Canadian electropop musician and visual artist Shannon Hemmett aka Leathers has released her debut album “Ultraviolet”. Hemmett is best known as member of the Vancouver-based post-punk band Actors. The album is available across all major music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp.

In addition to the album, Hemmett has created a limited-edition art book that complements the music. The book features over 60 pages of original photos, song lyrics, and designs. Hemmett explains, “I wanted the relationship between our songs and the visuals to feel vivid to the listener. Along with the album, I put together an art book containing over 60 full-colour pages of original photos, lyrics, and design. It’s the perfect companion piece to the album.”

Before the album’s release, Hemmett launched a series of singles compiled in the “Reckless” EP.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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

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Out on September 13th via Metropolis Records is the first all solo album from Bill Leeb, titled “Model Kollapse”. The 11-track album “Model Kollapse” comes in two versions, a CD in digipak and a thick 16 pages booklet, and as a limited bleach effect double vinyl. The vinyl is limited to 500 copies and comes in extra heavy gatefold sleeve with seperate printed inner sleeves.

The first single “Terror Forms” features Shannon Hemmett of Actors and Leathers and will be out on July 9.

The album was recorded and produced in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles with assistance provided by production duo Dream Bullet and long-term Front Line Assembly / Delerium cohort Rhys Fulber, plus regular mixing engineer Greg Reely.

Two tracks on the album feature Shannon and Jason from Canadian Electropop act Actors and one track has American singer-songwriter Mimi Page, who already collaborated with Bill on his Delerium project.

Tracks: Read the review of ‘Model Kollapse’.

1. Demons
2. Exotic Matter
3. Neuromotive
4. Folded Hands
5. Pinned Down
6. Terror Forms (feat. Actors)
7. Muted Obsession (feat. Actors)
8. Simulation
9. Infernum
10. Fusion
11. Erosion through Time (feat. Mimi Page)

About Bill Leeb

Bill Leeb is a Vancouver-based Canadian industrial musician, founder of Front Line Assembly, formed in 1986 after he left Skinny Puppy, and co-founder, with longtime collaborator Rhys Fulber, of the ambient project Delerium, begun in 1987. Despite decades of output across those projects, Leeb had not released a solo album under his own name until “Model Kollapse,” issued 13 September 2024 on CD, vinyl and digitally through Metropolis Records.

“Model Kollapse” was recorded across Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles, with production assistance from the duo Dream Bullet and Rhys Fulber, and mixing by longtime engineer Greg Reely. Guest contributors include Mimi Page, Jason Corbett of Actors and Shannon Hemmett of Actors and Leathers. The eleven-track album’s title and themes reference model collapse, the phenomenon in which AI models trained on synthetic data degrade over successive generations. “Model Kollapse” is Bill Leeb’s first release under his own name, separate from his work in Front Line Assembly and Delerium.

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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(Photo by Bobby Talamine) Metropolis Records announces the signing of industrial-electronic Vancouver-based music legend Bill Leeb for his debut solo effort “Model Kollapse”, out September 13.

“The album explores the intricacies of artificial intelligence and the survival of humanity itself,” says Bill Leeb.

The first single “Terror Forms” features Shannon Hemmett of Actors and Leathers and will be out on July 9. This album also involves Front Line Assembly / Delerium cohort Rhys Fulber, mixing engineer Greg Reely, Actors’ frontman Jason Corbett, and LA artist Mimi Page.

“We are proud to announce that Metropolis Records has signed Bill Leeb for his first solo project. Bill Leeb has had a prolific career as a founding member of Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly and Delerium. His music has been highly influential, and we are excited to see what this new chapter in his career will bring for him and his listeners,” says Nina Heckman of Metropolis Records. “I’m honored to fulfill my father’s (Dave Heckman who died in the summer of 2022) lifelong vision and to be doing this project with a lifelong family friend I can honestly call family (Bill Leeb). This project is near and dear to all of our hearts here at Metropolis and I know it would make my father proud.”

“Model Kollapse” marks Leeb’s very first solo venture since the mid-80s days of Front Line Assembly, when he used to make recordings in his bedroom and released them on limited edition cassette format. Almost four decades on, his new album was recorded and produced in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles with assistance from Vancouver/Toronto-based production duo Dream Bullet.

The “Terror Forms” single will be unleashed digitally everywhere on July 9. The full “Model Kollapse” album will be released on vinyl and CD, as well as digitally, on September 13.

About Bill Leeb

Bill Leeb, born Wilhelm Anton Leeb on September 21, 1966, in Vienna, Austria, is best known as the founder and lead member of the industrial music group Front Line Assembly (FLA). Leeb moved to Canada in the 1980s, where he began his music career.

Before forming Front Line Assembly in 1986, Leeb was a member of the influential industrial group Skinny Puppy, where he performed under the pseudonym Wilhelm Schroeder. His departure from Skinny Puppy marked the beginning of his career with Front Line Assembly.

In addition to Front Line Assembly, Leeb has been involved in several other music projects, including Delerium, which achieved commercial success with its fusion of ambient and pop music elements. Leeb’s other projects include Noise Unit, Intermix, and Conjure One, each exploring different facets of electronic music.

Bill Leeb discography

Bill Leeb has had a diverse range of musical projects, each with its own unique style and sound. Here’s an easy-to-read breakdown of the differences between his major projects:

Front Line Assembly (FLA) is characterized by a dark and aggressive style, blending industrial, Electronic Body Music (EBM), and electro-industrial sounds. The music features heavy use of synthesizers and electronic beats, often exploring dystopian and sci-fi themes.

Delerium, on the other hand, focuses on ambient, ethereal, and electronic music with a new age twist. Its sound is soothing and atmospheric, emphasizing melodies and textures. Delerium often incorporates world music elements and features various guest vocalists, achieving mainstream success with tracks like “Silence” featuring Sarah McLachlan.

Noise Unit features a mix of industrial, EBM, and techno influences. Over time, the project’s sound has varied, combining harsh industrial elements with more danceable EBM and techno beats. Collaborations with artists like Marc Verhaeghen of Klinik add to its diverse range of styles.

Intermix leans more towards techno, ambient, and electronic music. This project focuses on instrumental tracks, blending electronic and ambient music with techno rhythms. It is generally less aggressive than Front Line Assembly.

Conjure One presents a melodic and ethereal sound, incorporating ambient, electronic, world music, and pop influences. It features prominent guest vocalists and offers polished production with a radio-friendly appeal, blending electronic beats with organic instruments.

Cyberaktif, a collaboration with cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy, delivers a dark and experimental sound. Combining the signature styles of Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy, Cyberaktif features heavy use of samples and aggressive beats, resulting in a dense, experimental industrial sound.

Equinox focuses on ambient and atmospheric soundscapes, similar to early Delerium works but more abstract and experimental. It emphasizes creating immersive sound environments with a minimalistic approach.

Pro>Tech is a dance-oriented project with techno and trance influences. It features high-energy beats and repetitive, hypnotic structures, offering a clear departure from the darker styles of Leeb’s other projects, aiming for a more mainstream dance music appeal.

Below are the releases.

Front Line Assembly

• The Initial Command (1987)
• State of Mind (1988)
• Gashed Senses & Crossfire (1989)
• Caustic Grip (1990)
• Tactical Neural Implant (1992)
• Millennium (1994)
• Hard Wired (1995)
• FLAvour of the Weak (1997)
• Implode (1999)
• Epitaph (2001)
• Civilization (2004)
• Artificial Soldier (2006)
• Improvised. Electronic. Device. (2010)
• Echogenetic (2013)
• Wake Up the Coma (2019)
• Mechanical Soul (2021)

Delerium

• Faces, Forms & Illusions (1989)
• Morpheus (1989)
• Syrophenikan (1990)
• Spiritual Archives (1991)
• Stone Tower (1991)
• Spheres (1994)
• Spheres 2 (1994)
• Semantic Spaces (1994)
• Karma (1997)
• Poem (2000)
• Chimera (2003)
• Nuages du Monde (2006)
• Music Box Opera (2012)
• Mythologie (2016)

Noise Unit

• Grinding into Emptiness (1989)
• Response Frequency (1990)
• Strategy of Violence (1992)
• Decoder (1995)
• Drill (1996)
• Voyeur (1998)
• Dead Sector (1999)
• Deviator (2021)

Intermix

• Intermix (1992)
• Phaze Two (1993)
• Future Primitives (1995)

Conjure One

• Conjure One (2002)
• Extraordinary Ways (2005)
• Exilarch (2010)
• Holoscenic (2015)
• Innovation Zero (2023)

Cyberaktif

• Tenebrae Vision (1991)
• Temper (EP) (1990)

Equinox

• Holon (1998)

Pro>Tech

• Orbiting Cathedrals (1997)

Side-Line also covered Front Line Assembly’s ‘Molotov (Remixed)’.

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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From March 31 until April 2, 2023 included you will be able to attend the US festival, Dark Force Fest, a three-day goth-industrial music festival. The festival takes place in Parsippany, NJ (one hour from NYC), at the massive Sheraton Parsippany, an imposing castle styled hotel that features 44,000 square feet of event space with 370 hotel rooms (which are however already sold out, but there are enough hotels in the neighborhood).

Organized by VampireFreaks, the team that brought you the Triton Festival and Dark Side of the Con, this brand new event features a lineup of international bands from the gothic, industrial, darkwave and post-punk scenes. In the line-up we find such bands as HEALTH, Combichrist, Suicide Commando, ACTORS, Rabbit Junk, Vision Video, Empathy Test, Solar Fake, BILE, Psyclon Nine, Das Ich, Bootblacks, Leathers, Josie Pace, God Module, Bella Morte and many more.

In addition to 30+ bands, Dark Force Fest will also feature over 100 vendors, a costume contest, cosplay guests, sideshow performers, fun activities and informative panels. More info can be found at https://darkforcefest.com and you can order your tickets right here.

Below is the poster for the event.

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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