’t usually invade my thoughts yet this has been unavoidable.

Witten by: Ben Watkins

Co-editor: Sanja Karin Music (management & shrink services)

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘Let The Flowers Grow’.

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

Genre/Influences: Industrial, electronic.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: Sleepless Droids is an Australian project set up by producer Aaron Potter around 2011. After a first EP (cf. “Decision”) released in 2012 we’d to wait for 2020 to get new stuff from this project. The EP features two tracks plus one remix.

Content: “Dust” which might be considered as the title song is a somewhat raw piece of electronics driven by a rather slow rhythm and passionate vocals on top. The other cut (cf. “Believe”) is definitely softer and sounds as a B-side cut. We next get a remix of “Dust”, which has been seriously boosted and made for the dancefloor.

+ + + : “Dust” is a cool song, but especially the remix sounds great. It’s not only about the empowered rhythmic, but there’re some pretty cool sound arrangements reminding me of Juno Reactor. I don’t want to compare both projects as it’s just about some sound treatments.

– – – : Two songs are not enough to get an idea about the potential of this project, but I hope to hear more from Sleepless Droids soon.

Conclusion: I especially recommend this work for the bouncing “Substance”-edit of “Dust”.

Best songs: “Dust (Substance)”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.facebook.com/sleeplessdroidsofficial

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

Genre/Influences: Epic, cinematographic.

Background/Info: Nermi is one of the newest signing to Aliens Production. This is a Russian solo-project driven by Max Ignatev. This is the musician’s debut work features five tracks.

Content: “In The Creation” is a truly orchestral/epic composition, which from the very first notes and arrangements reveals an overwhelming sound production. The epic influences are constantly running through the tracks, which are instrumentals, although sometimes mixed with epic chants. There are some elements in the composition reminding me of the cinematic compositions of Juno Reactor. I here refer to the impressive orchestral approach.

+ + + : Nermi is clearly enlarging the sonic horizon of Aliens Production. It injects some innovation to the label, but it also is an impressive sound production characterized by overwhelming sound atmospheres. The opening piece “Gadreel” is simply phenomenal. But I also have to mention “The Storm Begins”, which is somewhat more into tribal rhythms, but the way this composition moves to a crescendo till reaching its ultimate point is absolutely brilliant. This is intelligent cinematic music reflecting great writing skills and maturity. 

– – – : All the tracks are pretty short and that’s a pity because you want to hear more.

Conclusion: This new Aliens Production project sounds a bit ‘out of the box’, nevertheless it’s a real discovery and I hope to hear more stuff from Nermi.

Best songs: “The Storm Begins”, “Gadreel”, “Last Battle”.

Rate: (8).

Label: www.label.aliens.sk / www.facebook.com/pages/Aliens–production–label/200028820052578

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

We’ve to go back on the late 80s to get the origins of this American phenomenon: Velvet Acid Christ. Bryan Erickson remained the only member at board, but the ‘popularity’ of the project only increased. Albums such as “Calling Ov The Dead”, “Fun With Knives” and “Hex Angel / Utopia – Dystopia” became referential albums revealing a sophisticated dark-electronic approach mixed with numerous other influences. Bryan Erickson is now back again, “Ora Oblivionis” (Metropolis Records) becoming the newest artistic creation of the artists’ genius.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: “Ora Oblivionis” is your first new full length album since “Dire Land” (2015). Was it a kind of intentional break or maybe a case of writer’s block? And when did you finally begin the writing of this new opus?

Bryan: Funny you ask. We released “Dire Land”-remix album, a ‘Greatest Hits”-album and the “Wrack”-single. So these things kind of got in the way plus touring a lot over the last 4 years. The album has been done for a while, but the release scheduled was hard plus I worked on the remaster of “Fun with Knives” as well. THIS IS A LOT OF WORK. Velvet Acid Christ typically releases an LP every 3 years. It’s been our time frame for a long time.

Q: You’re been involved with music for more than 30 years, how much of the younger Bryan Erickson do you still recognize in “Ora Oblivionis”? What have been the main changes/evolutions in your artistic development?

Bryan: I don’t think this is a younger me album. In fact I think it’s a lot different from our older albums; we have Spanish, German and English-sung songs on the album. The lyrics are shorter and more to the point, less long ranting. And the songs kind a hit faster with less intros and outros.

Q: “Ora Oblivionis” seems to be inspired by self-destruction. Can you give us more details about the theme and a possible link with personal experiences in life?

Bryan: It’s about the self-destruction of America and the whole word. NOT MINE.

Q: Sound-wise I experienced “Ora Oblivionis” as your most diversified work to date; a mix of danceable songs and more evasive/ambient parts. Tell us a bit more about this diversity and also about one specific song entitled “Conjuro”, which made me say Velvet Acid Christ has composed it’s “Pistolero”-song (Juno Reactor)?

Bryan: Well, I played classical guitar as a kid. So it was a homage to my past in a way. The diversity comes from 4 years and 4 song writing cycles, the album is more like 4 singles. rather than say an album. We write singles now, no albums. Metropolis still wants to release them as LP’s, another reason why it takes longer now.

Q: The “Deluxe Version” of the album is an interesting release as it features early Velvet Acid Christ-songs, which have been reworked. Tell us a bit more about it ?

Bryan: The old songs were the first Velvet Acid Christ songs ever written; it is album 0. It’s very strange to release this. It was our weakest music I think, but it shows our roots.

Q: I noticed a post at your Facebook page affirming Wumpscut’s “Embryo Dead” is your favorite industrial album. What makes this album that special and do you feel concerned and/or close with new bands and releases?

Bryan: I love so many Wumpscut albums. In fact, Wumpscut and Snog were like my brothers. I see those guys like my family, and we were all vibing the same kind of darkness at the same time. Wumspscut was who I measured myself as an artist against, and I will say it out loud: ‘I think Wumpsut is simply the best industrial musician who ever made music. A shame he is out of the music business, he is missed.’

Side-Line also covered Wumpscut’s ‘Fledermavs :303:’.

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

Genre/Influences: Dark-electro.

Background/Info: Bryan Erickson started writing music in the late 80s, but had to wait for the early 90s to release the first Velvet Acid Christ productions. Several noticeable and influential albums have been released like “Fun With Knives”, which has been re-released and remastered this year. “Ora Oblivionis” is the new work, which comes four years after “Dire Land”. The songs are inspired by self-destruction.

Content: Bryan Erickson has probably accomplished one of the most eclectic Velvet acid Christ albums to date. It remains a pure dark-electro driven opus featuring tormented atmospheres, aggressive sequences, sophisticated sound treatments and danceable kicks, but still an album with evasive passages, punkish guitar  and even a surprising song featuring a kind of Flamenco guitar. Bryan Erickson has been joined by Dianna Recalde to perform the female vocals.

+ + + : Velvet Acid Christ always has had something very unique when it comes to analyze the sound. I think we might speak about a proper sound DNA, which is based upon a sophisticated writing, but also a lot of efforts to create original sound treatments. There clearly is a good-old vintage/analogue touch running through the compositions and that’s what makes the main difference with young musicians. I prefer the more danceable cuts and especially refer to the opening songs (cf. “Conviction”, “Adventures In Babysitting The Antichrist” and “The Bullet Wins”). In a different style and I dare to affirm innovative style “Conjuro” is a surprising, but great cut. The flamenco guitar sound reminds me of Juno Reactor’s “Pistolero” so did Velvet Acid Christ created its own ‘pistolero’? Time will tell, but it’s a cool, danceable and even sensual piece. Another interesting and important item of the album is the female vocalist Dianna Recalde adding a sensual breeze to the song, which are dealing with real dark and tormented subjects.

– – – : “Ora Oblivionis” is the most unusual album from Velvet Acid Christ to date. The work is covering real diversified influences and that’s why all die-hard fans might not be convinced.

Conclusion: Velvet Acid Christ remains inspired by dark themes and obscure sound treatments, but also dares to explore other sonic paths. This artist remains a warrant for high-qualitative and dark electro music!

Best songs: “The Bullet Wins”, “Conjuro”, “Pill Box”, “Conviction”, “The Colors Of My Sadness”, “Adventures In Babysitting The Antichrist”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.velvetacidchrist.com / www.facebook.com/VelvetAcidChristOfficial

Label: www.metropolis–records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords Read the news on ‘Ora Oblivionis’.

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

Genre/Influences: Industrial-techno, tribal-techno, IDM.

Background/Info: Here comes the fifth opus from Armando Alibrandi aka Supersimmetria. It also is the artist’s third album released by Hands. The Berliner (Germany) based producer tried to transform the idea of ‘the core of life, the atoms of which everything is composed’ into music.

Content: Supersimmetria has always composed music mixing electronics, industrial and techno. It’s not that different for the new songs, but I get the impression he even explores wider fields leading him to tribal-industrial and techno music. Some of these cuts even remind me of Juno Reactor, but adapted into an industrial format. The songs are sophisticated and covered with a dark and sometimes hostile sphere.

+ + + : Supersimmetria is a project I really like. And even if I’d expected a bit more out of the previous work (cf. “Materia”) I’ve never been disappointed. “Abiogenesis” is a fully accomplished work, confirming the sound intelligence of Alibrandi, but also his taste for delicacy and minimalism. This is music to dance to, but also with an overwhelming, dark atmosphere, which can’t leave you unmoved. The track “Supernovae” is one of the cuts reminding me to the tribal side of Juno Reactor and that’s more than simply a reference!

– – – : I just regret the tracks are however a bit similar and the album is maybe missing an absolute ‘hit’!

Conclusion: “Abiogenesis” stands for an ultra-danceable fusion between different music styles, which are however characterized by darkness and energy!

Best songs: “Supernovae”, “Symbionts”, “Fusion”, “Chnops”, “Accretion Disk”, “Scattered Stardust”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.facebook.com/Supersimmetria

Label: www.handsproductions.com / www.facebook.com/hands.official

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

Kris Kylven (Junor Reactor’s Drummer / Collaborator / The 69 Eyes Remixer & Ex-Killing Joke) returns with his trance / industrial project Ultimate Xperience with a brand new full-length double-CD album “The Realm Of A New Dawn”.

The record will be available as a 2CD set divided like this:

• CD 1 “Lazarus Rising” contains 7 songs that include a remix / rework of classic Juno Reactor’s “High Energy Protons” and a revisited movie version of Kraftwerk’s “Radio-Activity”
• CD2 “Ad Vitam Aeternam” features 8 songs where Kris introduces collaborations with well-known and established artists such as Francesca Genco (Elysium OST), Bo Ian Wook (KaliWood), Sandro (Blazing Noise), Odiolab and Amir John Haddad (Juno Reactor, Hans Zimmer band), with whom he covered The Sisters Of Mercy classic “Temple Of Love”.

The limited 2 cd set/sticker/t-shirt/talisman are available at the Neogoa Records Bandcamp page.

And here are some videos:

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

Genre/Influences: Industrial-techno, minimal-EBM.

Background/Info: German artist Bert Lehmann is the creative spirit behind Mortaja while he’s also involved with Torn From Beyond. Mortaja strikes back with its third opus, which saw the light of day four years after “Bone Chamber”.

Content: “Combined Minds” is a solid and ultra-danceable fusion between minimal-EBM (especially for the bass lines) and industrial-techno music. It sounds a bit as the sonic hybrid between Terence Fixmer, Nitzer Ebb and Monolith. The tracks are instrumentals although you’ll hear male growls running through a very few tracks.

Both last cuts are remixes by Greyhound and Suki.

+ + + : This new opus by Mortaya is a pure masterpiece! The EBM minimalism emerging from the terrific bass lines is the work of a genius. Lehmann’s bass lines can be linked to some masters in the genre like Nitzer Ebb, Terence Fixmer, Juno Reactor, Thomas P. Heckmann. And when you think you’ve heard the best bass line and the best song you’ll have to admit that the next cut blows everything away. This work moves to a crescendo reaching unique highlights. But the global sound treatments reflect intelligence and knowledge. It features great vintage sounds and icy sweeps.

– – – : Both remixes are the only cuts, which can’t totally convince me.

Conclusion: “Combined Minds” is one of the major albums from 2018! It’s a genius composition, which clearly creates a sonic bridge between EBM, techno- and industrial music. Absolutely recommended!

Best songs: “Strong Conviction”, “Underground Movements”, “Paint My Face – Body Paint Mix”, “Non-Compliance”, “Combined Minds”, “Haunted”, “Banquet House”.

Rate: (9).

Artist: www.facebook.com/Mortaja.de

Label: www.audiophob.de / www.facebook.com/audiophob
 

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

Nearly 30 years after the set-up of Juno Reactor, Ben Watkins has unleashed his 10^th full length album entitled “The Mutant Theatre”. Released on Metropolis Records, this new opus reveals all familiar ingredients and influences we’re used to hear when listening to Juno Reactor. From pure psy-trance to tribal rhythms to cinematographic parts this new opus already sounds as a great and visionary work. And this is what Ben Watkins has to say about it.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Five years have passed since your previous studio album “The Golden Sun Of The Great East”. Does it mean it becomes more difficult to find new inspiration and getting new ideas when it comes to composition, while “The Mutant Theatre” appears to be one of your best productions in history?

Ben: Well it certainly is a process for me, I have a lot of ideas, but working alone I can get very obsessed and lost in a track for weeks or months. I’ve been upgrading the sound and this has really taken a long time, I don’t feel as yet that I found what I am looking for, yet. if I didn’t need to engineer as well under my pseudonym of Otto the Barbarian I would find the work process a lot quicker.

Q: “The Mutant Theatre” is inspired and taken from the impressive dance collective you’re actually touring with. I get the feeling the live shows have been never that impressive and psychedelic. How did you guys met and how did you bring music, dance and visuals together?

Ben: I met the Russians in 2011, the first was Stigma Show from St Petersburg, on an island in India, we were playing at a really strange festival that we had to travel by a small boat across the sea at night, The festival was promoted by a man we named the ‘Master of disaster’ as nothing went right for him or his punters, the one thing when the dawn rose The Stigma Show jumped onstage in their mirrored costumes as we played “Conga Fury”, which jump started the LSD… they just looked amazing. The other performance group was Agnivo  I met in Moscow whilst DJ-ing, that’s when I thought the of Mutant Theatre as a possible big show. Agnivo like militant guardians of an Orphean World.

Q: You’ve been always very concerned about live shows. It gives me the feeling you really want to get people happy when assisting to a live show, but at the other side it also reveals an impressive artistic concern and perfectionism. What is it really all about and what’s the importance of live shows?

Ben: It is one hell of a lot of fun, entertainment. In The Mutant Theatre show are 18 people, the stage show is heavily choreographed, and yet we can improvise songs, write them on stage, working with Budgie, Amir, who are not scared of it falling flat, they just go for it and embarrass the danger, I love that feeling, the fantasy of our show, a collision between Barbarella and Pan’s Labyrinth, the collision between us and the audience is what makes working for months and months on a single shows worth while.

Q: The song “Return Of The Pistolero” is more than simply a wink to one of your biggest hits. I realized “Pistolero” has been written nearly 20 years ago now! Back in time I experienced this song as one of your biggest challenges! It was so different and unexpected and yet typically Juno Reactor-like. How do you look back about this song and what did you try to accomplish with “Return Of The Pistolero”?

Ben: Eyal my booking Agent at Hommega, suggested I do a sequel! I thought oh no, that won’t work. He kept pushing me so I called in Amir Haddad, a long time Juno Reactor guitarist, an amazing Flamenco player, and now also Hans Zimmer’s solo guitarist, and within a day we had the main riff, later adding Taja and first time singer for Juno Reactor Tula Ben-Ari who sang all the Spanish vocals. It took months of tweeking, Gran Turismo heard it an wanted it for their new sports version. After that mix I kept going at it, it didn’t seem right, I fixed just before the mastering. The first “Pistolero” has so many fans I was more worried they wouldn’t like it, so I gave it a much bigger story this time.

Q: “The Mutant Theatre” features multiple guest vocalists while Xavier Morel and Johann Bley are good-old contributors when it comes to the writing process. What’s the input of all those people in the final result and do you’ve some specific criteria when it comes to work with singers and other musicians?

Ben: Xavier will come in, drink bottle of bear, smoke a joint, fart, burp, generally make me laugh and come up with a load of sample idea’s to either disregard, copy or use. He generally doesn’t like what I do, but he gives me good references to tracks I would otherwise not be listening to. Also he is French, with a forehead not seen since the days the Neanderthal walked the earth.

UnderCover: I don’t usually work with other bands, but, on “Dakota,” I thought I‘d give it a try with Undercover. When I met them in Brazil I knew they knew F’ck all about Juno Reactor, but they did a wild version of “Conga Fury” for me. I immediately liked their punk attitude so… I am not a fan of ping ponging idea’s over the internet and I’m still not, but this one worked out to be a treat, great guys who very much brought the ‘psy’ aspect to it.

Johann has always been a very underrated writer, his production lets him down, but he is a super talented writer; he sent me one idea, I cut it open and then wrote new sections for “Showtime.” He loves dried coffee from Tesco, smokes all day, and generally on planet Zog by 10 pm.

Tula and Taja are the main singers in the Live show, both are great singers with very different types of voices. Tula is like a race horse with tons of ideas and enthusiasm, and easy to get great takes in a short time, lyrically and melodically. Taja has less studio experience and generally we will work around vocal ideas already written, she has a very broad range and very Juno Reactor type of voice. Only problem is they live in another galaxy, so not much access.

Yuki Masada from Japan luckily visited the studio when I was working on “Dakota” and “Voyager 303,” which she was perfect for. Eran Cohen suggested I work with Michelle Adamson who lives close to me, which was a great idea; again loads of positive energy and a brilliant way of manipulating her fav toy the Helican Voice works. Then sometimes it is just me, and I have to sing, which I try to get out of if I can.

Q: You’re world-wide recognized as one of the ‘Godfather’ of psy-trance, but I also consider you as one of the most visionary musicians when it comes to create bass lines. I’m sure you must be a real bass line freak, don’t you? What’s your vision about this specific aspect of the production?

Ben: Raja Ram is the Godfather and rightly so, along with a number of other Deities like GMS and Shpongle…

Pretty much every day that I go into the studio I’ll write 20 bass sequences, a warm up to get my brain going, then keep maybe one or two. I have a new project I want to start just for these bass lines… I don’t think I will ever get bored of synths ripping through the air in high volume and shuddering the skin off my bones.

Q: You’ve already accomplished so much great things and projects in your career. Do you still have some specific dreams, wishes, challenges and how do you see yourself evolving during the next years?

Ben: I would love to do so many more projects, in theatre, dance companies, games and movies. I am working on game music now, and really enjoying it for not having rules, and letting me find my own orchestral sound

For more on Juno Reactor, see ’30 Years Of Journalism – Celebration Interview’ with Ben Watkins aka… on Side-Line.

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

Background/Info:

Read the news on ‘The Mutant Theatre’.

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

Juno Reactor has revealed the second single off of the upcoming Juno Reactor album “The Mutant Theatre LP”. The video for “Let’s Turn On” was directed by Dima Terem and can be viewed below.

When “The Mutant Theatre”, the latest Juno Reactor from 2017, was released, many expected to see the follow-up to 2013’s “The Golden Sun of the Great East” also released on vinyl. It took a few months, but it’s now a fact as “The Mutant Theatre” will be out as a double vinyl. You can order this gem right here.

Here’s the video for “Let’s Turn On”.

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘Click 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!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Electro-tribal, trance, rhythmic-ambient, cinematographic.

Background/Info: Steven Archer (Ego Likeness) strikes back with the fifth full length of his electro-tribal side-project Stoneburner. This album also is the first one released on Negative Gain Productions while previous productions were released on Distortion Productions.

Content: “The Agony Box” moves on there where previous album stopped. It’s a new exploration of electro-tribal music fields featuring bombastic drum sections, mystic chants and Eastern sound atmospheres. The work –and especially the final part, sounds more cinematographic. It’s not really a new aspect in the sound of Stoneburner although this element is more accentuated than before.

+ + + : Stoneburner deals with a music genre we all know, but where only a few numbers of artists are involved with. You can hear the tribal and especially dark side of the work, which might remind This Morn’Omina and the cinematographic plus Eastern mystic sound approach reminding me of Juno Reactor. Stoneburner is somewhere in between and has never disappointed. The songs are well-crafted revealing great sound treatments and a hypnotic trance feeling. The cinematographic approach is also worthy of examination and is carried by some overwhelming epic arrangements (which might also remind you of Juno Reactor).

– – – : I prefer the tribal-trance approach instead of the soundtrack cuts, but that’s just a personal point of view. The only single aspect I’m missing in the global production is the use of authentic instruments (like conga’s ao), which would inject a more authentic touch.

Conclusion: “The Agony Box” is the perfect album moving in between film music and tribal-trance electronics. Stoneburner became a reference in this music genre although this project is mainly known in the USA and rather unknown in Europe.

Best songs: “Tales Of The Great Cryptogram”, “Osafa Charm”, “Saint Alia Of The Knife”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.stoneburnerband.com / www.facebook.com/stoneburnerofficial

Label: www.negativegain.com / www.facebook.com/pages/Negative–Gain/212061438836984

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

Read the review of ‘The Mutant Theatre’.

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘Let’.

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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Here’s an offer you can’t possibly refuse. Storming The Base is offering vinyl test pressings from a huge list of bands at 50% off. To get the 50% reduction, simply use the discount code love (it’s Valentine’s Day after all!).

In the list you’ll find vinyl test pressings from such bands as Front Line Assembly, Cevin Key, Die Krupps, Download, Psyche, Controlled Bleeding, The Diodes, Doubting Thomas, Apoptygma Berzerk, Wumpscut, Juno Reactor, Haujobb, Pankow, and many more.

Here’s an oversight of all the test pressings for this Valentine’s Day special only! Below is an example of one of the test pressings.

Side-Line also covered Front Line Assembly’s ‘Warmech’.

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

Genre/Influences: Psy-trance, tribal-trance.

Background/Info: Juno Reactor is the creative brainchild of Ben Watkins. He became one of the pioneers and Godfathers of the goa-trance movement and has released numerous ground-breaking albums. Juno Reactor strikes back with a first single in years while it’s also 4 years ago now since the band released its last ‘new’ album. Juno Reactor is actually busy with a new live show featuring The Mutant Theatre.

Content: “Our World” is a typical Juno Reactor song, which is carried by heavy bass lines, furious rhythms, tribal elements and female mystical chants joined by some male spoken-like vocal parts.

The single features 2 mixes, which aren’t that different from each other.

+ + + : If you know Juno Reactor “Our World” will not exactly take you by surprise. But at the other side the track reminds Ben Watkins is one of those genius composers who has created a very own sound leading to genre of music. I like the sophisticated approach mixing bombast, great tribal percussion parts and the mystical chants.

– – – : I already have heard much more convincing songs from Juno Reactor. There’s no real innovation here although it remains a very single experience in sound. I expected an extra ‘new’ song or maybe a few more diversified remixes.

Conclusion: Juno Reactor is back, but before we’ll get more new stuff the band is first of all busy with a new tour, which has been already announced as a great visual happening!

Best songs: “Our World – Original Mix”.

Rate: (7½).

Band: www.junoreactor.com / www.facebook.com/junoreactorofficial

Label: www.metropolis–records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords

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

Content:

Read the news on ‘The Golden Sun… Remixed’.

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

Read the review of ‘The Golden Sun… Remixed’.

Side-Line also covered Juno Reactor’s ‘The Mutant Theatre’.

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