Genre/Influences: Experimental, Minimal-Electro, Cinematographic, Ambient. 

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: This album resulted from the collaborative efforts between established Italian composer/producer Paolo F. Bragaglia and a couple of producers. The concept deals about a retro-sci/fi dystopian world getting us back to the 70s.

Content: “The Man From The Lab” is mixing pure Experimental Electronics and minimal sound treatments. The bleeping sequences and Ambient atmospheres sound like evoking Electronic pioneers and I can’t get away from the feeling this work has been inspired by Tangerine Dream. That’s maybe not a coincidence as Edgar Froese started releasing his music in the 70s. The instrumental tracks sometimes reveal a few spoken-like samplings. 

+ + + : It’s quite a long time ago I heard new stuff from Minus Habens and it was a cool surprise listening to this work. I like the minimal approach, mixing different influences together. But “The Man From The Lab” is clearly evoking the early days of Electro-Ambient music. The analogue sound treatments and effects bring this period back alive. It sounds minimal and experimental, but always accessible. 

– – – : The debut part of the album is definitely more exciting than the second one so in the end it all became a bit predictable and monotone. The addition of a few vocals might be an idea.

Conclusion: This work deals with a cool concept and has been adapted into some cool vintage songs. 

Best songs: “The Mixture”, “The Man From The Lab”, “Black Swan”, “Monkey”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.paolobragaglia.com / www.facebook.com/paolobragagliamusic 

Label: www.minushabens.com / www.facebook.com/MinusHabensRecords 

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

Minus Habens Records announces the release tomorrow of Paolo F. Bragaglia’s “The Man from the Lab” album which is an imaginary soundtrack of a Sci-Fi TV series released in 1982, in a parallel world.

The plot is about a drama set in a secret experimental biology laboratory about unknown viruses transported to the early ’80s by a mysterious visitor from the future. A story of biological research, humans, animals, labs and travels through time, space, and different dimensions.

“The Man From The Lab” follows Paolo F. Bragaglia’s “Mystère Du Printemps” (Minus Habens Records, 2006) and “Yug” by the electro-acoustic duo project Synusonde (Minus Habens Records 2011). It’s a tribute to the sounds that influenced the origins of the path of this eclectic electronic musician from Italian Marche region.

Here’s the album trailer.

About Paolo F. Bragaglia

Author of seven albums, Paolo F. Bragaglia collaborated with a considerable number of musicians, directors and artists: Mauro Pagani (guest on the first album “Magnum Chaos” in 1999), Steve Piccolo, Monica Demuru, Howie B, Roberto Paci Dalò, Robert Lippok , Orchestra Filarmonica Marchigiana and the dancer Simona Lisi. He has also performed with various projects in numerous festivals such as Time Zones, Dancity, Cinematica, Rassegna di Nuova Musica, Spaziomusica, Ipercorpo, Beach Bum Festival, Inteatro, APP, Blooming, Mozartfest Wurzburg.

Paolo F. Bragaglia is the founder and director of the Acusmatiq electronic music festival (in Ancona, since 2006) and founder of the “Museo del Synth Marchigiano” dedicated to the vintage electronic instruments made in Marche.

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.

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(Photo by Olga Diasparro at LACMA, Los Angeles) Ivan Iusco, the Italian award-winning film music composer, is back with a brand new album on Minus Habens. “Synthagma” includes twelve tracks, using dominant and multi-layered synthesizers. It also features three songs co-written with the Greek singer and musician Kid Moxie (“Head On Fire”, “Fly’s Heart” and “The Other Side”) who is well known for her past collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch Foundation.

The music videos for “Head On Fire” and “Sabotage” were already available on YouTube, but now we also get served the 3rd one for the track “The Other Side”. “The Other Side” was directed by Alexo Wandael and is a tribute to the videogame culture of the past and to its icon par excellence, Pac-Man, that is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year.

Here are the two other videos.

Music for Cyberpunk 2077 videogame

In further news, Iusco scored music for the videogame Cyberpunk 2077. Ivan: “I never imagined that in 2020, I would have the chance to work on one of the most anticipated video games of the last few years. Today, I can finally reveal it! I had the honor of composing two new tracks with singer and musician Kid Moxie for Cyberpunk 2077. This futuristic action-adventure game featuring Keanu Reeves is out now.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt and is released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One. It will come out for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S in 2021. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customisable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat.

Cyberpunk 2077 was developed using the REDengine 4 by a team of around 500 people, exceeding the number that worked on the studio’s previous game “The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt” (2015). CD Projekt launched a new division in Wrocław, Poland, and partnered with Digital Scapes, Nvidia, QLOC, and Jali Research to aid the production.

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.

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Dive’s “True Lies” 1999 album gets a re-release on 2LP vinyl. The reissue comes as a limited edition of 550 copies on double blue vinyl with gatefold sleeve, printed inner sleeves and numbered card.

“True Lies” was originally released in 1999 on Daft Records and was produced by Ivan Iusco (Minus Habens Records, Nightmare Lodge) and Eric Van Wonterghem Insekt, Monolith).

“True Lies” is available here for the first time on vinyl with all original songs plus extra tracks from the singles “Two Faced Man” and “Broken Meat”, some old compilations and a bunch of cover versions to classics by Suicide, The Normal and The Klinik. You can order this set right here from Bandcamp!

Tracklist:

• A1. True Lies One
• A2. Sidewalk Sinner
• A3. Breathing
• A4. Give It To Me
• A5. Two Faced Man

• B1. Be Yourself
• B2. Dreamhunter
• B3. Voodoo Child
• B4. Are You Awake
• B5. True Lies Two

• C1. Waiting And Burning
• C2. Blindness
• C3. In The Glasshouse
• C4. The Human Race
• C5. Skullscraper

• D1. Obsession
• D2. Cheree
• D3. Warm Leatherette
• D4. Moving Hands
• D5. Ghostrider

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.

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It’s now 27 years ago that Dirk Ivens (the legendary singer of The Klinik) took the world by surprise unleashing the self-titled debut album “DIVE”. The sound revealed a heavy, industrial and unpolished production mixed with  charismatic vocals. This work was the debut of a successful career featuring numerous great albums and essential songs. The music remained dark and industrial, but still featuring electronic treatments. But after the “Behind The Sun”-album (2004) the fans had to wait for 13 years to get new studio material. “Underneath” has been released on Out Of Line and is featuring good-old guest contributor Ivan Iusco (Nightmare Lodge and owner of Minus Habens Records) and Rafael M. Espinosa (Geistform) who already collaborated on “Behind The Sun”.

You can order the latest Dive releases right here on vinyl.

(by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Did you ever thought to come back with a new Dive-album and what was the ‘click’ to start working again on new stuff?

Dirk: . After the definitive chapter to stop The Klinik from my side and the decision to take a long break with Absolute Body Control after the intensive touring, I suddenly realized I had all the time of the world to work in all quietness and peace on a new DIVE album. People asked me for years about new material and I realized it was more than a decade ago since the last album “Behind The Sun”.

Q: What kind of album did you’d in mind (sound- & lyrical wise) when starting the composition of “Underneath”?

Dirk: The ingredients are always the same; dark atmospheric electronics with a haunting voice. Of course there was a lot happening in the world during the last decade. We got confronted with terrorism, which is heavy cutting in the minds of Western people. The world will never be the same as we knew it and I try to capture that image and feelings also in my lyrics.

Q: You asked Ivan Iusco and Rafael M. Espinosa to help a hand. What’s the real impact of both musicians on “Underneath”, which according to me became your most accomplished album ever?

Dirk: As a non-musician I like to work together with other people otherwise every album would sound like the first DIVE record. With Ivan I used to work a lot in the past and with Rafael I collaborated on the last one. This time I asked them both to send music in the style that would fit in the DIVE concept, we discussed about the tracks and made changes where needed, I wrote the lyrics and did the singing. Beside that I also composed a few tracks and this way of working is perfect because this brings variety in sound and structures and keeps it very interesting. On stage DIVE is and will always be a one man project, but on recordings I always worked together with others.

Q: “Underneath” also sounds as a refreshing work and a kind of antidote to all dark-electro and industrial-like bands which all sound pretty similar to each other. What’s your perception of the ‘scene’ today?

Dirk: I don’t listen that much to other electronic bands because there is not much development in that genre, everything has been already done thousands times before. Originality is the keyword, bands like Twice A Man or Portion Control are still making excellent albums, but most of the younger generation sounds like a copy of Nitzer Ebb or DAF, really not my thing. For the “Underneath” album I went to a factory and recorded the banging noise on my discman, just like during the old days. So, be creative instead of using all the same sounds.

Q: I noticed there’re 27 (!) years between your self-titled debut-album and “Underneath”. How would you analyze the evolution of Dive throughout the years and what does it mean to you as an artist/performer?

Dirk: The very first DIVE gig was indeed in 1990, it’s unbelievable how time runs fast. For me music is the red wire in life, I feel like a fortunate person who could do musically what I wanted to do with all of my projects. I have seen a lot of technologic changes, from recording on two track tape desks to digital with all formats in between. The world changed and so do I, my wish is to continue another 3 years and celebrate 30 years of DIVE on stage, a nice way to end this story, right?

Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries

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: Cinematographic, soundtrack.

Background/Info: Veteran Ivan Iusco entered into the history of electronic and industrial music as the owner of Minus Habens Records, one of the ‘guest musicians’ contributing to some of Dive’s most legendary songs, but he first of all became a respected and renowned soundtrack composer.

I remember his first experiment “La Capa Gira”, which is a soundtrack I still like to play from time to time.

Content: From the very first notes and arrangements you directly get into poignant orchestral passages and a heavy bombastic sound. The piano playing and some violin passages inject a refined and sensitive neo-classic touch. Ivan Iusco definitely became an expert when it comes to compose cinematographic music. The work is dark and quite heavy and features numerous layers.

Next to the ‘classical’ side of the work a few cuts reveal explicit electronic writing. It all remains pretty bombast and even epic-minded, but it also is a way to (re)discover the experimental side of the artist. Let’s not forget that Minus Habens released work of Sigillum S, Blackhouse, Nigthmare Lodge and other experimental/industrial artists. Ivan Iusco mixed elements of glitch and industrial bombast.

At the end of the album he also experiments with a kind of industrial-pop approach featuring female vocals by Tying Tiffany. This song reveals great electronic manipulations next to delicate piano playing.

+ + + : The orchestral/epic aspect of this work is grandiose while Iusco still remains an interesting experimental/industrial composer.

– – – : The diversity of the work might be seen as one of the album’s main strengths, but it also creates a lack of a compact feeling.

Conclusion: You have artists that dream of becoming talented and respected soundtrack composers, and there you have Ivan Iusco. There’s an enormous hiatus between both categories, which will become clear when listening to “Transients”.

Best songs: “The Arrival”, “Unformed”, “Circuitless feat. Tying Tiffany”.

Rate: (8).

Band: www.ivaniusco.com/home / www.facebook.com/ivan.iusco

Label: www.minushabens.com / www.facebook.com/MinusHabensRecords

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