(Photo by Ariel Opal Feldman) Ft. Lauderdale, Forida–based electro-industrial music artist Miss FD has just released her latest cyber-industrial dystopian-themed single, “Syndicated”.

“Syndicated” is the fourth installment to Miss FD’s previous cyber-industrial dystopian-themed singles which included “Your Core”, “Menticide” and “Distractions”. “Syndicated” is out now through Quantum Release Records, available worldwide on all major streaming outlets including Bandcamp.

About Miss FD

Miss FD is an underground electronic musician, artist, singer, songwriter, producer, and performer. The project began in 2009 and has since known a constant output debuting with the single “Together Forever”. It was followed-up in 2010 with her seminal debut album “Monsters in the Industry”.

From 2010 to 2017, Miss FD went on to release a string of singles including “Love Magic”, “Down in the Dungeon”, “Infatuated”, “Cry For You (Haunted)”, “Unraveling”, and “Electropop Sickle”. She also released two more albums, 2011’s “Love Never Dies” and 2013’s “Comfort for the Desolate”.

In 2018 followed the industrial-rock album “Transcendence”. The seven-track album also included a collaboration with Vulture Culture, whom she would further collaborate with on the singles “Ashes Of Stars”, “Spitfire”, and “Faster Than Light”.

Following her 2020 singles “Keep Going” and “Pandemic 2020”, Miss FD released her three-song EP “Adore”, and the single “Your Core”, which were heavily infused with futuristic and cyberpunk elements.

2022 saw the release of her exploration of Göbekli Tepe in her three-song dark pop EP, “As Above, So Below”, followed by her cyberpunk single “Menticide” released the same year. Miss FD released her cyber-industrial single and cinematic music video for “Distractions” in 2023, followed by her most recent 2024 single release “Syndicated”.

Previous singles in the series

Below are the previous singles in the series starting with “Your Core” (2020).

“Menticide” (2022)

“Distractions” (2023)

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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O.P.A.L., the brainchild of Puerto Rican ‘non-musician’ Jose E. Roman Garcia, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with the release of “Pacific” and “Beatless”, two albums that celebrate the different sides of this project: ambient, dream pop, electronic, experimental, shoegaze, soundtrack, and other musical idioms. You might remember the band from its contribution to our free charity compilation “Face The Beat 6” with the track “Christin’s Song”.

“Pacific” was inspired by the ocean, several locations on the west coast of the United States, and several phenomena. It builds upon the dream pop and shoegaze sound started on the earlier “Seu Et Fang” and “Sleep Demon” EP’s, “Sleepless”, and “Insomniac” albums spread across 10 tracks.

“Beatless” is a return to O.P.A.L.’s sonic origins. A more experimental album that ventures into the ambient and soundtrack territories among five tracks averaging 8 or more minutes per track. In “Beatless”, tracks names are just numbers, placeholders for each piece. Finally “Sedative” is the project’s most recent release. Four songs showcasing the further explorations into dream pop, post-rock, and shoegaze.

Both albums and the EP are available for listening and purchase at Bandcamp as well as Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services.

Jose E Roman Garcia hails from Puerto Rico has not been doing music since 1991 on his label Rojo y Negro Records under his bands D35C0JóN UR84N0 (Industrial Rock), Antártica (techno), Música Casual (experimental), and O.P.A.L (ambient, dreampop, experimental, shoegaze). He recently collaborated with fellow Puerto Rican Federico Balducci for the project BR35.

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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Out 19 November via the Downwards label is the new collaboration between Astrud Steehouder, Alex Tucker and Luke J Murray. The trio – all residents of North East London – united under the Nonexistent umbrella for a self-titled debut.

Astrud Steehouder (Opal X, Paper Dollhouse), Alex Tucker (Microcorps, Grumbling Fur) and Luke J Murray (Grimescapes, Iceman Junglist Kru, Stonecirclesampler) have recorded 9 tracks which Downwards Records label head Regis (Karl O’Connor) describes as “a great electronic record that’s rooted in the soil of these isles, a record with a true sense of place, purpose and time.”

You can listen to the first track, “Untitled 9. (Cold Walls)”, right below.

Long-standing friends Steehouder and Tucker planned to collaborate for many years, and in 2020 they finally found the time to start sharing files with the aim of making long form drone pieces. As the project progressed they enlisted Manchester producer Luke J Murray in to the fold. As a result you will hear a blend of Steehouder’s extended Prophet 8 improvisations, Tucker’s modular processed cello, voice and tapes and Luke J Murray’s sampled electronics.

About the Nonexistent members

Astrud Steehouder is a musician, performer and producer utilizing both electronic and acoustic compositions. She works predominantly with synthesisers, electronics and guitar and is best known for her work as Paper Dollhouse with Nina Bosnic. She has released music with Night School, Finders Keepers, The Tapeworm and her own MoonDome imprint. Since moving on from Paper Dollhouse, Steehouder is currently working under her heavy electronics alias Opal X.

Alex Tucker is a multidisciplinary artist working across music and visual art. Tucker’s multiple projects include solo work as Alexander Tucker, avant pop duo Grumbling Fur with Daniel O’Sullivan, radiophonics tape works as Imbogodom with Daniel Beban and most recently his solo electronics project Microcorps for Alter. Tucker had collaborated alongside Charlemange Palestine, Neil Campbell, Mark Titchner, Gazelle Twin, Simon Fisher Turner and Nik Void, releasing works with Thrill Jockey, Important, VHF and ATP recordings.

Luke J Murray is a Manchester producer based in London, his projects as one half of Iceman Junglist Kru and Grimescapes have seen him release for both The Tapeworm and Manchester’s YOUTH label. He records solo as Stonecirclesampler (via Industrial Coast), creating gauzy drones and submerged audio, hovering at the edges of mutant jungle, garage and experimental zones.

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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Coitus Interruptus Productions and Crunch Pod are to release “Channeling The Solar Lodge”, a free Coil tribute compilation next month. The tribute will offer 20 different electronic and experimental projects covering their favourite Coil track.

Bands featured on this compilation will be the following ones (next to their names you’ll find teh respective tracks they will cover):

• AkA – Artillery Night Space
• Brien Hindman – Boken Fabiola
• Dead Receptors – Defrag
• Dreamscape Invocation – Empusae
• Fetal Distress – Flint Glass
• Fluxion A/D – God Module
• Grave of the Opal Golem
• Law-Rah Collective – Manufactura
• Morlox – Michael Idehall – NDSTRY
• The Present Moment – Pyroclastic
• Snowbeasts – Sylvgheist Maëlström
• Talvekoidik – Theodor Bastard – XISIX

About Coil

Coil were an experimental music group, founded in 1982 in London, England and concluded in 2005. Initially envisioned as a solo project by musician John Balance (of the band Psychic TV), Coil evolved into a full-time project with the addition of his partner Peter Christopherson (formerly of pioneering industrial music group Throbbing Gristle).

Balance and Christopherson were the only constant members; other contributors throughout the band’s career included Stephen Thrower, Danny Hyde, Drew McDowall, William Breeze, Thighpaulsandra, and Ossian Brown.

After the release of their 1984 debut EP “How to Destroy Angels”, Coil joined Some Bizzare Records, through which they released two full-length albums, “Scatology” (1984) and “Horse Rotorvator” (1986). After departing from Some Bizzare, Coil established their own record label, Threshold House, through which they produced and released “Love’s Secret Domain” (1991).

In 1985, the group began working on a series of soundtracks, among them the rejected score for the first “Hellraiser”.

Financial difficulties slowed the group’s work in the early 1990s before they returned to the project on releases such as “Astral Disaster” (1999), and the “Musick to Play in the Dark” series composed of “Vol. 1” (1999) and “Vol. 2” (2000), as well as releasing several projects under aliases such as Black Light District, ELpH, and Time Machines.

The group started several smaller independent record labels, including Eskaton and Chalice. The group’s first live performance in 16 years occurred in 1999, and began a series of mini-tours that would last until 2004.

Following the accidental death of John Balance on 13 November 2004, Christopherson announced via that Coil as an entity had ceased to exist, ending the Coil discography with “The Ape of Naples” (2005).

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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Available now on vinyl in a limited run of just 500 copies is the album “The Trail of Genghis Khan” made by Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance) in collaboration with Australian violinist / multi-instrumentalist Cye Wood.

The recording was sourced from material that Lisa and Cye produced for the Australian documentary series “The Trail of Genghis Khan” which showed Tim Cope’s journey on horseback from Mongolia to Hungary.

You can order this vinyl right now via this mailorder.

It’s not the first time Cye has been collaborating with Gerrard, he was already a violinist on her solo album “The Black Opal” released in 2009.

Here’s an excerpt.

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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Genre/Influences: IDM, techno.

Background/Info: French producer David Letellier aka Kangding Ray is operating from Berlin, which is the right town for this artist. Most of his albums and EP’s have been released on Raster-Noton and Stroboscopic Artefacts, but this is the first album released on the Berliner Stroboscopic Artefacts.

Content: After the previous album (cf. “Cory Arcana”) released in 2015 I was really wondering what the new full length would sound like. Kangding Ray remains driven by the passion of sound creation, mixing dark-technoid elements together with more sophisticated and intelligent, icy sonic textures carried by somewhat bombastic rhythms. I think this artist is more active in the upper class of electronics instead of simply being labeled as a techno artist.

Some passages are quite trance-minded while other parts are driven by evasive sequences. I sometimes get the impression of hearing a fusion between Front 242 (for the great sound treatments) and techno music, which can only give birth to an intelligent sonic format.

+ + + : I was again impressed by the sound creativity of this artist. Kangding Ray stands for high-tech electronics, driven by impressive sound manipulations and sophisticated structures. It’s a cold and danceable sound carried by a hard kick. There are multiple transcendental passages running through this opus and I especially refer to the first half of the album, which is astonishing. This artist is not just a sound architect; he’s a real guru hold many disciples in his grip.

– – – : Both last cuts are not the most inspiring ones and definitely not representative for the genius of this artist.

Conclusion: “Hyper Opal Mantis” sounds a bit like Front 242’s “Geography” from the ‘modern ages’. This work is an absolute masterpiece for all lovers of elaborated and intelligent electronics.

Best songs: “Rubi”, “Dune”, “Soul Surfing”, “Lone Pyramids”, “Onde Mantis”.

Rate: (9).

Band: www.kangdingray.com / www.facebook.com/kangdingray

Label: http://stroboscopicartefacts.com / www.facebook.com/StroboscopicArtefacts

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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