A chance meeting at a climate conference in Berlin in 2023 has led to the formation of the musical collective Hence. Behind the project we find advertising strategist Knuth who met music publisher Daryl Bamonte during a lunch conversation at said climate conference.

Knuth mentioned his recent purchase of modular synths despite having no musical experience and Bamonte encouraged him by saying, “Record something and I’ll release it.” Knuth simply responded, “OK!”

Yes, things can be very simple sometimes.

The debut single “Stuck In My Throat” will be released on 5th June 2024 on the duo’s newly-formed label, Cosmic Cassettes. It features Danish singer Kennie Orsted and Brooklyn-based Yasmin Haddad from NightNight. The release is rounded off with a remix by Portuguese electronic producer Phaser.

The track will be available through Cosmic Cassettes and distributed by Danmark Music Group, with publishing handled by Archangelo Music/BMG.

Here’s a video teaser.

About Daryl Bamonte

Daryl Bamonte has a career spanning nearly four decades in the music industry. He began working with Depeche Mode, a band formed by his childhood friends, in 1980 while he was still in school. Over the next 15 years, he held various roles with the band, including tour manager and project manager, and even replaced Andy Fletcher as the keyboard player during the final legs of the Devotional Tour in 1994.

In addition to his work with Depeche Mode, Bamonte has been involved with The Cure, taking on broader roles such as executive producer for their self-titled album and the Trilogy DVD. In 2005, he founded Bamonte Artist Management, representing various musicians and bands, and later co-founded Archangelo Music, a label and publishing company, in 2021. He remains active as an artist manager and is also involved in the Norwegian post-punk band Permafrost as a keyboardist.

Bamonte also is an ambassador for Europe in Synch, a consultant for Schubert Music Europe, and is involved in several international music projects and conferences.

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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On May 26th, 2022 Andrew Fletcher, founding member of Depeche Mode, died, aged 60. Out via Timezone on November 25th is the Depeche Mode tribute compilation “6122 (To Andrew Fletcher of Depeche Mode)”. The compilation’s title contains the year Andrew Fletcher was born and the year he died.

The aim was to bring together different artists from different decades, old musical companions of “Fletch” as well as known artists across different genres and promising new bands who were influenced by Depeche Mode’s sound.

The 2CD set features artists from all kind of musical genres and 50% of all profits will be donated to a charity organisation for children in UK, and the Children’s Cancer Trust in Germany, who officially partners to the project. Behind this project we find Daniel Gierke of the act The Brute.

Here’s an idea what to get.

Here’s is the complete tracklist:

CD1

1. A Question of Time – The Brute :
2. Never Let Me Down Again – Watershed
3. In Your Room – Nightnight
4. Ice Machine – Renard feat. Mary Ann
5. Broken – Redeem
6. Stripped – Starlights Live
7. Little 15 – Atlantic Popes
8. The Sun And The Rainfall – Apsürde feat. Manoya
9. My Secret Garden – Cold Connection
10. It’s No Good – Oxic Inc. feat. De La Morte
11. Dream On – Roy Jones & Red Beat
12. Should Be Higher – The Rude Awakening
13. Somebody – Toal, The Brute, People Theatre
14. In Sympathy – Bon Harris
15. Heaven – Zentrum Ost 71

CD2

1. Enjoy The Silence – LeBen
2. Personal Jesus – Polly Scattergood
3. Wrong – Kirlian Camera
4. Policy of Truth – Rohn-Lederman
5. To Have and to Hold – Page Of Quire
6. Angel – Tom Meeloo
7. Somebody – Peter Rainman
8. The Sun And The Rainfall – Northern Kind
9. Photographic – Shelter
10. A Barrel of a Gun (El Presidente Peron Yeah John) – Carlos Peron
11. I Feel You – Tin Gun
12. I Feel Loved – Daniel Hall feat. Stephen Newton
13. Oberkorn (It’s a Small Town) – Electrogenetic by Gareth Jones
14. Clean – Neocoma
15. Breathe – The Brute feat. Rachel Delgado

For more on Depeche Mode, see Sonic Seducer goes Depeche Mode in two dedicated issues of the magazine on Side-Line.

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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Genre/Influences: Ethereal-Pop.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: “Love Decayed” is the debut album of the New-Yorker (USA) female artist New York multi-instrumentalist and producer Yasmin M. Haddad. She got a helping hand from a few guests featuring Chris Harms (Lord Of The Lost).

Content: I never heard of this project before and discovered an intriguing piece of sensual-ethereal Pop music. The songs are pretty minimal-like, composed with electronics plus guitar and violin. Yasmin M. Haddad is also taking care of the vocals which have something fragile and precious. Some songs are into a Ballad style while others are more into an evasive Electro-Pop approach reminding me of Hooverphonic.

+ + + : NightNight has something special and definitely different from established standards. It’s hard defining this project, but I experienced it as a kind of fragile-, sensual- and Ethereal-Pop format. It sounds minimal, sometimes a bit Electro-Wave like and also moving through melancholic passages. The addition of violin playing accentuates this melancholia with a deeply artistic touch. Last, but not least, the production of the vocals is also one of the album’s main characteristics.

– – – : NightNight is an original project but hard to label. So I’m really wondering which kind of audience NightNight will appeal to.

Conclusion: “Love Decayed” is an original, beautiful, sensible and fragile piece of music.

Best songs: “Down”, “Strange Dismay”, “Different”, “Leaves”.

Rate: 8.

Label: http://nocut.de / www.facebook.com/spvhannover

“Love Decayed” arrived on 28 January 2022 as a self-released digital album, with the CD following through NoCut and SPV later in 2022. The thirteen tracks are “Different”, “Leaves”, “Maybe It’s Too Late…”, “Ashes”, “On His Mind”, “Love Decayed”, “Little Sister”, “Somewhere Outside”, “Their Man”, “Strange Dismay”, “Down”, “Ugly” and “Untied”. Side-Line had already carried the video for ‘Leaves’ in January 2022.

Yasmin M. Haddad wrote every song and plays vocals, violin, guitar, synthesizers, drum machine and samples. Sylvia Massy co-produced ten tracks with Haddad at Studio Divine in Ashland, Oregon, and also plays drums and percussion on the title track. Chris Harms produced and engineered “Ashes” with Haddad and added instrumentation to it; that track was mixed by Benjamin Lawrenz at Chameleon Studios in Hamburg and mastered by Jeremy Cimeno. Joshua Lago adds guitar to “Their Man” and “Down”, Arista Illona adds vocals to “Different”, and Lisa Keane, Bill Murphey, Ivan Handwerk and Gabriel Lucas play auxiliary percussion on “Strange Dismay”. Marcel Fernandez mixed the remaining tracks and Stevie B mastered them. Sean Waple made the artwork.

Listen to “Love Decayed”:

About NightNight

NightNight is the project of American multi-instrumentalist, singer and producer Yasmin M. Haddad, who works between New York and Los Angeles. She writes all the material and plays vocals, violin, guitar, synthesizers, drum machine and samples herself, mixing ethereal pop, darkwave and post-punk.

“Love Decayed” is her first album under the name. It was recorded at Studio Divine in Ashland, Oregon, and at West Alley Recording in Los Angeles, with additional work at Chameleon Studios in Hamburg. Producer Sylvia Massy and Chris Harms of Lord Of The Lost are the two outside voices on the record.

The album was self-released digitally in January 2022 and then picked up for CD by NoCut and SPV, the German label group that also handles Eisfabrik. Side-Line covered the project first through the ‘Leaves’ video, and the review here followed in April 2022.

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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The newest NightNight album “Love Decayed” is out now. Leading up to the record, the post-punk act has just released the new single, “Leaves” with an accompanying video. Leading up to the release the band already released videos for the tracks “Ashes”, “MITL” and the title track “Love Decayed”.

The debut album for the Brooklyn based act NightNight (aka Yasmin Maryam Haddad) was produced by Sylvia Massey (Prince, Tool, System of A Down).

You can check out the newest NightNight video for “Leaves” right below. Warmly recommended.

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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