The Dutch electro post-punk act Model Depose has just released a new mini album titled “Year Of The Plague”. The album is also the final statement from the band as they throw in the towel.

“Year Of The Plague” refers to the major social changes in society and how people interact. Good to know though is that the title track was already completed before the pandemic struck worldwide. On the album we also find the track “How Can We Win” for which the band has collaborated with Black Lives Matters activist and writer Kimberly L. Jones.

“As a band, we were emotionally moved by the speech Kimberly posted on YouTube. We couldn’t look away and wanted to do something with this topic. It didn’t feel right to write a lyric from our perspective as a ‘white privileged’ band. And before we knew it, we had composed a track that, in our eyes, fits the lyrics and the emotion of the subject perfectly.”

The final trip

But the biggest news is that is the final testament for the band. The Model Depose members have decided not to write new music or go on stage anymore as they have different ambitions and with the current pandemic and the limitations that come with it, the band has not been able to find a form that suits the different band members’ needs.

Model Depose was part of the Groningen pop scene for at least twelve years. Their first release was an untitled EP, released in 2011 clearly inspired by dark new wave and electro from the 80ies and 90ies.

“We want to thank all the fans who have supported us and continue to do so for their enthusiasm and
energy. We also thank all (local) media that pay attention to Groningen talent for their stage. And we
have great respect for the stages and festivals that made it possible to bring our music to new
audiences. Thanks for this trip.”

Good luck guys! Here’s the band’s new and final EP which definitely is an end in beauty.

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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Model Depose is a band from The Netherlands, which released their debut full length album “Splitting Light” on Dark Tunes Music Group and Trisol. This opus is a successful mix between good-old new-wave influences and a kind of electro/indie-pop music. I got in touch with guitarist Jobbe Holtes to get some more info about the band and this impressive album.

(by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Who’s hiding behind Model Depose and what kind of band & sound did you had in mind when taking off? 

Jobbe: Jobbe, David, Roeland, Mariët and Tim are Model Depose. We share a great passion for alternative music. Initially our music started as an electro project with new-wave guitars. Eventually, line-up changes and evolving writing skills change the way we compose. Our music became richer than we initially aimed for.

Q: You claim to be ‘the New Romantics of the present time’ so what does that mean and what’s the link with your music? 

Jobbe: We never claimed to be ‘New Romantics of the present time’. The title was given by others just after the release of our EP “Nightwatch”, and  it stuck with us. We feel that it is a beautiful way to define what kind of music influences you can expect.

We don’t necessarily claim that we’re the same or that we even have the same goals in our music, but people feel a lot of similarities with the way these bands sounded and gave way for their musical ideas.

Q: You’re already active for a couple of years now, but why did it take that long to achieve and release this debut album “Splitting Light”? 

Jobbe: To cut a long story short; on the moment we wanted to start writing our debut album, we had some major changes within the band. Finally it all came down to the money; recording and other aspects of the music industry can be very expensive so it took some time before we organized ourselves.

We are very happy with the results we’ve achieved over the years and continue to write new music. We hope to release a new album in 2017.

Q: Let’s talk about “Splitting Light”; how did the writing happened and what are according to you the main strengths of this work? 

Jobbe: We write our music quite intuitively. A song could start just with a great synth sound or riff. We compose a rough track and start to write lyrics. Later on we re-compose the song to match with our vocal ideas.

We think that the explicit vocals from Roeland are a great strength. The crossover between the polished new-wave sound and edgy rock riffs is another one. The variety of our sounds and contrasts within songs is something we’re pretty proud of as well.

Q: The last song of the album (cf. “Nightwatch”) is a look back at your self-released debut EP released three years ago now. Do you see any progress and maybe improvement in sound and production from “Nightwatch” till “Splitting Light”? 

Jobbe: We’re constantly trying to improve our songwriting, the way we orchestrate or how we produce our music. We went from stripping everything to acoustic to full pull productions with many layers and synth textures in the details. From one man productions to group production sessions with collective lyric writing. This way, we learn from every song. But we still love the songs we wrote before, for different reasons obviously.

Q: Your sound clearly reminds me to bands like Depeche Mode, IAMX and Mesh… which I think says something about your potential sources of inspiration. What makes the fascination for some of these bands?

Jobbe: We’re very happy that people mention these great bands and you’ll find music from these bands in our collection although we never try to copy their music. We do what we please music-wise. That’s a quality we’re very proud of.

We think what we have in common with those bands is the interest in emotive music. A bit dramatic, or dark you might say, but furthermore intense.

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.

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Genre/Influences: Electro-pop, indie-pop.

Background/Info: Model depose is a band from The Netherlands I discovered a few years ago now when they self-released the EP “Nightwatch”. It was a real promising production, which convinced me that the band would be signed to an open-minded label. And that’s precisely what happened. “Splitting Light” is the official debut-album from the band and features 14 songs. It has been released on Dark Tunes in collaboration with Trisol.

Content: The influences of Model Depose are instantly pretty clear. The opening song sounds quite Depeche Mode-like while other songs might remind you of Mesh (especially for the carrying choruses) and IAMX clearly is another source of inspiration. I can’t say that their work is innovative, but an impressive emulation of established bands with an extra personal touch on top.

Guitar and electronics are in perfect harmony with each other. You clearly get the impression that Model Depose will bring you back to some great 80s music. The pop approach is well-crafted and carried by a talented vocalist. His timbre of voice sometimes reminds me a bit of Chris Corner (IAMX), which only reinforces the link with this formation.

One of the most surprising- and yet successful songs is the cover version of Portishead’s “Sour Times”. The original song has been transposed in an alluring Model Depose edit. It sounds powerful and still quite recognizable.

+ + + : It always is a big challenge to compose music that will be associated with great bands like Depeche Mode, IAMX and even Mesh, but the least I can say is that Model Depose has the talent to succeed. “Splitting Light” is a mature album revealing several cool songs with noticeable writing skills. Some of the choruses have this transcendental power, which will make you forget all your stress. The compositions are elaborate and into alluring pop music with a great vocalist on top. This is a band that will appeal for all lovers of aforementioned bands and pop fans generally speaking.

– – – : The only main minus point about this album is the lack of originality. Model Depose calls themselves ‘the new romantics of the present time’, but they first of all are ‘copyists of famous electro-pop bands’.

Conclusion: “Splitting Light” is an album that confirms what I’ve said for years now: better to be a great copy of established bands than a worse one, but innovative production. Model Depose is one of the best surprises in electro-pop land of the year.

Best songs: “Combat Force Machine Gun”, “Greyscale”, “Papercut”, “Order Is Chaos”, “Nightatch – Album Mix”, “Rise And Fall”.

Rate: (8).

Band: www.modeldepose.com / www.facebook.com/modeldepose

Label: www.darktunes.com / www.facebook.com/darkTunesMusic

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

Belgium’s finest electropop act Psy’Aviah launches a brand new music video: “Face to Face” featuring guest vocalist Roeland van der Velde of Model Depose fame playing a man gone mad, a lost soul that is desperate to be face to face with his long lost, or maybe imaginary, loved one as the lyrics and video suggest.

You can watch the video below:

The track is taken from Psy’Aviah most recent outing “Seven Sorrows, Seven Stars” from which other songs already had a music video treatment (eg. “Frozen”, “Alcubierre Drive”, “Not What I Expected”). It’s this album Psy’Aviah will be presenting live this fall on tour and “Face To Face” is guaranteed to be on the setlist. You can check the album below:

Here are a few live dates coming up!

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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The excellent dutch act Model Depose has signed a label contract with Trisol and DarkTunes. For international publishing, Model Depose signed with BMG Talpa Music.

A single and their debut album “Splitting Light” will be released later this autumn. Model Depose’s music is – as they aptly put it – ‘characterised by new wave and synthpop spiced popsongs, in synergy with techno, electro and rock elements’. Over the last year Model Depose has played shows in UK, Belgium and France and is currently booking shows in and outside the Netherlands to follow their release of debut album “Splitting Light”.

Booked so far are:

• 07-10 Sugar Factory, Amsterdam (NL)
• 08-10 Vera, Groningen (NL)

You might know Model Depose already as the singer of the band, Roeland van der Velde, collaborated on the Psy’Aviah track “Face to Face”.

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 in April, but ready for ordering on Bandcamp and here for the CD/2CD versions, is “Seven Sorrows, Seven Stars”, the brand new Psy’Aviah album. Alfa Matrix is now offering 4 tracks for streaming, which you can check below. The tracks included are the intimate “Looking Back (feat. David Chamberlin from Entrzelle), the pulsating “Lessons From The Past (feat. Mari Kattman)”, the what we expect to be an upcoming dance hit “Not What I Expected (feat. Fallon Nieves)” and “Wild Ride (feat. Miss FD)”, the latter has a very oriental touch as you’ll hear.

These days Psy’Aviah is basically the project around the multi-talented Belgian artist Yves Schelpe who has been gathering a varied range of singers around his songs including Kyoko Baertsoen (ex-Hooverphonic, Lunascape), David Chamberlin (Entrzelle), Roeland van der Velde (Model Depose), Bernard Feron (MED, Combat Voice), Mari Kattman, Andrew Galucki, Alvin River, Pieter Van Vaerenbergh (Metafuzz, Zelon), Ellia Bisker (Sweet Soubrette), Miss FD, Addie Nicole (Halocine), Diana S. (Junksista) and Fallon Nieves.

Next to the normal CD version and the extended download version, the album also comes out as a limited deluxe 2CD carton box edition with a 14-track bonus CD holding album songs reinterpretations with a much more dancefloor techno / trance oriented approach. You an find the complete trackless of remixers right here.

Below is already the trailer for the album:

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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