Rogue Unit vs Darkvolt release the digital single “The Truth (Rhys Fulber Remix)” on 23 January 2026 via Antwerp-based label DressCode Black, a sublabel of Detroit-Berlin focusing on EBM, electro, new wave and industrial acts. The track is is a dark electro / industrial rework and forms the second instalment in a planned five-part remix series leading up to the EP “State Of Calamity“, scheduled for April 2026.

“The Truth (Rhys Fulber Remix)” follows a first single in the series, “Aggression (CJ Bolland Remix)”, which opened the “State Of Calamity” series at the end of 2025. All five remixes are planned to precede the EP, which will combine new Rogue Unit vs Darkvolt tracks with reinterpretations by several established producers from the international electronic and industrial scenes.

“The Truth (Rhys Fulber Remix)” comes as a standalone digital track.

About Rogue Unit vs Darkvolt and Rhys Fulber

Rogue Unit vs Darkvolt is a collaboration between Belgian producer Rogue Unit and vocalist Darkvolt. Rogue Unit is an industrial-techno project oriented toward club-focused material with a darker, atmospheric edge, while Darkvolt operates as an electro-industrial / dark-electro vocalist and songwriter.

Darkvolt’s catalogue includes the full-length album “Songs for Halloween”, which combines EBM, darkwave and industrial elements and was released via DressCode Black. On Side-Line we have previously covered Darkvolt’s digital single “White Lie“. Darkvolt also appeared in the remix context of CauseNation.

Rhys Fulber, born 10 October 1970 in Vancouver, Canada, is a producer, composer and musician. He is widely recognised as a key member and collaborator of Front Line Assembly, the electro-industrial band founded by Bill Leeb, and of Delerium, the duo whose single “Silence” featuring Sarah McLachlan became an international club and radio success. As part of Delerium, Fulber co-wrote and produced “Silence”, which has been repeatedly reissued and remixed since its original 1999 single release.

Parallel to his band work, Fulber has maintained an extensive solo career. Since 2017 he has released a sequence of albums and EPs that connect industrial, EBM and techno, including “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” (2018) and “Ostalgia” (2019), both issued on Sonic Groove, and “Brutal Nature” (2021) on FR Recordings. More recently he released “Memory Impulse Autonomy” (2025) on Artoffact Records.

Fulber’s production and remix credits extend into metal and industrial-metal, including work with Fear Factory and involvement around the “Demanufacture” era, as well as contributions linked to Nailbomb’s live activity. His remixes for electro-industrial acts include contributions to Skinny Puppy’s remix collection “Remix Dys Temper”,.

In addition to album work, Fulber has written music for contemporary media. The tracks “Drained” (with Sao Mai) and “Subvert” (with Spooneater) feature on the “Cyberpunk 2077: More Music From Night City Radio (Original Soundtrack)”, released in 2021 by Lakeshore Records.

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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Rhys Fulber is a name that, within the Electro underground community, is universally recognized and commands the utmost respect. If you have been involved — and in some cases still are today — with projects such as Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Noise Unit, Intermix, Will, Conjure One, and more, there is little left to prove. And yet, a few years ago this creative Canadian began releasing work under his own name. The result ranged from Industrial-Body-Techno to more Ambient explorations, but always remained fascinating.

This time he joined forces for the first time with his compatriots at Artoffact Records and released an album that harks back to the bands and sounds that inspired him so deeply in the 80s, which he then further developed according to his own vision. This is an extremely varied opus that becomes even more diverse thanks to the different guest vocalists. William Maybelline aka Qual (Lebanon Hanover), Barkosina Hanusova (Years Of Denial), and Konstantin Unwohl were invited to contribute their voices on a total of four tracks, while the remaining six songs were completed without vocals, sometimes featuring spoken samples. Rhys Fulber returns to his familiar Body-Techno sound, but also experiments with more floating, atmospheric pieces. Some tracks revive that vintage 80s feeling remarkably well, yet still carry a futuristic edge. Other passages sound unmistakably FLA-inspired. Rhys Fulber remains a true sound guru, capable of blending subtlety and power within his compositions. This is intelligent music, marked by varied and high-quality arrangements.

Rhys Fulber’s solo work continues to fascinate me and once again stands as a guarantee of an exceptionally high-quality release. (Rating:8½).

Listen to “Baaderzeit”:

Read the news on ‘Memory Impulse Autonomy’.

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber, born in Vancouver in 1970, is a producer and musician working in industrial, EBM and ambient music. From 1986 he contributed to early Front Line Assembly releases alongside Bill Leeb before taking a central role in Delerium.

Through the late 1980s and 1990s Fulber shaped albums such as “Tactical Neural Implant” (1992) and “Hard Wired” (1995) with Front Line Assembly, and “Semantic Spaces” (1994) and “Karma” (1997) with Delerium, whose single “Silence”, featuring Sarah McLachlan, became an international success. He and Leeb also ran side projects including Synaesthesia and Intermix, while Fulber co-founded Will and later launched the solo project Conjure One.

Since 2017 Fulber has released a run of solo albums, among them “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” (2018), “Ostalgia” (2019), “Brutal Nature” (2021) and “Collapsing Empires” (2022), on labels such as Sonic Groove and aufnahme + wiedergabe and his own FR Recordings. He also works as a producer in rock and metal, most notably on Fear Factory’s “Demanufacture” (1995).

“Memory Impulse Autonomy”, released on 5 September 2025, is his debut solo album for Artoffact Records and features guest vocals from William Maybelline (Qual/Lebanon Hanover), Barkosina (Years of Denial) and Konstantin Unwohl.

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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Electronic producer Rhys Fulber, known for his work with Frontline Assembly, Delerium, and Fear Factory, will release a new solo album titled “Memory Impulse Autonomy” on September 5, 2025. The release marks his debut solo outing for Canadian label Artoffact Records.

The album will be available in two formats: a limited mixed blue vinyl LP and a standard CD in jewel box with booklet. You can expect a blend of darkwave, EBM, and industrial techno.

“The title refers to fond memories of my roots in making electronic music and the excitement and passion I had for these sounds that were new at the time,” Fulber explains. “That style is embedded in me. Going back to them allowed me to make music on impulse, and many of the instrumentals were created from studio jams.”

“Memory Impulse Autonomy” draws on the spirit of 1980s experimentalism, with sonic nods to Cabaret Voltaire, Portion Control, and Skinny Puppy. Tracks like “All of You go to Heaven” reflect Richard H. Kirk-style collage, while “Baaderzeit” leans toward Tangerine Dream-like sequencing.

The record features a series of collaborations. William Maybelline (Qual/Lebanon Hanover) appears on both “The Abyss” and “Control”, while Barkosina (Years of Denial) lends vocals to “Only Love Will Save Us”. Konstantin Unwohl (aufnahme + wiedergabe/Tapete Records) appears on “Nichts dafür getan”.

A video for the Rhys Fulber track “Abyss” feat. Qual is available on YouTube.

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber, born October 10, 1970, in Vancouver, British Columbia, has carved out a unique space in the world of music as a producer and performer known for his contributions to industrial, EBM (electronic body music), and ambient soundscapes. Music was practically encoded in his DNA – his German father was a musician who exposed him early on to iconic acts like Led Zeppelin and Kraftwerk, even taking a young Rhys to see Kraftwerk live in 1975.

By the time he was six, Fulber was already behind a drum kit, experimenting with rhythms on his father’s gear. His musical tastes broadened quickly. At 11, he was delving into punk and new wave, drawn particularly to Pete Shelley’s “Homosapien” and mesmerized by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – his go-to band during those formative years. Meanwhile, his father’s studio, which doubled as a hub for Vancouver’s punk scene, became Rhys’s unofficial training ground. The turning point came in 1984 when he got his hands on a synthesizer, steering him decisively toward electronic music.

Two years later, a meeting with Bill Leeb (previously of Skinny Puppy) would prove pivotal. Their collaboration began with Fulber contributing to early Front Line Assembly releases like “Total Terror” (1986) and “The Initial Command” (1987). He hit the road with the band in 1989 for their “Gashed Senses & Crossfire” tour and stepped into a more central role in Delerium after Michael Balch’s exit.

Between the late ’80s and the late ’90s, Fulber became an indispensable force in both Front Line Assembly and Delerium. His fingerprints are all over landmark albums such as “Tactical Neural Implant” (1992), “Hard Wired” (1995), “Semantic Spaces” (1994), and “Karma” (1997). Delerium’s breakout single, “Silence”, featuring Sarah McLachlan, took the world by storm and solidified Fulber’s place in electronic music history. The song’s success earned the group two Juno Awards for Best Dance Recording in 1998 and 2000.

He and Leeb also ventured into several side projects, including Synæsthesia and Intermix (1992–1995), and Fulber co-founded the band Will in the late ’80s alongside Chris Peterson, John McRae, and Jeff Stoddard. In the late ’90s, he branched out with his solo project Conjure One, which showcased lush, cinematic compositions—”Extraordinary Ways” (2005) being a prime example.

Since 2017, Rhys Fulber has released a string of solo albums under his own name, embracing a futuristic take on EBM. Albums like “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” (2018), “Ostalgia” (2019), “Brutal Nature” (2021), and “Collapsing Empires” (2022) have appeared on underground labels such as Sonic Groove and aufnahme+wiedergabe, as well as his own imprint, FR Recordings. His next release, “Memory Impulse Autonomy,” is slated for 2025 via Artoffact Records.

Fulber’s reach goes far beyond electronic circles. He also works as a producer in rock and metal, most notably with Fear Factory. His contributions to their “Fear Is the Mindkiller” EP (1993) and “Demanufacture” (1995) helped define a new wave of industrial metal. Rhys Fulber also had a hand in records for Econoline Crush (“Affliction,” 1996), Paradise Lost (“Symbol of Life,” 2002), and artists as varied as Josh Groban, Megadeth, P.O.D., Mudvayne, The Tea Party, Yes, and Serena Ryder.

Not content to stay within the bounds of traditional music production, Rhys Fulber has also composed for film, with credits that include “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Hideaway” (both 1995), “X-Men 2” (2003), and the cult horror hit “Saw” (2004).

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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Bill Leeb, the legendary frontman of Frontline Assembly, as well as Delerium, Noise Unit, Intermix, Cyberaktif, and numerous other projects, is finally releasing his first solo-album after all these years. Model Kollapse draws inspiration from the world of AI and is infused with Leeb’s signature sound. While there are unmistakable EBM influences that echo Frontline Assembly, the album also incorporates elements from his other projects, making it distinctly Leeb. “Model Kollapse” is a meticulously crafted Electro piece that balances between intense, driving sections -my personal favorites, and more atmospheric, Ambient moments carried by rhythms. The album features guest appearances from members of ACTORS, contributing guitars and female backing vocals, and Mimi Page, known for her work with Delerium, lends her voice to the final track. Longtime collaborator Rhys Fulber also returns to produce several songs. Despite its strong start, the album concludes with a few weaker tracks, but overall, “Model Kollapse” stands as a compelling and polished addition to Leeb’s impressive discography. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Neuromotive”:

Read the news on ‘Model Kollapse’.

About Bill Leeb

Bill Leeb is an Austrian-born Canadian musician based in Vancouver. He began in Skinny Puppy in 1984 under the name Wilhelm Schroeder.

In 1986, he founded Front Line Assembly, initially with Michael Balch, later joined by Rhys Fulber and Chris Peterson. In 1987, Leeb and Fulber launched Delerium, which later achieved international recognition with “Silence”.

Over the decades, Leeb’s projects have appeared on labels including Nettwerk, Third Mind, Wax Trax!, Cleopatra, Dependent, and Metropolis Records. His first solo album “Model Kollapse” was released on September 13, 2024 via Metropolis, followed in 2025 by the “Machine Vision” EP.

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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(Photo by Bobby Talamine) Bill Leeb’s first solo album, “Model Kollapse”, drops tomorrow. Leeb, a Vancouver-based musician, is best known as the mastermind behind electro-industrial giants Front Line Assembly and ambient-pop duo Delerium. He’s also played a pivotal role in projects like Noise Unit, Intermix, and Cyberaktif.

This marks Leeb’s first solo effort since the early days of Front Line Assembly in the mid-80s, when he began recording in his bedroom and released his work on limited edition cassettes. Nearly four decades later, “Model Kollapse” was crafted between Vancouver, Toronto, and Los Angeles, with production support from Dream Bullet, long-time collaborator Rhys Fulber, and mixing engineer Greg Reely.

You can now stream the full album exclusively on Side-Line, including standout tracks like “Demons” and “Terror Forms”.

Today we can also present you this brand new video for “Muted Obsession”.

Musically, “Model Kollapse” taps into the legacy of post-punk electronic pioneers like DAF, Front 242, and Skinny Puppy (Leeb himself being an original member), while also drawing from more contemporary influences like Gesaffelstein and ADULT.

The album’s title refers to a phenomenon in artificial intelligence where trained models, particularly those dependent on synthetic or AI-generated data, degrade over time. Leeb elaborates, “As we push forward with unprecedented technological advances, I wonder how much longer we can truly stay in control. Automation has already consumed entire industries. With tech ruling much of the world, are we headed for a ‘Model Kollapse’? Chaos would surely follow.”

Released by Metropolis Records, Leeb notes the label’s crucial role in alternative music, saying, “This album was possible thanks to my long-standing friendship with the late Dave Heckman, who gave me complete artistic freedom.” Heckman, Metropolis’ founder, passed away in the summer of 2022.

Videos from “Model Kollapse”

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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Canadian producer Rhys Fulber returns with another compelling solo effort in “Balance Of Fear”. Known for his extensive work with acts like Front Line Assembly, Delerium, and Conjure One, Fulber’s solo work takes a different route, delving deep into the realms of Dark-Techno. This album continues his exploration of merging EBM-inspired basslines with Cinematic/Ambient elements and raw Industrial-Techno. The production quality is top-notch, showcasing a fearless and uncompromising approach to sound. Fulber’s freestyle compositions result in some truly standout tracks. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Fall Awake”:

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber, born October 10, 1970, in Vancouver, British Columbia, is a producer and performer known for his contributions to industrial, EBM, and ambient soundscapes. He began collaborating with Bill Leeb (formerly of Skinny Puppy) in 1986, contributing to early Front Line Assembly releases including “Total Terror” (1986) and “The Initial Command” (1987), and stepped into a central role in Delerium after Michael Balch’s exit.

Between the late 1980s and late 1990s, Fulber became a defining force in both Front Line Assembly and Delerium, with credits on albums including “Tactical Neural Implant” (1992), “Semantic Spaces” (1994), “Hard Wired” (1995), and “Karma” (1997). Delerium’s single “Silence”, featuring Sarah McLachlan, earned the group two Juno Awards for Best Dance Recording. In the late 1990s, he launched the solo project Conjure One, known for cinematic compositions such as “Extraordinary Ways” (2005).

Since 2017, Fulber has released a string of solo albums under his own name on labels including Sonic Groove and aufnahme+wiedergabe, among them “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” (2018), “Ostalgia” (2019), “Brutal Nature” (2021), and “Collapsing Empires” (2022), followed by “Memory Impulse Autonomy” on Artoffact Records in 2025. “Balance Of Fear” is his latest solo release on Sonic Groove. Fulber has also produced for Fear Factory, Paradise Lost, and Econoline Crush, and composed for films including “Johnny Mnemonic” and “Saw”.

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

Bill Leeb, the Vancouver-based musician and mastermind behind electro-industrial scene mainstays Front Line Assembly and ambient-pop duo Delerium, has released a second second single from his upcoming solo album “Model Kollapse”: “Demons”.

Leeb says that the EBM styled track is a comment on “how much darkness and evil exist in the world, some of it created via technology that is here to stay, and how we have to carefully navigate our way through it all on a day-to-day basis.”

“Model Kollapse” will be released on September 13 via Metropolis Records and is the first solo venture Leeb. The album was recorded and produced in Vancouver, Toronto and Los Angeles with assistance from production duo Dream Bullet and long-term recording cohort Rhys Fulber, plus regular mixing engineer Greg Reely.

“Demons” follows the introductory single “Terror Forms”, featuring Shannon Hemmett of the group ACTORS, who are also based in Leeb’s home city.

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!

side-line.com

Out now are the new Delerium singles “Remember Love (Zanias Justified Remix)” and “Falling Back to You (Myon Remixes)” featuring Mimi Page.

US singer-songwriter Mimi Page was a featured vocalist on “Signs”, the 2023 album by Canadian electronic duo Delerium (Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber of Front Line Assembly). Two of the songs she contributed to on that release have been remixed by the US DJ and artist Myon and Australia-born but now Berlin-based solo performer, DJ and producer Zanias, with both issued as singles simultaneously. “Signs” also featured contributions from Phildel, Inna Walters and KANGA, next to Page.

Below are the two singles. First is the “Falling Back to You (Myon Remixes)” 3-track single.

This is the “Remember Love (Zanias Justified Remix)” download on Bandcamp.

About Mimi Page

Mimi Page is an American singer, songwriter, and composer known for her ethereal, atmospheric music. She grew up in Los Angeles, California, and is classically trained in piano. She attended the Berklee College of Music, where she focused on composition and production.

Her music blends ambient, electronic, and dream pop elements, characterized by a dreamy, otherworldly sound. Influenced by a wide range of genres, from classical to modern electronic and alternative, her eclectic soundscapes are a key feature.

She has released several albums and EPs, including “Breathe Me In” (2011), “The Ethereal Blues” (2013), and “The Cure for Sleep” (2015) and has collaborated with various artists and producers, notably working with the electronic duo Delerium on their song “Days Turn into Nights.”

Mimi has composed music for film and television, creating immersive and emotive soundscapes well-suited for visual media and has also contributed to video game soundtracks, showcasing her versatility as a composer.

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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(Interview by Evan South) In a candid discussion with Side-Line Magazine’s Evan South, Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber of Delerium and Front Line Assembly shared some insights into their recent tour with Ministry and Gary Numan. The duo also talks about the logistics of sharing resources like lighting and equipment, which contributed to the tour’s success. You’ll further hear more about Matthew Setzer joining the lineup, the revival of Cyberaktif with a new album, “EndGame”, and the potential for a Delerium tour. Lots and lots of info.

SL: It’s the final date of the Ministry/Gary Numan/FLA tour, how has your experience been?

BL: It’s the tour of a lifetime!

RF:  It really is, it doesn’t get much better. These kinds of bands and this kind of tour…

BL:  It’s almost impossible to get three bands to do a tour like this, because most bands at this level, financially it doesn’t work. But on this tour everyone was willing to make it work, hence all the shows have pretty much sold out.

RF: And there’s a lot of camaraderie. Everyone gets along. It’s what we established on the previous tour just carried over, everyone knows each other.  Compared to most tours I’d say it’s a really good group.

BL: It’s a family.

RF: And everyone helps. We get a lot of leeway from Ministry and their crew.

BL: They let us use their stuff, their projector, which is an amazing one! It just doesn’t happen with most bands, you know, everybody’s trying to outdo everybody. But this tour everybody wants everybody else to succeed!

RF:  Everyone knows who they are and where they fit in, and it’s great!

SL:  So you didn’t have to pack in as much equipment, you were able to share?

RF: They let us dip into their lighting production and things that a lot of times would not happen on package tours.  They realize we set the table too, so if we have a good night, they have a good night.  It’s a real cool system.

SL:  Any of these three bands could headline on a given night.  How do you like the supporting role compared to headlining?

BL:  There’s no question, both these artists are much bigger than we are, but it’s the perfect hierarchy, right?

RF: You can’t argue with Ministry, Al’s an icon, he’s a national treasure, Ministry established themselves over the years, and we’re not going to get in front of those kind of crowds on our own! And we’re in front of crowds that seem to like what we’re doing, so it’s just great for everybody, it’s like a win/win.  I personally like going on playing a quick set of all bangers, I like it!  The pressures not on us!

BL: And Gary’s an institution as well!  His history and his amount of hits he’s had…

RF: Everybody knows “Cars”!  Everyone knows that song.  Just to be part of that, it’s hard to believe sometimes.  We remember when that record was new.  And now we hang out with Gary Numan everyday, it’s wild…

SL: Expanding on what you said about a tight, “banger” type set…

RF: We keep our energy level up, so it hits hard the whole time.

SL: Rhys, during this tour you had your own “Tour within a tour” afterparty DJ sets…

RF: Those were just…  Some of them were great, some of them were… eh! (laughs) Sometimes you’re playing on a Tuesday night in the Midwest, so… The weekend ones were all pretty good!

SL: I was hoping there would be an Afterparty tonight, like a “wrap” party, being the last date of the tour!

RF: Honestly, we’re pretty tired… and doing both of those was… yeah.

BL: Gary (Numan) has booked a room in LA for an afterparty for when we play our last show there, it’s going to be a sold out show.  So there’s lots going on.  For Rhys it made sense to do those afterparty DJ gigs, because we were done at 8pm. So from 8 to midnight what do you do, right? Might as well be spinning…

RF: A couple of parties were really good… Montreal, Toronto…

BL: And a lot of fans came and would talk to us, and all the other bands would come down after.  Ministry would come down, Gary Numan’s crew.

RF: Yeah, Ministry’s band and Gary’s band would always be there. I think the first show in Portland even Al was there. Everybody was there, it was great!

BL: It was like an all night exclusive!

SL: You have a new guitarist on this tour, how did Matthew Setzer (Skinny Puppy, London after Midnight) come into the fold with you?

BL: We had Tim Skold for two years and we thought we had built up a really good rapport with him, and then all of a sudden he became unaffordable.  Me and Cevin (Skinny Puppy), had been pretty tight and lifelong friends, and we just finished the new Cyberaktif album, so we were talking every day for a full year. Puppy just finished their tour, so it was just natural, “Let’s ask Matthew,” he’s in our family.

RF: He stepped in pretty easily, he’s a great musician.

BL: And all our fans are Puppy fans, and vice versa, so it seemed like a perfect fit. And he’s skilled, right?

RF: I don’t think people realize he’s a very good musician, multi-instrumentalist.

BL: And he’s a tour guy. He goes on his own, he’s got friends everywhere… it’s amazing.

RF: He’s a real infectious, positive personality, and it’s great to have people like that on tour.  Matthew hasn’t had a bad day, he’s always upbeat, he’s always ready to go. He’s a good fit for us, he’s working out really well.

SL: Bill, you brought up Cyberaktif.  It had only been 33 years!

BL: At least 31 for sure… We go at this rate the next one we’ll be dead! Like Cevin said, the album is called “EndGame”.  Doesn’t sound very hopeful for the future, right?

SL: How did the new Cyberaktif come together? Was it a result of the end of Puppy?

RF: When Cyberaktif started (the new one) there was no end of Puppy.

BL: No, that’s true.

RF: We actually kicked stuff around a few years ago, so Puppy was not over at the time. It seems like it now, but when we started it…

BL: It was a lot of back and forth.

RF: Yeah, it wasn’t “Hey, Puppy’s over”, we just started doing it.

BL: And when Cevin sent tracks initially, me and Rhys looked at each other and we’re like “Well…”

RF: At first we had a hard time figuring it out, and then we just kinda isolated certain parts, and then all of a sudden it all came together really quickly!

BL: Rhys made it for me the way we understand each other, and how I know where I can sing, and what I can do, because at first they were these long jams…

RF: Cevin sent all these really interesting grooves and jams and ideas, so it was a question of taking those and giving them some structure so Bill can go “I got this part here and this part here” because I know that’s how Bill works and that’s what he’s comfortable doing, that’s sort of the sound of Front Line. So what we did was put a structure together and then Bill put the vocals on top of that structure.

BL: It was a real three-way collaboration.

RF: Cevin sent these, there were varying degrees of composition, but they’re all unique sounds and drums, then I put them to arrangement. It was Cevin→me→Bill. It was like a filter.

SL: At what point did you decide it was going to be under the Cyberaktif name?

RF: Pretty much right away.

BL: Yeah, it was definitely going to be Cyberaktif. Cevin just loves the project. He even talked about maybe doing it live, if we figure out how, when and what. He said it’s his favorite thing right now.

RF: Cevin’s very big on it right now. Not that we aren’t, but he’s already big on it.

SL: You think Cyberaktif might become a live project?

BL:  Maybe one time. Cevin wants to make it interesting. He said “I don’t just want two guys and a keyboard and a mic,” whatever that means. But right now we’re letting the album get out there and we’ll see…

RF: The (live) idea has been discussed.  That’s what we can say.

SL: It feels like the Cyberaktif album came together very quickly…

RF: Honestly, the Cyberaktif record we made quicker than any other record in recent memory. It came together really fast. Once we got an idea of what we were doing, we just banged it together. I don’t know why… I think everyone honestly was inspired by just working together.  It wasn’t hurried, it just rolled and fell into place. That doesn’t happen very often, but it happened on this one.

SL: Bill, was it surreal for you thinking this was going to be a Cyberaktif record after 3 decades?

BL: I think me and Cevin both felt like we just completed a big circle. We started Puppy 35-40 years ago, and everything that’s happened in-between, it felt like some kind of closure. It just felt right and good and something that we left unfinished now feels finished. If we don’t do another one, if it (Cyberaktif) doesn’t do anything else, it feels like it was the right thing to do at the time.  With Puppy calling it quits, for now… I’ve heard so many bands do this now. Front 242 has been doing it for a couple years now. I told Al, and he goes “Richard, he says that every year it’s the last tour.” (laughs) Motley Crue has done 4 of them (final tour) now, and now they have a new singer!

RF: Never say never I say…

BL: It was just the right time at the right place, Cevin had some things, Me and Rhys had time, we were all on the same page.  Maybe that will never happen again, but the energy was right, Greg Reely was available… It was like “Silence” (Delerium single), everything had to fall into place. It will probably never be like that again. So it’s a magic record for us, and people love it, and that’s all that matters, right?

SL: Since the Front Line tours have been going so well, what are the chances of another Delerium tour?

RF:  A tour is tough, a tour is way more complicated, especially for acts like that.

BL: That first Delerium tour we did was two tour buses, three singers…

RF: It was the right time, too, I don’t know if that’s possible now.

BL: It was kind of a money losing scenario, but the production was great! I just don’t think labels are willing to do that anymore.

RF: No, it’s a different time now.

SL: It’s been 30 years since your monumental releases “Millenium” and Delerium’s “Semantic Spaces.” You took risks in adding guitar to the FLA and vocals to the Delerium. How important were those releases?

BL: When we released “Millenium,” we did an online thing and people were calling in and it was pretty divided. People were going “What, they picked up guitars!” Remember?

RF: Yeah.

BL: But we knew we did the right thing. We felt like we had to change and do some different things, and no regrets, right?

RF: It expanded the fan base. Regardless of what those people had been like… When we did the Hard Wired tour we had double the audience! We got metal coverage, we were on a metal label that knew how to handle that kind of music… Metal and industrial is pretty interlinked now. A lot of metal heads love industrial music, and that maybe wasn’t the case then. It definitely is now.  Between Fear Factory and that record…

BL: And now “Millenium” is getting re-released by ArtofFact records! Picture disc, the whole thing, as of yesterday they announced it!

RF: It was the right move, because we had to progress. And like I said, when we did the Hard Wired European tour, especially in the UK, we had significantly more people. Also, I think it’s the biggest selling Front Line record. Again, people that don’t like the record they might not realize that was probably our biggest record! I know a lot of people that maybe wouldn’t have been listening to us that listened to that record, so it’s all good. And it all makes more sense now in the whole repertoire.

SL: What did you think of the changes of Delerium, taking it from old world instrumentals to adding the pop element and blowing things wide open?

RF: You can’t even compare the differences…

BL: We didn’t really plan it, either! The first Delerium was just a home project with a few synths and a tape recorder and Dossier records and I was just happy twiddling away and doing stuff, there was no concept of it ever being… with Puppy and the whole Nettwerk contact and we knew people and they were next door. We couldn’t plan it, and then Kristy (singer) showing up…

RF: Again it was just right time, right place. And then it took Delerium into the mainstream, in Canada at least. It completely changed everything. In Canada it really opened a lot of doors for us. It put us on the video channel, places that we had never been before.

BL: That’s the great thing about music and art. You just don’t know who you’re going to affect, who you’re going to reach. We enjoyed the process of making all that music, and then it just came back like that. We had no expectations. We weren’t trying to make singles or trying to be on a major label, we just had carte blanche on everything, right?

RF: Yeah, and it all came together! Anytime you force something, anytime you go out of your way to make a commercial record or commercial song it usually doesn’t work. It has to be a serendipitous event. That’s another example of that.

SL: So to wrap up, what’s next?

BL: The picture disc re-release of “Millenium” is pretty exciting. Rhys has a solo album coming out, right?

RF:  Yeah, more of the techno type stuff.  We got some more shows. We got Mexico with Front 242, we have some European festival dates…

BL: We’re playing the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas in 2 weeks… I’m excited about the 2 shows with Front 242 in Mexico!

RF: Yeah, more live shows and then I think we’re not really going to know until we get home and figure out what’s next. But we still have live shows booked even into November in Europe, I think.

SL: Anything as far as upcoming music?

RF: Not yet, we need to get off the road.

BL: I think we want to do a Delerium album.

RF: Yeah, we talked about that.

BL: And again, you always think you have to re-invent the wheel, because just the way the world is, I think we’ll try to find some sort of group, because everything’s been done now.  I think when we started Delerium, and with Karma, we were one of the first to do that kind of music. But now, if you go on internet radio, there’s channels with that music, right Rhys?

RF: Oh yeah, chill out music forever…

BL: So hopefully you can find your niche, but our sound, whatever that is, people respect that so we’re good with that.

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

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!

side-line.com

(Photo by Elemental Eyes Photography) Negative Gain Productions recording artists Bestial Mouths have an all new remix album, “Backbone”, out tomorrow. But you can already stream it exclusively via Side-Line today.

The release is the follow-up (or rather companion) to their latest LP, “R.O.T.T.(inmyskin)” and offers reworks mixing darkwave-industrial with synthpop elements. The remixes were executed by Broken English Club, Actors, Rebeka Warrior, Curses, XTR Human, Modern Men, Lana Del Rabies, IV Horsemen, Crune, Orphx, GenCAB, Trace Amount, Carrellee, Daniel Myer, Maduro, Snowbeasts and Bedless Bones.

“Backbone” will be available tomorrow on all major digital platforms including Spotify and Bandcamp. Stream the full release below.

Fronted by Lynette Cerezo the band formed in 2009 and has mixed a number of elements in their work, from goth, industrial, post-punk, New Wave, noise, metal, to other underground sounds using live acoustic and electronic drums and analog synthesizers.

In their decade-plus existence, the band has worked with myriad of producers and artists including Zola Jesus, Mick Harvey, Rhys Fulber, Egyptrixx, Boy Harsher, Die Krupps, Mater Suspiria Vision, Zanias, The Horrorist, and Ludovico Technique to name but a few.

Here’s the video for the genCAB remix of “iNNARDS”. Read the review of ‘Backbone’.

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 Sacramento, California-based act Bestial Mouths release their new album “R.O.T.T. (inmyskin)” today via Negative Gain Productions. The whole was produced by Juno Award Winning producer Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium) and is the band’s sixth studio album following the 2020 release of “Resurrectedinblack”.

While Bestial Mouths has seen a few line-up changes in their nearly decade long existence, Lynette Cerezo has remained consistently at the helm of the project. The “Inshroudss” EP from 2019 was the first Bestial Mouths release to be entirely written and conceived by Cerezo.

The band is today also sharing a new video for the title track “R.O.T.T.” (Road Of Thousand Tears). Of the video Cerezo says: “Singing in both English and en español, I took inspiration for ‘Road Of Thousand Tears’ from my ancestry and the suffering path of the Trail of Tears. The creation of the song that would become the album’s title went a surrealist route, because life is surreal. Is it even real? This is my journey, all of the steps I’ve taken with Bestial Mouths. It is a path that has taken me down a Carrollian rabbit hole, past lives recycled through a meat grinder. Connections are broken, strands of reality disconnected from their whole. Elements of the past bleeding into the Now, stripped of context to create only raw wounds in existence—like half-remembered fragments of melody, once pulsing with life and now devoid of meaning.”

Tour Dates:

• Aug. 26th – New Orleans, LA – NGP Presents Destination – House of Blues
• Sep. 2nd – New York, NY – A Murder of Crows Festival – Bowery Ballroom
• Oct. 26th – Chicago, IL – Sanctum Fest – Thalia Hall
• Oct. 27th – Detroit, MI – TBA
• Oct. 28th – Philadelphia, PA – Dracula’s Ball – Underground Arts
• Oct. 29th – Washington, DC – The Runaway
• Nov. 2nd – Montreal, QC – Casa Del Popolo
• Nov. 3rd – Toronto, ON – The Garrison
• Nov. 10th Los Angeles, CA – Substance – The Globe Theater

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!

side-line.com

Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber have been working together since the late 80s. They got international recognition in the EBM scene with Front Line Assembly. Next to other side-projects they also worked together as Delerium. The first album bring us back to 1988. I remember “Faces, Forms, And Illusions” as a kind of Industrial-Ambient work which also was the band’s main source of inspiration for the next few years. “Semantic Spaces” (1994) and “Karma” (1997) both revealed a different sound becoming more Downtempo-like while driven by sensual, female vocals. “Silence” became a word-wide famous hit while Delerium never stopped releasing new works in a similar style. They this year strike back with “Signs” (Metropolis Records) which is the duo’s first album in seven years. Sensual, mysterious and refined Ambient-Electronics featuring a few new potential hits. I asked a few questions to Bill Leeb.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: “Signs” is your first new Delerium album in seven years. Why did it take so long to release a new opus and what was the spark to start writing “Signs”?

Bill: We were taking a little breather from Delerium when the complications of Covid extended the giant gap between releases. What ultimately made a difference is that Rhys moved back to Vancouver, Canada, so with him being close by, we were able to start working again. Being in the same room creating together is what provided the spark that we needed.

Q: What are these “Signs” all about and how did you transpose it into songs?

Bill: Well, the title of the album alludes to the sign of the times. So much has happened in the world since we released the last Delerium album “Mythologie” in 2016. Yet with “Signs” the title came last. When we were on tour Front Line Assembly, we were talking about titles for the album, our guitarist Tim Skold threw the title at us and Rhys and I both liked it so it stuck. We gave Tim Skold an actual credit for the title on the album.

Q: What have been the different stages in writing, recording and production of “Signs” you’d to go through? And what have been the main challenges and difficulties you encountered?

Bill: When Rhys moved back to Vancouver (about 40 minutes from my house), it was great to be able to get together in a room and start writing. After 35 years of doing Delerium, that is still the best way. Ideas came up and we were able to the kick them around and work on them with consistency.

It is always a challenge to find the right people to work with. Many artists are working on their own bands and projects, collaborating is a different game these days and many are doing their own thing. I think we found the right balance. Rhys had worked with Kanga in the past, some of the other great vocalists on “Signs,” we’ve worked with before including Emily Haines (from Metric), Mimi Page and Phidel.

Q: That brings me to ask if you handle specific criteria to work with vocalists? And what’s their real input and impact in the lyrical themes and singing?

Bill: I think the thing that differentiates FLA from Delerium is that when we write the music, we think in terms of what voice would work on this or that song. The singers themselves write the lyrics, the magical part is that the instrumental music often drives the vocalists to lean heavily on atmospheric vocals and that is what Delerium is all about. It is collaboration in the truest sense. Mimi Page, contributes in a different way as she often presents song ideas as well.

In general, we always know when we hear something if it is going to work. This is the zone and kind of environment we like Delerium to work in. On “Signs” we found that perfect balance with all of the songs and the singers.

Q: I’m always wondering if you handle specific criteria and/or references when you’re composing your music? Are you perfectionists?

Bill: I definitely hear music and voices that influence the compositions. In the past, I’ve heard singers that I myself have contacted to collaborate on songs.

As for being a perfectionist? When we write something and it’s done, later, I always think I could have done that better or change that. Music is never ending, like painting. Even when it’s done, I think at the end of the day you have to know when to walk away and let other people hear it and hope for the best.

Q: Did you both need a special and/or different mindset when working on Delerium than on one of your other music projects like Frontline Assembly for example? How does it happen?

Bill: That’s really easy, most artists, painters or musicians have two sides. I find when tour with FLA, afterwards, we want to turn off that side of ourselves and become someone else for a while. Delerium is a healing process, a perfect escape from the aggression in the world. Delerium opens the door for us to diversity and brings us to the Trance, Ambient side of things and remix possibilities. That Dance world has created a whole new platform for us to exist on that is very separate from the world of Industrial music. It’s like a great escape.

Q: What does the front cover of “Signs” stand for and how important is the artwork -especially in times people are more into streaming than physical productions?

Bill: Dave McKean created the artwork for “Signs.” We’ve been working with him since the Front Line Assembly album “Millennium“ In 1994. Dave’s first Delerium-album cover was “Mythologie” in 2016 and it blew us away, so it was a no brainer for us to have him do this cover. Dave is somewhat like the singers in Delerium, he collaborates with us. We give him the title, send him some songs to listen to and he sends us image ideas. It is a real collaboration, he then sends us art and it ends up being the ideal cover. Dave does his artwork from scratch. It’s not an AI thing, it is real voices with real art. The bird on the cover of “Signs,” is like a phoenix rising in the face of the way things are in the world these days.

Q: Early Delerium-albums were remastered and re-released in 2022. There’s a gap of nearly thirty five years between your debut album “Faces, Forms, And Illusions” and “Signs” but is there still a deeper sound-connection between both periods? How do you perceive this impressive evolution?

Bill: Well, I wanted to give a shout out to the late Dave Heckman for rereleasing these on Metropolis and presenting them exactly as an artist would want. As far as the evolution of Delerium from those early years, many things came into play. During the first album I was still in Skinny Puppy, so it was really a side project. I was bouncing off things like Ofra Haza, The Orb and even Pink Floyd. I started experimenting with ideas, much of it was organic and made by hand, perhaps using some cassette recorders for sampling. We’ve evolved so much with technology, it was a natural evolution for Delerium.

“Semantic Spaces” in 1994, was the first time we would write songs like that and brought in Kristy Thirsk to sing. We received legitimate radio play and it was quite an evolution from our earlier material. We were able to bridge the two parts later with monks, angelic voices and classical influences with “Silence”, featuring Sarah McLachlan, and evolved even further. Now, with “Signs” it has quickly become one my personal favorite Delerium albums. And the flow continues even after 35 years. If it all ended today with this album I’d be ok with it, full circle, old meets new, keeping all of the elements and the sincerity of the project intact.

Q: What are the plans for Delerium in the next few months?

Bill: As of now, the album is only a few weeks old and we have just released the video with Kanga. We are working on another video, this time for “Coast To Coast” featuring Phildel. Then looking at possible remixes. There’s a lot to work with.

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: Electronic, Ambient, Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: “Signs” is the first new Delerium studio album in seven years. Thirty five years separate this new work by Canadian duo Bill Leeb – Rhys Fulber and the debut opus “Faces, Forms, And Illusions”. Delerium went through an important evolution in sound and influences and became world-wide known for their master hit “Silence” (1997).

Content: The sound formula of “Signs” is quite comparable to the past Delerium albums. They create a heavenly, wafting, Electro-Ambient composition driven by slow, sensual, danceable rhythms. Mimi Page, Phildel, Inna Walters, and Kanga have been invited as guest singers for this work. Each of the singers injecting their own, sensual, touch to the work.

 + + + : Delerium remains a very unique experience in sound. I’ve always wondered how musicians who got some world-wide fame by a dark project like Frontline Assembly transposed themselves into a more accessible, danceable -and I dare to say commercial, project like Delerium. The songs are produced with subtle arrangements and refined by elevating electronics. The down tempo and vocals create a lovely, sensual, touch which remains a trademark of the project. I like the opening cut “Falling Back To You’ featuring the talented Mimi Page -who already sung on earlier songs. Another and more classical song is “Sun Storm”. Other noticeable songs are the dreamy “Glimmer” and the instrumental “The Astronomer”.

– – – : This is a well-crafted and ultra professional production which Bill Leeb’s consider as the best Delerium album to date. I’m however missing the early magic when Delerium moves from their darker Ambient experiments into their renowned downtempo, sensual, Ambient. That brings us back to the period of “Semantic Spaces” and “Karma”.

Conclusion: If you like Delerium you for sure are going to like “Signs” which features a few more new hits.

Best songs: “Falling Back To You”, “Sun Storm”, “Glimmer”, “The Astronomer”, “Coast To Coast”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.facebook.com/Delerium

Label: www.metropolis-records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords Read the news on ‘Signs’.

About Delerium

Delerium is the ambient project of Canadian musicians Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, also known for the industrial band Front Line Assembly. The duo’s debut album, “Faces, Forms, And Illusions”, appeared roughly 35 years before “Signs”, by the review’s own dating. Delerium’s sound shifted over the years from darker ambient experiments -documented on “Semantic Spaces” and “Karma”- toward the downtempo, vocal-led style behind the 1997 single “Silence”, the duo’s best-known track. “Signs” is Delerium’s first new studio album in seven years, released via Metropolis Records with guest vocals from Mimi Page, Phildel, Inna Walters, and Kanga.

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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Out today is the all new Delerium video by the Canadian duo of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber. Titled “In The Deep (feat. Kanga)” the track is taken from the band’s new album “Signs” which is out today as well. “Signs” features contributions from Mimi Page, Phildel, Inna Walters and Kanga.

Kanga is a musician and producer from Los Angeles, CA. She fuses post-apocalyptic pop sensibilities with rhythms and melodies. She is currently working on her next album in collaboration with producers Josh Franks and Dave Adrounie, set to be released on Artoffact Records in Spring, 2023. For now you can enjoy her here on this new Delerium single.

Here’s the video for the new single, directed By Vicente Cordero / Industrialism Films.

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 is set to release the new Delerium album entitled “Signs” on March 10th. According to Bill Leeb, one half of the duo behind Delerium (next to Rhys Fulber), “Signs” represents a full-circle arc of the group, from its experimental beginnings to where they are today. Over the course of their 35-year career, the project has explored various genres of electronic music, including dark ambient, techno, and world music.

The lead single from “Signs,” titled “Coast to Coast,” features female vocal contributions from Mimi Page, Phildel, Inna Walters, and Kanga, each adding their voice and style to the music.

In addition to the upcoming release of “Signs,” Metropolis Records recently re-released the project’s entire catalog from 1988 through 1994, allowing fans to rediscover the group’s early experimental sound. The new album will be available on very limited edition white vinyl and compact disc, as well as all digital and streaming platforms.

Delirium released its last album in 2015, “Mythologie”, which is the fourteenth studio album by Canadian band. It was their first album for Metropolis Records. The album was produced by Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber with the help of Jared Slingerland and Craig Johnsen. Guestvocalists included Mimi Page, Phildel, Jaël, JES, Geri Soriano-Lightwood and Leah Randi. Read the review of ‘Signs’.

About Delerium

Delerium is a Canadian electronic project founded in Vancouver in 1987 by Bill Leeb as a side venture from his industrial band Front Line Assembly. Rhys Fulber, Leeb’s longtime Front Line Assembly production partner, became Delerium’s other core member. The project’s sound moved from dark ambient and industrial textures toward atmospheric, trance-inflected work built around guest vocalists, with “Semantic Spaces” (1994) introducing that direction and “Karma” (1997) producing the crossover hit “Silence,” featuring Sarah McLachlan. Further albums followed with “Poem” (2001) and “Chimera” (2003).

Delerium returned with “Signs” (Metropolis Records, 10 March 2023), its first album in seven years, preceded by the single “Coast to Coast.” “Coast to Coast” preceded “Signs” (2023), Delerium’s first album in seven years.

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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A new Delerium album wil come out on February 3rd,2023 on Metropolis records. The release will be dedicated to the late Dave Heckman who passed away on Friday, July 29th this year, only 68 years old.

The album has been mastered already in September but you will have to wait a few months before its gets released. Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb didn’t announce any guest vocalists yet but Los Angeles based singer Lillian Kanga Duchamp will be part of the line-up for sure.

No more details are known for the moment about the new Delerium album.

Delirium released its last album in 2015, “Mythologie”, which is the fourteenth studio album by Canadian band. It was their first album for Metropolis Records. The album was produced by Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber with the help of Jared Slingerland and Craig Johnsen. Guestvocalists included Mimi Page, Phildel, Jaël, JES, Geri Soriano-Lightwood and Leah Randi.

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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Industrial outfit Noise Unit shares a new single “Dub It Up” today. This is the second single off of the group’s upcoming full-length “Cheeba City Blues” out October 21st via Artoffact Records. In July, Noise Unit already released “Alone Again”, the first single off of their upcoming album.

The album “Cheeba City Blues” was recorded by Bill Leeb and the late Jeremy Inkel (also of FLA fame). It references William Gibson’s 1984 science fiction novel “Neuromancer” set in Chibi City, Japan and is considered one of the first in the cyberpunk genre. It was Gibson’s debut novel and the beginning of the ‘Sprawl’ trilogy. Set in the future, the novel follows Henry Case, a washed-up hacker hired for one last job, which brings him in contact with a powerful artificial intelligence.

“Cheeba City Blues” is the follow-up to Noise Unit’s 2021 record “Deviator”, also released via Artoffact Records. “Deviator” was the first full-length from Noise Unit in over 15 years and included work by Leeb and Rhys Fulber.

Here are the two singles.

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: Dark-Techno, Cinematic, Experimental.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Rhys Fulber -next to his other projects he’s involved with, has released an impressive number of productions under his own name in a rather short lapse of time. After having released works by his own label (FR Recordings) he now releases this opus again on Sonic Groove.

Content: Rhys Fulber moves on exploring the realms of Dark-Techno music at one side while still paying attention for his Cinematic- and Experimental work. It’s quite interesting to see how he mixed both influences together resulting in dark, freaky, Techno passages.

+ + + : There’s an interesting duality between both main influences running through this work. I however prefer the more Techno driven cuts reflecting different the sound intelligence of Rhys Fulber. I like his ghost-like Techno music emerging from the title track and “Glory To Labour”. “Palace Of Pioneers” is another cool exposure.

– – – : The work features a few Experimental/Cinematic passages which rather sound as breaks without real importance (like “Dronegail”).  

Conclusion: Rhys Fulber confirms his impressive productivity and even if this album still features a few great tracks it’s definitely not the album I would recommend to discover his ‘Techno-work’.

Best songs: “Glory To Labour”, “Palace Of Pioneers”, “As Far As Dreams”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/rhysfulbermusic

Label: www.sonicgroove.com / www.facebook.com/Sonicgrooverecords

About Rhys Fulber

Nowell Rhys Fulber was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on October 10, 1970. He is a Canadian electronic musician and producer, and a member of Front Line Assembly and Delerium alongside Bill Leeb. He also records under his own name and as Conjure One.

Fulber first contributed to Front Line Assembly on the cassette “Total Terror” and on three songs of “The Initial Command”, and to Delerium’s debut “Faces, Forms & Illusions”. He ran the band Will with Chris Peterson, John McRae and Jeff Stoddard from 1987 to 1992, joined Front Line Assembly for the “Gashed Senses & Crossfire” tour in 1989 and moved to Delerium full time after Michael Balch left. Until 1997 he was involved in every Front Line Assembly and Delerium record with Bill Leeb, including “Tactical Neural Implant”, “Hard Wired”, “Semantic Spaces” and “Karma”. His outside production work includes Fear Factory’s “Demanufacture” and “Genexus”, Machine Head’s “Catharsis” and Three Days Grace’s “Outsider”. He won two Juno Awards with Delerium for Best Dance Recording, in 1998 and 2000.

Under his own name Fulber released “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” on Sonic Groove in 2018 and “Ostalgia” on the same label in 2019, followed by “Diaspora” on aufnahme + wiedergabe in 2020 and the FR Recordings albums “Resolve” in 2020 and “Brutal Nature” in 2021. “Collapsing Empires”, reviewed here, returned him to Sonic Groove in 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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Out via Mecanica in early Summer will be the 4 earliest albums of Bill Leeb’s main project Front Line Assembly, founded in 1986 (just upon his departure from Skinny Puppy). All 4 albums comes as limited pressing of 500 copies, on double vinyl, with deluxe gatefold sleeve and new vintage artwork.

The following albums will be included:

• “The Initial Command”: this the debut landmark album by Canadian EBM-industrialists Front Line Assembly, originally released in 1987 through Belgian label KK Records. Bill Leeb shows us already a unique style, setting a benchmark for all that would follow. Fiercely original, not least for ‘it’s time’, from the glittering synths and harsh metallic percussion of the unarguably cinematic “Casualties” and the abrasive white noise on “Ausgang zum Himmel”, to the punchy breaks and dramatic strings of “No Control”. This Deluxe re-release includes all original tracks and both bonus tracks taken from a re-release in 1997: “Complexity” and “Core”.
• “Corroded Disorder”: this album compiles some of the earliest hits of Front Line Assembly including the classic “Body Count” for which the band prepared their first official video-clip. “Corroded Disorder” was originally released in 1995 as a hybrid of the EP’s “Corrosion” and “Disorder” (both released in 1988 on Third Mind Records, UK), along with some extra tracks taken from the compilation “Convergence” and a couple of new bonus songs.
• “Total Terror 1”: This is the second of two self-released cassette tapes by EBM-industrial act Front Line Assembly (the first one being ‘Nerve War’). At this point, Bill Leeb was the band’s only dedicated member, with some help from Rhys Fulber. Most of the original cassette was remixed and re-mastered to be commercially released on CD in 1993 as “Total Terror 1”. This edition added three previously-unreleased bonus tracks from other old sessions: “Freedom”, “Distorted Vision” and “Cleanser”. The original recordings of these songs were done in 1986 using nothing more than a four track recording system. This would be quite primitive for today’s standards and sound quality will not be so effective, however the ideas are all ther, letting us enjoy some of the first songs EVER created by Front Line Assembly. The deluxe re-release includes all tracks from “Total Terror 1” plus the rare song “Eternal” and some bonus taken from old compilations.
• “Total Terror 2”: This is another collection of early Front Line Assembly demos, remixed and remastered for a limited CD release for the first time in 1994. The original recordings of these songs were done in 1986/87. The equipment used was primitive, but then so is mankind. The deluxe re-release includes all tracks from the first edition plus some bonus taken from old compilations.

Here’s the first impression of what you can expect from these vinyl editions.

For more on Front Line Assembly, see Front Line Assembly team with Cleopatra Records for a 6cd box holding… 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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The track “Stay” taken from the last In Strict Confidence album “Hate2Love” is finally honored with a video. The video recordings were made partly already about 8 years ago (!!) and were combined with current footage.

The song was co-produced by Dirk Riegner & Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly / Conjure One).

Check out the video below.

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!

side-line.com

The first seven albums by Canadian electronic duo Delerium have been remastered and are now digitally available via Metropolis Records. Limited edition 2xLP white vinyls and CD formats will be released on 6th May.

The titles are “Faces, Forms & Illusions” (1988), “Morpheus” (1989), “Syrophenikan” (1990), “Spiritual Archives” (1991), “Stone Tower” (1991), “Spheres” (1994) and “Spheres II” (1994).

About Delerium

Delerium is a Canadian electronic act that formed in 1987, originally as a side project of the influential industrial music act Front Line Assembly. Throughout the band’s history, their musical style has encompassed a broad range, including dark ethereal ambient trance, voiceless industrial soundscapes, and electronic pop music. They are best known for their worldwide hit “Silence” and for their use of several female guest vocalists on their albums since their 1997 album “Karma”.

Delerium has traditionally been a two-person project, but the only constant member throughout its history has been Bill Leeb. Leeb was an early member of industrial dance pioneers Skinny Puppy, but after he left in 1986 he went on to create his own project, Front Line Assembly with collaborator Michael Balch. Later, the two worked on the side project Delerium and released their first album, “Faces, Forms & Illusions”. After Balch left both Front Line Assembly and Delerium, Leeb worked with Rhys Fulber, and the two released several albums under the Delerium moniker. After the release of “Karma”, Fulber left to pursue other interests, and Leeb teamed up with producer Chris Peterson to release “Poem”.

2003, however, saw the reunion of Leeb and Fulber for the release of “Chimera”, followed by “Nuages du Monde” in 2006.

In contrast to Leeb and collaborators’ other projects, Delerium has included several guest vocalists since the release of Semantic Spaces. These have included mostly women, such as Kristy Thirsk (of Rose Chronicles), Sarah McLachlan, Leigh Nash (of Sixpence None the Richer), Elsieanne Caplette (of Elsiane), Lisa Gerrard (sampled only), Jaël (of Swiss band Lunik), Camille Henderson, Nerina Pallot, Emily Haines (of Metric), Jacqui Hunt (of Single Gun Theory), Isabel Bayrakdarian and Shelley Harland. Other than Leeb, only three males have contributed vocals to a Delerium album: Matthew Sweet (“Daylight”, on Poem), Greg Froese (“Apparition”, on Nuages du Monde), and Michael Logen (“Days Turn into Nights”, on Music Box Opera); in addition, the noted griot Baaba Maal was sampled (“Awakenings, on “Spiritual Archives”).

The Mediæval Bæbes provided the vocal track for, and starred in the video of “Aria”; the vocals are an adapted version of the vocals from “All Turns to Yesterday” on the Bæbes’ “Worldes Blysse” album. They are also featured on two tracks from Delerium’s 2006 album, “Nuages du Monde”.

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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Rhys Fulber will be always connected with music projects like Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One, Will, Noise Unit, Intermix, Synaesthesia ao. The Canadian musician remains a prolific artist who also started releasing music under his own name. Both previously released albums “Your Dystopia, My Dystopia” (2018) and “Ostalgia” (2019) were ground to explore Techno- and IDM fields. The “Resolve”-EP (2020) revealed a radical change into Ambient Music. The newest opus “Brutal Nature” released on Rhys’ own label FR Recordings sounds as the offspring between Techno and Ambient. I talked with Rhys Fulber about this new and visionary work.  

(Picture credits by by Adam De Ville / Interview courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: I remember you said this solo-project all started by some jam sessions with modular synths, which finally resulted in the album “My Dystopia, Your Dystopia”. How did it happen for “Brutal Nature”? Is it still a kind of instinctive process or more a suspicious one? 

Rhys: “Brutal Nature” was probably the most deliberate solo record so far, so not as much ‘jamming’ took place. It was actually made on a much smaller set up than the previous two which let to a more intimate sound in places.

Q: The album was recorded during your stay in Canada while you got inspired by elements of nature. Tell us a bit more about it and especially the connection with the album title? What has been the impact of the ongoing pandemic and the quarantine restrictions? 

Rhys: The core of the album was born in the initial lockdowns in Los Angeles when I just took a few pieces of gear home to work on, then halfway through relocated to a small coastal town in British Columbia I used to live in where that environment helped me fine tune the songs and make it become an album. 

I did all the test listening on a deserted rocky beach by a decaying cabin and all the bits and pieces of mankind washing up on the beaches and abandoned concrete infrastructure gave me the title. The juxtaposition of the two elements.

Q: How long did it take to write and record the tracks of “Brutal Nature”? And what are the different stages you’d to go through to achieve this work? 

Rhys: A couple tracks like “Pyrrhic Act” and “Rogue Minority” were started in L.A circa 2019, then the main material was shaped from spring to fall 2020 in the lockdown era. I usually have a bunch of ideas then figure out the direction and pull them all together as an album. Like I said earlier that fine tuning took place once I got into the coastal environment in British Columbia.  

Q: I can imagine “Brutal Nature” must have been a special recording as you were not working in your studio so how did it feel to work outside your ‘comfort zone’? What have been the pros and cons? And did you encounter major difficulties and/or challenges? 

Rhys: Honestly I can work anywhere I can set up some gear so I kind of liked the variety. The cons would be ‘unreliable monitoring environments’ and having to use headphones. The pros in L.A were no commuting! 

The studio I was using up here was a very finely tuned room so in a way it was an upgrade to my old L.A studio.

Q: “Brutal Nature” sounds to me as the offspring between Techno- and Ambient music, which makes the work pretty exciting and original. How would you analyze this album and its sound approach? 

Rhys: I had started making more ambient material and instead of using it for a another project I thought it would be better to make the solo-project more honest and include all the different sides.  I tried it with the “Resolve”-EP first. A few of the songs like “Chemical” and “Fragility” were going to be used elsewhere but then it suddenly made sense as part of this album and in many ways they are the core pieces now. I think there is so much Techno, EBM and club tools out there you need to find your own angle on things, so I wanted to cultivate a more ‘Soundtrack-Techno’ type sound that includes all tempos and emotions and highlights what I feel are my strengths musically.

Q: You’re now releasing your work on FR Recordings, which is your own label. What’s the idea behind FR Recordings and how do you manage all different elements like pressing, promotion, distribution, social media etc?

Rhys: I just wanted to release the music I want on the schedule I want in a more direct self-curated way. Also doing things for art’s sake like the live cassettes, with very artistic packaging and design (with Berlin artist Janina Schuetz) which most labels wouldn’t do because it is not profitable.  

As far as the logistics, I used similar set up the labels I’d release on used and hired promo people etc. It’s mostly people I know from over the years of making records. I am looking to release some other artists as well this year and develop it a bit more.   

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

Canadian electronic musician and producer Rhys Fulber has just released his latest solo album, “Brutal Nature”, which has been well received by Side-Line as well. Out now is a video Fulber has made for an edited version of the album track “Fragility” featuring Jeza.

You can view the video below.

Fulber is best known for his lengthy (and ongoing) tenure with industrial standard bearers Front Line Assembly and ambient pop exponents Delerium (both with Bill Leeb), his solo project Conjure One, plus five albums released under his own name. As a producer, he has worked extensively with established metal acts such as Fear Factory and Paradise Lost, as well as the industrial hardcore group Youth Code.

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: Ambient-Electro, Ambient-Techno.

Format: Digital, CD, 2 Vinyls. 

Background/Info: Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One ao) strikes back with a new album under his own name. He’s now self-releasing his work while previous productions were released by the excellent Sonic Groove. The Canadian producer recorded this album while staying in Canada and getting inspired by nature. 

Content: Is it because of the pandemic wherein nightlife and clubbing was restricted and even forbidden for a while or the strength and beauty of nature, but this work sounds more driven by Ambient music. But it’s not pure Ambient as Rhys injected hard, beating kicks, creating a sonic fusion between Techno and Ambient. The work evolved into colder sound treatments, which even have something Klinik-al like. A few tracks feature vocals –which sound more like an extra effect on top of the music. The last cut is something totally different and more into harsh Techno-EBM featuring enraged vocals by Sara Taylor (Youth Code). 

+ + + : How many years this artist is now active composing music for different projects? Years indeed, and he rarely repeats himself. That’s exactly what he’s doing again on this album. He holds on to the Techno influences from “Your Dystopia, My Dystopia” while adding a more explicit Ambient touch on top. Rhys Fulber explores the possibilities of Techno music by bringing influences together. But above all he remains a great sound producer, creating outstanding sound treatments with powerful beats and blasting sounds. “Marginalized” and “Pressure” both are great exposures of this work, but I also have to mention the very aggressive “Rogue Minority” and the ultra-violent Techno-Body “Stare At The Sun” featuring the demonic Sara Taylor. 

– – – : I can’t say that I prefer this albumover “Your Dystopia, My Dystopia” or “Ostalgia”, but the more explicit ambient approach wasn’t necessary to me. 

Conclusion: The ongoing pandemic inspires great artists to release great things; “Brutal Nature” is a perfect title to summarize this visionary work by Rhys Fulber.

Best songs: “Marginalized”, “Pressure”, “Rogue Minority”, “Stare At The Sun”, “Chemical”. 

Rate: 8½. 

Artist & Label: www.facebook.com/rhys.fulber / www.facebook.com/rhysfulbermusic  Read the news on ‘Brutal Nature’.

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber is a Canadian electronic musician and producer, born on 10 October 1970 and based in Los Angeles. He records and produces with Frontline Assembly and co-founded Delerium and Conjure One.

Under his own name he released “Realism” in 2017, the album this review names as “Your Dystopia, My Dystopia” in 2018 – Discogs lists it as “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” – “Ostalgia” and “Corruption Of Form” in 2019, and “Diaspora” and “Resolve” in 2020. His own FR Recordings issued the “Live Dystopia” cassette series from 2020 and released “Brutal Nature” in 2021.

“Collapsing Empires” followed in 2022, “Brutal Nature Redux” in 2023 and “Balance Of Fear” in 2024. Side-Line reported his most recent solo album in “Memory Impulse Autonomy”.

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

Canadian electronic musician and producer Rhys Fulber returns with a solo album, “Brutal Nature”.

Utilising a smaller home set-up rather than Fulber’s usual preferred studio made for an engaged environment and the creation of a greater number of intimate compositions to sit alongside club and night culture influenced tracks that dominated his previous releases for the Sonic Groove label.

This time around, you can expect shimmering ambient textures and floating voices mixed with pulsating technoid rhythms. The more EBM-flavoured “Stare At The Sun” features guest vocals from Sara Taylor of Youth Code.

The new album will be out on November 26 via FR Recordings.

Fulber is best known for his lengthy (and ongoing) tenures with industrial standard bearers Front Line Assembly and ambient pop exponents Delerium (both with Bill Leeb), his solo project Conjure One, plus a series of recent dark techno-based albums released under his own name. As a producer, he has worked extensively with established metal acts such as Fear Factory and Paradise Lost, as well as the industrial hardcore act Youth Code. Read the review of ‘Brutal Nature’.

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!

side-line.com

Metropolis Records will be reissuing the first seven albums by Delerium. These seven remastered albums include “Faces, Forms and Illusions” (1988), “Morpheus” (1989), “Syrophenikan” (1990), “Spiritual Archives” (1991), “Stone Tower” (1991), “Spheres I” (1994) and “Spheres II” (1994).

All of these long out-of-print albums will be simultaneously released by Metropolis on very limited edition white vinyl sets and compact disc along with all digital and streaming platforms on March 4th, 2022.

The material has been remastered for the occasion.

About Delerium

Delerium formed in 1987, originally as a side project of the influential industrial music act Front Line Assembly. Throughout the band’s history, their musical style has encompassed a broad range, including dark ethereal ambient trance, voiceless industrial soundscapes, and electronic pop music. They are best known for their worldwide hit “Silence”. The band is known to feature several female guest vocalists on their albums since their 1997 album “Karma”.

These have included mostly women, such as The Mediæval Bæbes, Kristy Thirsk (of Rose Chronicles), Sarah McLachlan, Leigh Nash (of Sixpence None the Richer), Elsieanne Caplette (of Elsiane), Lisa Gerrard (sampled only), Jaël (of Swiss band Lunik), Camille Henderson, Nerina Pallot, Emily Haines (of Metric), Jacqui Hunt (of Single Gun Theory), Isabel Bayrakdarian and Shelley Harland. Other than Leeb, only three males have contributed vocals to a Delerium album: Matthew Sweet (“Daylight”, on Poem), Greg Froese (“Apparition”, on Nuages du Monde), and Michael Logen (“Days Turn into Nights”, on Music Box Opera); in addition, Baaba Maal was sampled (“Awakenings, on “Spiritual Archives”).

The only constant member throughout its history has been Bill Leeb. Leeb was an early member of industrial pioneers Skinny Puppy, but after he left in 1986 he went on to create his own project, Front Line Assembly with collaborator Michael Balch. Later, the two worked on the side project Delerium and released their first album, “Faces, Forms & Illusions”.

After Balch left both Front Line Assembly and Delerium, Leeb worked with Rhys Fulber, and the two released several albums under the Delerium moniker. These years saw a gradual stylistic change from darker ambient to a more danceable sound. After the release of “Karma”, Fulber left to pursue other interests, and Leeb teamed up with producer Chris Peterson to release “Poem”. 2003, however, saw the reunion of Leeb and Fulber for the release of “Chimera”, followed by “Nuages du Monde” in 2006.

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 first single from Conjure One’s first studio album in six years is out now. “Animals” is taken from the new Conjure One album which is coming soon on Black Hole Recordings. Conjure One is the project from producer Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly / Delirium). The release, the project’s 5th so far, comes 6 years after the “Holoscenic” LP.

For the single Fulber has collaborated with fellow Canadian Jaren Cerf on vocals. Note also that the single is released as Conjure One + Jaren.

The single holds two versions of the title track, and extended and an original mix. You can stream “Animals” below.

Black Hole Recordings is a trance and progressive music label based in The Netherlands, it was founded in 1997 and is the label from artists such as Tiësto, Deadmau5, Paul Oakenfold, M.I.K.E. Push, BT, and so on. The promo regarding this new release also reached us via a PR company working in the dance scene.

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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Front Line Assembly’s Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber have just announced “Deviator”, the first new Noise Unit record in over 15 years. The duo will release the new album on Toronto-based Artoffact Records on double vinyl, CD digipak, and digital formats.

The new album features exclusive artwork by Dave McKean (see below), and one of the announced tracks is a collaboration with KMFDM / PIG vocalist Raymond Watts. The first single to drop from the record is “Body Aktiv”.

About Noise Unit

Noise Unit was founded by Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly as a side project. The project has seen several changes in line-up, with Bill Leeb being the only permanent member.

Noise Unit’s first album, “Grinding into Emptiness”, for instance arose from the collaboration between Leeb and Marc Verhaeghen of Belgian industrial band Klinik. It was released in 1989 through Wax Trax! and Antler-Subway. The 1990 album “Response Frequency” included Rhys Fulber. While Verhaeghen left Noise Unit for several years, Fulber remained with the band for the next three releases. Verhaeghen resumed his collaboration with Noise Unit for the 1996 album “Drill”, which also featured members of German industrial band Haujobb.

After an eight-year hiatus, Leeb teamed with former Front Line Assembly member Chris Peterson in 2004 to release “Voyeur” in 2005. Jason Filipchuk and Michael Balch also contributed to 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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Genre/Influences: Techno-Body, Industrial-Techno, Dark-Techno.

Format: Digital, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Sonic Groove is celebrating its 25^th anniversary with a compilation featuring 12 tracks. Set up by Adam Mitchell –better known under the Adam X moniker, the American label –now based in Berlin (Germany) became a visionary company mixing Techno music with darker/underground genres like EBM and Industrial music.

Artists: The Source Experience, Max Durante, Orphx, Diagenetic Origin, Panacea, Meadon, Rhys Fulber & Portion Control, Crystal Geometry, Monolith, Adam X, Dasha Rush, Realmz.

Content: The compilation brings familiar projects from the label together; from ‘earlier’ artists such as Max Durante, Orphx, Diagenetic Origin, Dasha Rush and Realmz… to artists who joined Sonic Groove during the past few years like Rhys Fulber, Crystal Geometry, Maedon… The common thread between all artists is Techno music, which they each mixed with a darker influence. The most surprising track is a collaboration between Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One ao) and Portion Control.

+ + + : This compilation first of all is a way to discover the great label roster of Sonic Groove while it remains one of the very few labels, which welcomed artists mixing Techno music with darker genres. Sonic Groove has been a pioneer and still remains a reference today. When you hear Rhys Fulber together with Portion Control composing a true Techno-Body-Music song with harsh vocals on top, you get an idea what this label stands for. So far I can see the featured artists have composed an exclusive song for this sampler, which makes it only more interesting. I have a preference for the Industrial-Techno style of Crystal Geometry (one of the newest projects on Sonic Groove), but I also have to mention the rough exposure by Diagenetic Origin, the Dark-Techno approach from Panacea and a more explicit track by Dasha Rush. Adam X remains another attention grabber and who better than the label owner he stands for the sound of his label: Industrial-Techno!

– – – : I don’t have real regrets, but some extra artists and tracks would have been cool.

Conclusion: This sampler serves as a perfect shop window to give you an idea about the sonic strength and visionary style of the label. I can only express respect for what this label has accomplished so far.

Best bands: Crystal Geometry, Rhys Fulber & Portion Control, Diagenetic Origin, Panacea.

Rate: (8½).

Label: www.sonicgroove.com / www.facebook.com/Sonicgrooverecords

About Sonic Groove

Sonic Groove is a techno, acid, industrial techno, EBM and experimental label founded by Adam Mitchell (Adam X) in New York City in 1995. The label was based in Berlin between 2007 and 2024 before returning to its original home of New York City. Vinyl pressings are manufactured at Record Industry (Netherlands) and distributed via Triple Vision.

The “Sonic Groove: 25 Years / 1995 – 2020” compilation marked the label’s quarter-century with twelve tracks from its roster, including a collaboration between Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly) and Portion Control.

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-Ambient, Cinematographic.

Format: Digital

Background/Info: Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One, Will, Noise Unit ao) is back with a new EP under his own name. Previous works –mainly released on Sonic Groove, revealed the Technoid skills of Rhys Fulber. “Resolve” is meant as the first EP in a series and also is the debut release on Rhys Fulber’s own label FR Recordings.

Content: Even if most previous productions were into Techno-Body music, Rhys Fulber also showed some Ambient influences. “Resolve” can be defined as pure Ambient, a dark sonic trip, which is touching ground with Cinematographic music. The work features 4 songs and has been progressively built up. You’ll also notice the more elaborated “Disused” featuring sampled voices in the background and creating a ghost-like effect.

+ + + : Rhys Fulber is a kind of ‘chameleon’ musician, who can transpose himself to write different styles of music genres. The Ambient approach is not new in his career (even FLA composed Soundtrack music), but this is a different approach. It’s dark, sometimes achieved with Technoid soundsculptures and still reminding me of some Ambient pioneers. The opening cut “Charleroi” is directly inspired by the Belgian city, which is a grey area of abandoned metal industry while the city became also famous because it was there where murderer Marc Dutroux lived. And by the way, it also is the hometown of à;Grumh. It’s a nice wink to the Belgian fans of Rhys Fulber. I however prefer the already mentioned “Disused”, which is finely elaborated with great sound treatments. Both last cuts reveal a kind of dark, inhibited reverie, definitely accentuating the electro-ambient approach of the work.

– – – : “Resolve” is an easy listening work, quite accessible, but definitely not the most exciting production I’ve heard from this sound guru.

Conclusion: Rhys Fulber goes Ambient revealing an intimate, electronic production that sounds as the perfect soundtrack for an imaginary movie.

Best songs: “Disused”, “Charleroi”.

Rate: (7½).

Artist & Label: www.facebook.com/rhysfulbermusic

About Rhys Fulber

Frontline Assembly alumnus Rhys Fulber is a Canadian musician and producer, born 10 October 1970 and based in Los Angeles. He has also recorded as Delerium, Conjure One, Will and Noise Unit. “Resolve” was released in 2020 as the debut EP on his own label, FR Recordings, following years of productions largely released via Sonic Groove. Fulber continued the FR Recordings series with “Brutal Nature” in 2021 and later returned to Sonic Groove with “Collapsing Empires” in 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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(Photo by Bobby Talamine) The Canadian industrial outfit Front Line Assembly, being founder Bill Leeb with long-time cohort Rhys Fulber, are back with a new album on January 15th 2021 as we already reported a few months ago. The album also includes guest appearances from Jean-Luc De Meyer of Front 242 (on ‘Barbarians’) and Dino Cazares of Fear Factory (on ‘Stifle’).

They now have also announced a list of instruments featured on each of the 10 tracks.

1. Elektron Analog Rytm mk2
2. Studio Electronics Omega 8
3. Roland Alpha Juno 2
4. Mutable Instruments Shruthi
5. Waldorf Pulse+
6. Noise Engineering Basimilus Iteritas, Ormsby DC7
7. Moog Model 15 reissue
8. Mutable Instruments Clouds
9. Waldorf Q+
10. Doepfer A100

Next to that a new video for the 2018 track “Arbeit” taken from the album “Wake up the coma” has been released.

For more on Front Line Assembly, see 4 earliest albums of Bill Leeb’s Front Line Assembly reissued on… 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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BLUSH RESPONSE is terrorizing the underground scene for the last ten years. Set up by Joey Gonzalez, the American moved from New-York (USA) to Berlin (Germany). He released a considerable number of productions on labels such as Sonic Groove, Ant-Zen, Basic Unit Productions, Aufname + Wiedergabe ao, but recently decided to set up his own label Megastructure_ to unleash his newest album “Void In”. This production is a complex and sophisticated work, mixing different genres like Experimental-, Industrial- and Techno music. The album is hard to catch, but clearly revealing the impressive skills of this sound architect.  

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: 2020 will for sure go down in history as the year of the Covid-19 pandemic. It has seriously affected all artistic activities so how do you experience this situation and how do you manage it as artist? 

Joey: I really miss playing live a lot. I was pumped to go out with a bunch of bookings and also would have been on the now postponed Front Line Assembly / Ministry / KMFDM tour playing synths for FLA, so needless to say I had an exciting year lined up and now it’s all gone.  The virus is a terrible thing and I hope we can find some form of normalcy soon.  I’ve been getting through it by doing what I always do, making music and gaming.  I am a studio rat by nature so if I could spend even more time at home in the studio than I already do, I would.  

Q: 2020 is also the year you released your new album “Void In”, which sounds as an appropriated title for what’s happening all around us, but what is the album all about and what did you try express and achieve? 

Joey: I think I got lucky with the name there! “Void In” was actually all complete and sent off to the plant before the virus hit.  It then took a really long time to come out, but I’m happy I got it out this summer.  As for the inspiration, with all my music, it’s about looking within. The meanings behind the tracks are deeply personal and I don’t really want to share so much to be honest.  But I can give a few clues -some of the titles reference Hideo Kojima’s recent game “Death Stranding”, which was one of my favorite things I’ve played recently and presented an interesting view of a post-apocalyptic world.  It also had a concept called “Voidout” which inspired the title.  But the title is not just about the game, it’s also about what I was feeling on a personal level, and other things. 

Q: I compare “Void In” as reading a book about quantum physics… you can seize a few things, but it’s hard to catch the essence! I mean the sound and structures are pretty complex and experimental, but how do you see this album in your own evolution as composer/producer? 

Joey: Thank you, I think that’s one of the best compliments I’ve ever received! “Void In” is the latest report in my personal series, and there will be many more to come as I further research the sonic dimension. I am perpetually on a quest to explore sound and synthesis. I have a compulsion that I must make sound, and it’s a part of me much like breathing or eating. This compulsion is unavoidable.

On the competitive side, there is a drive in me to make the best, most impressive thing I can make. To level up my skills to be able to make work of the same stature as the work of my heroes. 

On the fun side, I want to make something that I enjoy hearing. I take great pleasure in just sitting down with my equipment and playing with it until something happens that is exciting for me. With this quest for excitement comes a need to keep things interesting, so I always have to change it up, to look for new paths within sound. The process of making music is a bit like meditation. It heals me. When I jam out tracks I enter a trance-like state where I am moving automatically on instinct. When I’m done and come out of it, I almost forget the moment of jamming. If I go too long without making stuff I really start to get anxious and unhappy. So I don’t like to leave the studio for too long. It’s not good for my health!

Q: You clearly like the album-format. I hear label owners and artists affirming this format will progressively get lost and replaced by singles. What makes an album important to you and how do you see things evolving –still considering aspects such as streaming, social media etc? 

Joey: I personally don’t think anyone has a clue what the right path is, especially now with the virus. Over the years I’ve heard many conflicting stories about what will or won’t happen, but everyone is just making their best guess. There is no certainty. The one thing I’ve learned is to always trust my gut instinct. The times I haven’t have always ended with unhappy results. So I try to go by what I want and nothing else. At the end of the day, music is a personal endeavor for me. There is a time and place for an album as well as a time and place for a single. I think the best message is the one that is truest to the vision of the current project. Whether it’s an album, single, live stream, or a 15 second clip. They are all valid forms and worthy of exploring.  

In my opinion, music streaming is a travesty. It has significantly devalued music, and a lot of people who would have bought a record now don’t because they can just stream it. I think we went too far ahead into the land of convenience without thinking about the consequences. When music downloading first became a problem for artists, Metallica spoke out against it. They were lambasted because they were these rich men complaining that they were losing money, and people were upset because they were so rich. But, honestly, they were 100% completely in the right to take the stance that they did.  

There is a common idea that artists make most of their money from touring. But what happens in between tours? What do they do for income? That’s where record sales would come in. Royalties from sales would help people along in between the massive tours. You can’t tour forever, there needs to be time to make the music. Now with the virus, there is no touring at all, and sales are in a terrible place, and streaming has only helped sales further decline. And the royalty rates are such a joke. 

I have to give big props to Bandcamp for sticking up for artists and doing their Bandcamp Fridays. Those have been a big help to me and many others. I hope people come to their senses and realize that buying music is the way. Or that streaming services start paying much higher royalty rates.  Artists need support, especially now that the idea of touring is a quagmire of uncertainty.

Q: You collaborated with several other artists like Thomas P. Heckmann, Rhys Fulber ao. I can imagine it’s always an opportunity to discover new tricks and ideas, but what did you learn from these collaborative efforts?   

Joey: I’ve been very lucky to work with such legends and learn from them. Rhys and Thomas both have talent flowing directly out of their hands, and one major thing I learned in working with them is to sit back and listen. I don’t mean not participate, but as someone so in control of my own music, it’s nice to let them guide a bit. In the case of Thomas, when we did the DRAX RESPONSE record, we actually did 10 tracks in three days.

From the moment I arrived at his studio we set up to jam and just didn’t stop except to eat or sleep at night. It was an instant synergy and I learned a lot about committing. The entire DRAX RESPONSE release was recorded live in one take, two track out to the computer. There was no multitracking or editing. All hardware synths and effects. A lot like how I do things, but with no ability to change anything at all after the fact. That was a big lesson for me, and I took that knowledge to “Void In” with the track “Chiralium”, which was the first track where I was brave enough to just record a stereo mix.  

Rhys and I have been working together since around 2012 or so when we did the Fear Factory album “The Industrialist” together. He has taught me so much in so many different areas of music, from production techniques to ways to manage my career. I have to fully give it up to him. I’m happy to say he is one of my best and closest friends and owe a lot to him for everything he’s imparted to me. He is absolutely a master of his craft and it was awesome to finally do a record together with him. It feels like we should have done it sooner.  

Q: You this year also set up your own label Megastructure_, which I can imagine is something totally different than only making music. What incited you to set up Megastructure? Is there a kind of label philosophy and what might we expect for the new few months? 

Joey: I made Megastructure so I could have a direct line to my fans when releasing music. I wanted a bit more control over the process of production and scheduling and so here we are. I also decided I want to shine a light on artists I think are talented and want to support. There are a few new releases in the pipeline from other artists now but I don’t want to share too much. I prefer to announce things when they are already almost out. 

As for what to expect, I can say that it can be literally anything. I like a broad range of electronic sounds so it won’t just be Techno or Industrial or any one genre.  

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

Out on January 15th 2021 is the brand new Front Line Assembly album “Mechanical Soul”. The Canadian industrial outfit offers 10 new tracks and a remix of the track “Hatevol “.

For this release Bill Leeb again joins up with long-time cohort Rhys Fulber. The album also includes guest appearances from Jean-Luc De Meyer of Front 242 and Dino Cazares of Fear Factory.

Below is the artwork.

Tracklisting:

1. Purge
2. Glass and Leather
3. Unknown
4. New World
5. Rubber Tube Gag
6. Stifle
7. Alone
8. Barbarians
9. Komm, Stirbt Mit Mir
10. Time Lapse
11. Hatevol (Black Asteroid Mix)

Further details will be made available soon.

Side-Line also covered Front Line Assembly’s ‘Mechanical Soul’.

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!

side-line.com

Good news, the duo Rhys Fulber and Bill Leeb are working on a brand new Noise Unit album and this 15 years after the last album “Voyeur” was released on Metropolis. Precise details are not yet known though, more news as we get it.

Noise Unit: a continuously evolving project

Noise Unit is a Canadian industrial project founded by Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly as a side project. The band has seen several changes in line-up, with Bill Leeb being the only permanent member.

Noise Unit’s first album, “Grinding into Emptiness” was a collaboration between Leeb and Marc Verhaeghen of Belgian industrial band Klinik and was released in 1989 through Wax Trax! and Antler-Subway. For the 1990 album “Response Frequency” Leeb was joined by Rhys Fulber. After the completion of the album, Verhaeghen left Noise Unit for several years while Fulber remained with the band for the next 3 releases.

Verhaeghen resumed his collaboration with Noise Unit for the 1996 album “Drill” which also featured members of German industrial band Haujobb. Leeb finally teamed up with former Front Line Assembly member Chris Peterson in 2004 to release “Voyeur” in 2005 with further help from Jason Filipchuk and Michael Balch.

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!

side-line.com

Originally from New-York (USA), but living in Berlin (Germany), Adam Mitchell is known in the industrial- and EBM scene for his minimal-electro driven projects Adam-X and ADMX-71. Adam is also running Sonic Groove, which is a visionary dark-techno/body label releasing productions from artists such as Orphx, Rhys Fulber, Fixmer / McCarthy, Monolith,  The Panacea, Blush Response ao. He is a renowned DJ, producer and event organizer (Tresor Club). For more than 10 years now he’s also releasing music under the Traversable Wormhole moniker. This project is definitely more techno-driven, but always featuring a dark touch on top. After numerous EP’s, Traversable Wormhole is now back with its first self-released full length album “Regions Of Time”. The album is available on digital platforms and as a double vinyl edition. The work stands for the obscure side of techno music and is for sure worthy of examination.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You set up Traversable Wormhole already a while ago, but you didn’t really release new stuff under this moniker for a few years while you were more prolific with your other projects Adam-X & ADMX-71. Where was this break good for and what brought you back to Traversable Wormhole and this new production?

Adam: Traversable Wormhole is a very specific conceptual sound for me. I’m very much into creating soundtracks for space travel themes. For a while I felt I pushed the boundaries as far as I could go with the sound. So I needed to take time and space from the project until I could come up with new ideas. I was also busy with another formerly anonymous side-project titled The Secret Initiative, which ran consecutively at the same time as the Traversable Wormhole releases. This project was a bit more loose feeling and fun for me to make from Traversable Wormhole as it’s taking old techno and EBM ideas and transforming them into the present day. I had way less restrictions recording this project and recorded 20 songs over the course of the last decade. So I had my hands full with other projects and lost focus on recording new Traversable Wormhole material.

Q: “Regions Of Time” is the first full length album so what incited you to achieve an album instead of new EP’s and what is the album all about?

Adam: I created it more on instinctual feeling then anything else. I made two songs for a single, but then the ideas just kept flowing. I thought why not just go all the way on it as I know the fans of the project would love hearing a full length album way more then a single. It is also way more gratifying as an artist to record an album then a single. I wanted a new challenge and so I took it on.

Q: You always claimed this projects stands for the sci/fi side of techno music, but what do you really understand with this ‘quote’ and what does it reveal about your personal interest for science fiction, space and wormholes?

Adam: I love astronomy, star gazing and all things related to outer space. I also love science fiction movies & comics and that has a big influence on me too. I love the segment entitled “Jupiter & Beyond The Infinite” in the movie “Space Odyssey : 2001” where Dave is traveling through space and then entering into the rings of Jupiter. Traversable Wormhole songs can easily be my rendition of a soundtrack to that particular scene in the movie. Also I’ve always had a huge passion for techno that has a sci-fi futurism feeling to it. It invokes thoughts in me of outer worldly subjects and fantasies and I love music that creates thought provocative images.

 Q: Tell us a bit more about the writing of this album? What have been the different stages you’d to go through? The equipment you used? And do you notice main differences in the composing process between Traversable Wormhole and your other projects?

Adam: I have been making music solely with Ableton and plug in synth’s since 2005. I’ve done the hardware thing for the 15 years prior to this of releasing music. For me it’s not about the tools you use it’s how far you can expand your mind to create. I also love total control in every event happening in my songs. I’m a total perfectionist. I go deep into automation with several events often happening at once on a note with effects, filters etc. You cannot do with two hands and hardware. I’m limitless now where as when I worked with hardware I felt more constricted. With that being said when I tell other producers that I don’t use any hardware many are quite in shock stating my music sounds like it’s done on hardware. What I really love about using Ableton is I usually will create several different song sketches at first. Then I will bounce back and forth between the sketches so as I don’t get bored of working on the same song for hours on end. It also helps me keep the flow of the album this way as I’m hearing several different songs in a day. I’m more in tune with the overall feel this way. This process of writing and recording is the same for all the projects I do.

Q: Whatever you want to call it, I experienced “Regions Of Time” as the dark side of techno music! It’s filled with icy sound treatments and hostile atmospheres, but it all remains definitely techno- and danceable like. There clearly is a scene in Berlin for this kind of techno music. Tell us a bit more about it? Is it an important scene (clubs, artists, promoters etc)? Why is it that specific for Berlin?

Adam: What you experienced is my actual intention for the listener to feel. I want the listener to feel very heavy low, deep bass, the sonic boom per se in space travel. In technical terminology the sound of Traversable Wormhole is often 10-15 hertz lower in frequency then most other techno music. Most low bass in techno music is recorded in the 50 and higher Hertz range of low frequency. Traversable Wormhole is hitting much lower in the 38-45 Herz range. This creates a huge feeling on a sound system with great sub bass cabinets/speakers.

There is a scene globally for this kind of music. I’ve played many countries under this project. The Japanese especially love deeper, dark music as such. So I wouldn’t say the sound is more enjoyed in Berlin then other places. It’s quite universal in techno.

Q: How do you see this scene evolving and how do you see yourself evolving towards your next productions? What brings the future for Traversable Wormhole?

Adam: I’ve entered into 30 years in 2020 since my first record came out in 1990. One thing I’ve learned in this time is it’s awfully hard to predict what comes next. I really have no idea what the next changes are to come in the music scene itself. Early in the 1990’s when I began music styles were changing rapidly year to year. Changes are super slow in modern day times. There really hasn’t been any significant changes in techno since the early part of the last decade with exception of some artists speeding the BPM’s up plus 10.

As for my own productions it’s also hard to say. I try not to think too far in the future because I’m already nearing 50 years old and have lived more then half a life. I prefer to live day to day and let my music take me instinctually to wherever it can without over thinking how I can evolve with it. I will always have an urge to push boundaries as long as I’m creating music. So you can expect more futurism forthcoming in the industrialized techno bubble I live in.

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: Industrial-techno.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One ao) last year released his second full length solo-album “Ostalgia”, which was a new exploration of contemporary dark-techno paths. “Baut Mit!” features four remixes from songs originally released on “Ostalgia”.

Content: The Berlin techno-underground scene is probably one of the most famous ones in the world. Sonic Groove’s owner Adam Mitchell is based in Berlin and I can imagine it has incited Rhys Fulber to get remixed by artists from the German capital of techno music. Tommy Four Seven, Headless Horseman, Traversable Wormhole and Phase Fatale took each one song from “Ostalgia” and transposed them into their own techno perception. From the cinematic-techno interpretation of “Misery Whip” by Tommy Four Seven to the brutal remix of “Apostel” by Headless Horseman to the acid-retro like remix of “Fisson” by Traversable Wormhole to the more techno-industrial driven “Right Hand Of the Free World” remixed by Phase Fatale, this EP stands for diversity.

+ + + : Diversity is for sure the main strength of this work. I heard a great remix by Headless Horseman, but Traversable Wormhole’s merciless transformation of “Fisson” is my personal favorite. I enjoyed the kind of whipping snare drum and the acid-like sequences.

– – – : This EP is food for DJ’s, but I’m missing an extra song or remix by Rhys Fulber himself.

Conclusion: Rhys Fulber remains a source of inspiration, even for artists who are not familiar with darker electronics and industrial music.

Best songs: “Fisson – Traversable Wormhole Remix”, “Apostel – Headless Horseman Remix”.

Rate: (7½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/rhysfulbermusic

Label: www.sonicgroove.com / www.facebook.com/Sonicgrooverecords

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber is a Canadian electronic musician and producer, born 10 October 1970 and based in Los Angeles. He is a longtime member of Frontline Assembly and Delerium alongside Bill Leeb, and also records as Conjure One. Under his own name, Fulber’s solo catalog began with “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” in 2018 and continued with “Ostalgia” in 2019, both released through Sonic Groove. The “Resolve” EP followed in 2020, then “Brutal Nature” in 2021 on his own FR Recordings label, “Collapsing Empires” in 2022, “Balance Of Fear” in 2024, and “Memory Impulse Autonomy” in 2025. “Baut Mit!” gathers four Sonic Groove remixes of “Ostalgia” tracks.

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: Industrial-techno, IDM, minimal-electro.

Background/Info: One year after the successful album “Your Dystopia, My Utopia”, Canadian electro veteran Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One, Noise Unit ao) strikes back with his second solo-album. The title of the album reflects ‘ a romantic nostalgia for the old but comforting ways of Communist East Germany – and a yearning for rigid systems after progression into the future has led to chaos and uncertainty’.

Content: The title of the album might be understood as a sonic metaphor from an artist in search for good-old electronic sounds. One thing is for sure, Rhys Fulber moves on exploring techno paths, which he meticulously merged together with harsh industrial sound treatments. This album sounds more into the techno direction, but still reveals the sophisticated approach of the musician/producer. The second half of the work becomes more elaborated and into IDM.       

+ + + : Rhys Fulber confirms feeling comfortable composing ‘’his type of techno music.” The industrial-techno genre isn’t new at all, but this artist mixes it with some good-old sound treatments. But the album also sounds like a magic box, which features an endless number of sonic tricks and effects. Some tracks are progressively evolving towards a truly climax. Just pay attention to “12 Steppes” and the darker “Consum” and you’ll seize the complexity of “Ostalgia”. I might prefer the previous album, but what I especially like on “Ostalgia” is that Rhys Fulber evolved with his techno exploration.

– – – : “Ostalgia” made me a bit nostalgic from the more explicit EBM and techno-body approach from his previous album.

Conclusion: Rhys Fulber is a meaningful project when it comes to industrial-techno and IDM. This artist has no limits when it comes to expose his skills!

Best songs: “12 Steppes”, “Consum”, “Apostel”, “Right Hand Of The Free World”, “Misery Whip”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/rhysfulbermusic 

Label: www.sonicgroove.com / www.facebook.com/Sonicgrooverecords

About Rhys Fulber

Frontline Assembly is documented elsewhere on Side-Line; Rhys Fulber’s solo catalogue includes “Realism” (2017) and “Your Dystopia, My Utopia” (2018) before “Ostalgia”. He continued two months later with “Baut Mit!”, also released on Sonic Groove, and went on to record “Corruption Of Form” (2019), “Diaspora” and “Resolve” (2020) and “Brutal Nature” (2021) for the same label.

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

British formation Cubanate were active in between 1992 and 1999! It were seven years of sonic terror; pure crossover like we used to call it in the 90s. A harsh and unpolished sound mixing electronics and guitar with a f****ing, enraged singer and live performer as  image of the band. The band released successful albums (cf. “Antimatter”, “Cyberia” and “Barbarossa” all released on Dynamic and a last album “Interference” released on Wax Trax! Records). Songs like “Body Burn” and especially “Oxyacetalene” became some of the band’s greatest hits. After a long hibernation the ‘Cubanate-monster’ got reactivated in 2010. Marc Heal and Phil Barry first started to play some live gigs, but 2019 is for sure the year of the ‘real’ come-back. This is their first new work in twenty one years! The EP “Kolossus” released on Armalyte Industries reveals five new songs plus two remixes. I didn’t know what to expect from this new release, but one thing is for sure, this is probably the best production I’ve heard from Cubanate! I got in touch with Marc Heal.

The new EP (available here on MCD) contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Cubanate was already back to business for a couple of years now, but “Kolossus” is the first new work since 1998! How did it feel to be back and where do you place this work in the band’s discography?

Marc: We decided that we were only going to do Cubanate again if it was fun and good. We were persuaded to play the “Cold Waves”-festival in Chicago back in 2016. Chicago always felt like a home city for us, because we were signed to Wax Trax and all that. I hadn’t played live at all in about 17 years at that point. I mean, not just with Cubanate, nothing at all!  But I was curious to see how it would feel. I was nervous that first time. I was living in Singapore, Phil was in London, so we both flew over, did a few days rehearsal, then – bam! Scary.

But after we had dipped our toe in the water we decided to do some more. We played with FLA, Revolting Cocks, some UK dates.

Same with “Kolossus”. It’s a test. I wanted to try an EP first, to see how it felt, before committing to making an album.

Q: I think to remember you once said (back in 2011) that no new Cubanate album would be ever released! And look now, here’s “Kolossus”, which is according to me the best Cubanate stuff in history. How did it finally happened and what will be next?  

Marc: Thank you. I think it was important to reconnect as a band first. We didn’t mind playing a few retrospective dates. The old songs still sounded fresh. Also we had released the “Brutalism”-compilation, which was a remastered “Best Of” from the days we were signed in Berlin to Dynamica, so all good.

But after a while we became curious about what new material would sound like. We needed to find a way to record. I was in California by then so it was still hard to find a way to work together.

I had made a few new songs with Jean-Luc Demeyer for my other project, C-Tec. So I realized working at such distance could be done, so long as you trust the other person artistically. That’s very important, because you aren’t in the same room together to persuade or negotiate. Next up, we will try an album.

Q: How much of the ‘early’ Cubanate sound, the way of composing and producing songs do you recognize in “Kolossus”? And what have been the main changes/evolutions?

Marc: Cubanate has to give you a rush. It has to be nasty and thrilling in your gut. But these days we feel able to throw anything together to get there. Any sound, any influence, any instrument. We’re more experimental now.

There are a lot of technical changes since the 90s. In those days we would write in the studio and whatever came out at the end, we released! That was because you couldn’t take the mix down from the desk without losing the whole sound. These days, with digital, it’s easier to go back to a mix. But we still try to keep things loose, not to over-think everything, to keep it raw. We still have to work with my ragged old voice, of course. And Phil’s guitar, So it’s never going to sound too polished!

We’re older and more experienced. We’ve learned to work harder at making things better, but also to know when to stop.

Q: How did the writing of the new songs happened? What has been the main focus and possible sources of inspiration?

Marc: I write the bones of an idea, with a rough lyric and vocal. Then I send it to Phil, who adds guitar. Then I rearrange and often re-do some vocals and lyrics to make it all work together. Then Phil will finish it off and do the final mix.

I’m always interested in the dynamics of power, within relationships, within society. I always thought you had to be messed up to write dark lyrics. As it turns out, it’s easier when you’re not. You can visualize more clearly. And your moral perspective is less blurred.

Q: What did you try to express on the “Kolossus”-clip and what’s the importance and impact of making clips today?

Marc: It’s good, isn’t it? Gabriel Edvy directed the video. I’d used her for “Adult Fiction”, which was one of my solo songs and she did an amazing job. So I learned to trust her and give her freedom. I told her wanted something that merged a kind of industrial, factory feel but with a threatening feminine contrast. Also, Phil and I had to record our parts separately, which I thought would be tricky, but it adds a feeling of isolation, which I like. Then she just got on with it.

Back in the old days, people were impressed by just seeing you mime along in the video. These days there is so much video online that I think you need to approach the moving image as integral with the music, or else there’s no point. It’s almost like Gabby is an extra band member in charge of film.

Q: Cubanate has been active and successful during the 90s. It was a decade wherein it was easy to sell CD’s while today it rather appears to be an item for collectors and die-hard fans! How do you perceive this evolution, but also social media, streaming etc?

Marc: We ended up making a lot of money in the 90s, mainly through games music. I bought a couple of houses. But I have no expectations about making money from music now. I do it because I love it and I like the people I work with. Our label, Armalyte are into what we do and we split any profits with them. There’s no contract, everyone does it because they enjoy it and they get off on the music. It’s like going back to the old punk rock days. I much prefer that.

Also I like social media. I can talk directly with people on the Facebook page. And they can compliment or insult me directly. It’s almost like starting a new band again, really. And it feels better than it ever did.

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: Industrial, crossover.

Background/Info: Twenty one years after their last studio work under the Cubanate moniker, core members Marc Heal and Phil Barry are back on track unleashing new work. This EP features five new songs plus two remixes.

Content: Cubanate is back and the least I can say is that it doesn’t sound at all as this band has been inactive for more than twenty years. “Kolossus” still sounds pretty Cubanate like; a sound which is powerful, merciless and hard to define. The compositions sound like the offspring between multiple influences; a sonic fusion between industrial-, techno-, EBM and metal music. Aggressive sequences and some EBM-driven bass lines have been mixed with guitar assaults –which might appeal to KMFDM fans, plus the harsh screaming vocals of Marc Heal.

Remixes have been made by Rhys Fulber and Drownd.

+ + + : The violence emerging from this production is absolutely terrific. But there’s a perfect balance between the power and the different influences running through the work. Compared to the 90s productions of the band, this work maybe sounds a little tiny bit more electro-like and less metal-inspired. The five new songs are absolutely amazing. It’s an overwhelming production reminding me of an imaginary fusion between KMFDM and Empirion, but in the end it’s just Cubanate ano 2019! The songs are well-crafted, intelligent and literally exploding during the choruses –and I here especially refer to “Missing Persons” and “Vortex”.

– – – : When listening to this EP –which more appears to be a mini-album, you just want to hear more! The remixes are pretty cool as well, but not of a same level as the original songs.

Conclusion: I didn’t know what to expect from this comeback and I even was a bit skeptical. The result left me breathless and I even dare to affirm “Kolossus” is probably the best production I’ve heard from Cubanate! You guys rule!

Best songs: “Missing Persons”, “Vortex”, “Kolossus”, “Split Second”.

Rate: (9½).

The new EP (available here on MCD) contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND.

Artist: www.facebook.com/cubanate

Label: www.armalyte.com / www.facebook.com/ArmalyteIndustries Read the news on ‘Kolossus’.

About Cubanate

Cubanate is the British industrial duo of Marc Heal and Phil Barry, active from 1992 to 1999 with albums including “Antimatter”, “Cyberia” and “Barbarossa” on Dynamic Records, and “Interference” on Wax Trax! Records. A later member, Julian Beeston (also of Nitzer Ebb), went on to front the project Featured. Cubanate reactivated for live shows in 2010 and issued the retrospective “Brutalism” in 2017 before “Kolossus” (2019, Armalyte Industries), its first new material in over two decades, featuring remixes by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly) and DROWND.

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

To celebrate the return of Cubanate, the band’s label has dropped a rather spectacular promo video for the EP’s title track today. It’s directed by E Gabriel Edvy of Blackswitch Labs, and stars alt. model Leah Debrincat.

Here’s the video!

The new EP (available here on MCD) contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND. Out on 7th June, it will be previewed at a co-headlining London date with PIG on 1st, plus an appearance at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany. Orders are available here, but be fast!

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!

side-line.com

The industrial techno-rock duo Cubanate have announced the release of their first new music in over two decades in the form of an EP entitled “Kolossus”. It follows their “Brutalism” retrospective collection in 2017 and a brief return to live action for the first time since the late 1990’s to promote it.

The new EP (available here on MCD) contains five new songs plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber (Front Line Assembly, Delerium, Conjure One) and DROWND. Out on 7th June, it will be previewed at a co-headlining London date with PIG on 1st, plus an appearance at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany. Orders are available here, but be fast!

Working with an ocean inbetween

Marc Heal and guitarist Phil Barry had started thinking about writing new material after the positive reaction to their initial comeback shows, but as they live on separate continents these days (Heal is currently based in San Francisco while Barry is in Cambridgeshire) it wasn’t all that easy.

Marc Heal: “I set up a vocal booth in Palo Alto and sketched out the ideas. Phil took them forwards in Cambridge and added guitar. Once I heard that I added some more vocals and tweaked the structure before he then finished the mixes. We’re pleased with the results but I feel we will get stronger now we’ve done these five tracks. It’s a psychological barrier. The EP still sounds like us but inevitably we’re older and hopefully wiser. The wisdom thing is tricky, because a lot of early Cubanate was about relishing a ride towards self-destruction. It’s still like that, but smarter. These days we’re more confident that we can do whatever we want, both musically and lyrically. So long as it keeps being fun and we think we can keep being nasty, we’ll keep doing it.”

Here’s the track “Missing Persons” which is featured on the EP.

The early beginning, the split and resurrection

Formed in the summer of 1992 as a four piece centred around Marc Heal (vocals) and Phil Barry (guitar), their early sound fused the rhythms of the then nascent techno scene with the lo-fi grunge rock sound emanating from the US. Although the band later became adopted by Goth audiences, early Cubanate was more influenced by Joey Beltram, Baby Ford and Nirvana.

Following a UK tour with electronic duo Sheep on Drugs, they signed to the Berlin based Dynamica label and released their debut album, “Antimatter” (1993), which included the single “Body Burn”. The second Cubanate album, “Cyberia” (1995), featured the single “Oxyacetylene”. The band’s third album, “Barbarossa” (1996) contained the single “Joy” and was promoted with live dates supporting Gary Numan, Rammstein, The Sisters of Mercy and Front 242. Heal struck up a friendship at this time with Jean-Luc De Meyer of Front 242 and the pair subsequently released two albums as C-Tec.

In 1997, seeking a change of label and direction, Cubanate signed to Wax Trax! for what was to be their final album to date, “Interference” (1998). Splitting in 2000 but reforming in September 2016 for a set at the Cold Waves Festival in Chicago, they subsequently played several UK and North American dates in 2017 to promote a retrospective compilation entitled “Brutalism”. Read the review of ‘Kolossus’.

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!

side-line.com

When it comes to EBM, Front Line Assembly weren’t only pioneers, but still a formation that never stopped exploring new sonic paths. For more than 30 years now the Canadian formation driven by Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber is taking us by surprise. Albums such as “State Of Mind” in the early years and later on “Caustic Grip” and of course” Hard Wired” entered into history. More than 20 albums later Front Line Assembly this year released “Wake Up The Coma” (Metropolis Records), which is for sure one of the most atypical albums in their discography. Robert Görl (DAF), Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost), Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Cocksure) and Jimmy Urine (Mindless Self Indulgence) have been featured while it also is the last FLA-work featuring additional programming by Jeremy Inkel. Time for an interview with Rhys Fulber.

“Wake Up The Coma” is released by Metropolis Records and you can order the 2LP vinyl version right here.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: I think “Wake Up The Coma” has something special because of the famous ‘guests’ you invited, but also because of Jeremy Inkel who for the very last time did some additional programming on a few songs. What does it all evoke to you and how will you remind Jeremy Inkel?

Rhys: Jeremy had sent Bill some ideas he had, I think ones he had worked on with Jared a couple years ago, so we thought in his honor we should finish them because we know he would have loved that.  We still miss him.  He was a sweet and energetic guy and its very sad he left so soon.

Bill wanted to try some different things on this record and after the Amadeus track with Jimmy came together so well, thought it would be interesting to try a few other guests.

Q: The song “Wake Up The Coma” clearly appears to be a reflection about a ‘certain’ system while it also became the title of the album. Tell us a bit more about it?

Rhys: Yes, it’s pretty much hinting at the future dystopia we are heading towards apathetically. It will take a lot of waking up on humanity’s part, or more specifically the wealthy ones who control everything. However, when brought into that context it may never happen. Also, starting a revolution might cut into binge watching your favorite Netflix series.

Q: You asked Robert Görl to contribute to “Eye On You”, which has been also released as EP title song right before the album. How did this collaboration and the global writing/production of the song happened?

Rhys: This was something Bill set up with Robert. Robert then sent us some analog synth and sequence recordings and I cut them up and added to them to make what you hear now.  Bill later added his vocals in Canada. A global file sharing collaboration, which is the norm now.

Q: The cover version of Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” featuring Jimmy Urine is definitely one of the most surprising songs you ever accomplished. Who got the idea of this, what makes it that ‘special’ to FLA and how was it working on the song?

Rhys: Bill had been talking about doing a cover of this for a little while, so we finally got around to it.  The track went through a few different versions before we arrived on the one you hear now. I think it was also his idea to get Jimmy in, who I have worked with a lot in the studio before, because his style would work for the ‘rap’ parts.  I don’t know anyone else who could have pulled this off the way Jimmy did now that I think about it. We recorded his vocal at my studio and I tried my best to get the German close, with my limited grasp of the language. Bill added the low backing vocals in the chorus later. It was actually nice to work on a fun song for FLA, that isn’t too serious for a change.

Q: You also did a clip of “Rock Me Amadeus”, which is pure fun and quite surprising as well. You clearly don’t care about ‘image’ and some of your fans who’re desperately waiting for a new “Hard Wired”. I experienced it as pure ‘artistic freedom’, but what does it really mean to you?

Rhys: This had a lot to do with the director Jason Jensen. We weren’t sure where to take a music video for the song. He proposed something bright and 80s themed so we went with it. I think it’s like a classic ‘music video’ in the old MTV style and we really like it. You can’t always worry about what people will think when you want to try new things, and its liberating to do so. We knew it might confuse a few people, but that was also part of the appeal.

Q: FLA has been set up more than 30 years ago now. I think you accomplished a lot of great things, which make me say you no longer have anything to prove, but what are the focuses and main goals when working on an album and how do you see the future?

Rhys: It’s never really mapped out too much. We just start and see where it leads. Maybe deeper into an album we might go ‘we need another fast one’, but that’s as far as that goes. We just do it and organize the music after. Again, after this long you are never sure. We don’t worry about it too much. Like you said there isn’t much left to prove other than, ‘we can still do this’….

Side-Line also covered Front Line Assembly’s ‘The Industrial Strength’.

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: EBM, dark-electro.

Background/Info: Frontline Assembly have been active for more than 30 years now. They don’t exactly release a new album every single year and got also involved with ‘special’ releases like the “WarMesh”-album released last year on ArtOffact Records and, which was a kind of soundtrack. They last year also released the EP “Eye On You” announcing this new studio work.

Content: FLA no longer has anything to prove. Even if the fans are sometimes desperately waiting for a new “Caustic Grip” or “Hard Wired”, Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber are simply moving on, accomplishing new studio albums from time to time. We already discovered Robert Görl (DAF) who was featured on the last EP, but the album also features Nick Holmes (Paradise Lost), Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks, Ministry, Cocksure) and Jimmy Urine (Mindless Self Indulgence) who sings on a surprising cover version of Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus”.

It all resulted in a pretty diversified work, which also features ‘typical’ FLA-song; sophisticated song structures recovered with dark atmospheres and the spooky vocals of Bill Leeb.

+ + + : The best part of the work remains the more ‘traditional’ FLA songs, which bring all the familiar sound elements together. Great bass lines, obscure electronic atmospheres, complex, but danceable rhythms and Bill’s great timbre of voice. The sound production is absolutely impressive confirming the experience of this band. “Eye On You” featuring Robert Görl remains a great collaboration. My favorite song is the easy recognizable “Mesmerized”, but I also have to mention the more into bombast driven “Living A Lie”.

– – – : Speaking for myself I expected a bit more out of the other featuring. The songs together with Nick Holmes and Chris Connelly bring some diversity, but aren’t exactly the most convincing cuts. I’m missing a climax. I also have to say a word about the cover version of Falco. The adaptation itself is pretty cool, but not exactly what you can expect from FLA so in the end I can say this song took me by surprise…

Conclusion: When you realize the impressive discography of this band, “Wake Up The Coma” is probably not the production that will enter into history although it reveals a few brilliant songs. I’m afraid a few great songs don’t make a Spring, but in the end there only is one Frontline Assembly!

Best songs: “Mesmerized”, “Living A Lie”, “Eye On You”, “Arbeit”, “Tilt”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.mindphaser.com / www.facebook.com/frontlineassembly

Label: www.metropolis-records.com / www.facebook.com/MetropolisRecords

About Front Line Assembly

Front Line Assembly is the Vancouver, Canada industrial project founded by Bill Leeb in 1986 after he left Skinny Puppy; Rhys Fulber later became his key collaborator, and the line-up has rotated through additional members including Michael Balch and Chris Peterson over the decades. Metropolis Records confirmed “Wake Up The Coma” for release on 8 February 2019, with a tracklist of twelve songs and the guest contributions covered in the review: Robert Görl of DAF, Nick Holmes of Paradise Lost, Chris Connelly and Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence on a cover of Falco’s “Amadeus”. Side-Line had already covered the band’s video for that cover, released the previous month.

Front Line Assembly’s catalogue includes “Tactical Neural Implant” and “Hard Wired”, both regarded among the project’s commercially strongest records, and the band returned in 2020 with ‘Mechanical Soul’.

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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Born in New York (USA), but now based in Berlin (Germany) for years Adam Mitchell aka Adam X is a renowned and talented producer/DJ/label owner. He’s one of those visionary artists who in my eyes always has symbolized the electronic sound of tomorrow. His music always has been a mix between EBM and techno, which sometimes has been defined as industrial-techno. Adam is involved in multiple projects like Traversable Wormhole, ADMX-71, Mass-X-Odus ao, but Adam X remains the main project. Late 2018 Adam-X released his sixth full length album “Recon Mission” on his own label Sonic Groove. The work is a new masterpiece and one of the best electro productions from 2018; a good reason for an interview.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You’ve released tons of EP’s, but “Recon Mission” also is your seventh full length album as Adam X. What means this new work in your personal discography and what inspired you (sound-wise) to compose this album?

Adam: The album inspiration comes from a few unrelated & related topics. The album titled track “Recon Mission” is about a reconnaissance mission against government authorities. The official video on Youtube goes deeper into the topic and what the lyrics are about. Several songs on the album are inspired by the mysteries of planet Earth, such as hypothetical theories about Earth Base One, the Bimini Wall and the Bermuda Triangle. I’ve gotten heavily into collecting the 50’s-70’s sci-fiction/mythological illustrative work of Jack Kirby in the past 1.5 years. I find his artwork & story scripts very inspiring. I’ve always been into the cerebral/out of worldly side of electronic music and his artwork provides a visual inspiration for such thoughts. These are the main inspirations on the album.

Q: The album has been introduced as a dystopic vision featuring ‘conjuring visions of New York City’s past’ and ‘CIA shadow government experiments’. What fascinates you in these dark themes and what’s your perception of the current political situation in your homeland?

Adam: As a teenager growing up in NYC in the 80’s I was surrounded by a mass amount of urban decay. The city was a mess back then with several area’s throughout the city looking like Berlin after the Russians entered in 1945. On top of growing up in a very decay city, criminal activity was very high. Unfortunately I was deeply affected from this activity when my father was murdered in a gun robbery when I was 13 back in 1985. So to put it bluntly, NYC was very dystopic for me back then.

Somehow despite the dark, bleak times I managed to have a great, very rebellious adolescent life exploring my city and painting graffiti art on many subway trains thru out the city. Then some years later my brother and I began organizing illegal techno rave parties in abandon warehouses and other industrial locations. Those rebellious moments I had growing up will always have everlasting effect on my artistic vision.

The current political situation in the USA is a mess like always. I don’t have any trust in the American government no matter the political side. I feel neither party are for the people. Each party loves to blame one another, but nothing really ever changes despite who is in power. The amount of poor and homeless people in America is staggering and it’s on the rise for years now. The infrastructure is old and rotting in many places across the country. Unlike Europe we have a horrible antiquated train system. The inner cities have ghettos worse then most 3^rd world nations. Imagine small cities like Flint, Michigan having a poisoned water system for decades. Guns need to be controlled, but this seemingly will never happen. The amount of heinous crimes committed with guns is staggering. I am a strong advocate for gun control especially as my family is a victim of a gun murder. I’m tired of seeing mass murders every few weeks. I live in Germany 12 years and gun deaths are not so much an issue here. I won’t even get started into the current president’s handling of world affairs other then to say ‘not good’!

Q: Sound-wise “Recon Mission” remains totally vintage-like. Tell us a bit more about your way of working, the sound treatments and equipment you’re using?

Adam: Believe it or not my music is done all in software, my DAW is Ableton and I use a lot of synth plugins. My productions in my first 14 years of making music were strictly done with analog/hardware. So I have a very good ear in making virtual synths sounds like the original keyboards they are designed to emulate.

For sound production most of the songs are first tested before release when I DJ out at gigs. For this particular album I was able to test the final mastered versions in one of the major nightclubs here while the club was closed. This was crucial as I noticed a few flaws in sound that needed to be adjusted before sending out for production. With that being said I’m 101% happy with the finished product.

Q: You’re based in Berlin where you’re very active. What makes Berlin that attractive and special for artists and do you feel some impact from this artistic life and music trends on your work as musician/producer?

Adam: The nightlife here is amazing. So playing gigs or going out to event’s here is a constant source of inspiration. Berlin is also very communal with other artists and music industry people. So my meet-ups with many people in the business here is also always source for inspiration. Outside of the music industry I enjoy the pace of life here. It’s much more relaxed then the time I spend in NYC during the year.

Q: You’re still running Sonic Groove so I would like to know your personal criteria and eventually references when you’re signing new artists? And how do you see the music business evolving as label owner?

Adam: I’m normally releasing music from artists who I have a personal friendship with. I prefer this to releasing music from artists I have no personal connection with. It’s much nicer to run the label as a family affair.

The music business is constantly changing and being able to adapt to the changes is very important in the survival of running the label. At the moment vinyl sales in the industry are down for dance floor related music, but digital downloads and streaming are rising. The techno scene especially is completely saturated with music releases. There are over 400 new titles on vinyl a month in techno. It’s a limited buying market, but still a very important necessity for artists to get noticed by press and promoters in the scene.

It can be quite nerve wracking with vinyl sales when releasing music from lesser known artists. It’s not an issue when dealing with the core bigger artists on the label like Orphx, Rhys Fulber, Dasha Rush, Blush Response and myself.

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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Background/Info:

About Rhys Fulber

Rhys Fulber is a Canadian electronic musician and producer, born October 10, 1970, now based in Los Angeles. He is a longtime member of Front Line Assembly and Delerium, both alongside Bill Leeb, and also records as Noise Unit.

Fulber’s solo Sonic Groove releases began with the 12” “Realism” in 2017, followed by “Your Dystopia, My Utopia”, reviewed here, in 2018. He continued the series with “Ostalgia” in 2019 and “Brutal Nature” via FR Recordings in 2021.

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

Germany’s EBM pioneers In Strict Confidence recently released their “Mercy” EP taken from the all new album “Hate2love”. The band has now accounced more details about a double vinyl album “Hate2love & Mercy” which also includes the EP next to the album.

You can now order this very limited double vinyl edition right here.

Co-produced by Rhys Fulber (Frontline Assembly/Delerium/Fear Factory), one track features Peter Devin (yelworc) while Dirk Riegner (Peter Heppner) also collaborated with them. The artwork was handled by heilemania (who also worked for Lindemann / Rammstein and Kamelot).

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 June 6th via Sonic Groove is the new Rhys Fulber studio album “Your Dystopia, My Utopia”.

“Your Dystopia, My Utopia”, is the first album produced by Fulber for Sonic Groove and the follow up to his 12″ “Realism” released last year and available right here on vinyl. The new album consists of 9 tracks clearly aimed at the dance floor but definitely holds dark EBM elements.

Fulber has an extensive oeuvre; from his artistic collaborations with Bill Leeb (known predominantly as Front Line Assembly, and also as Delerium, Noise Unit, Intermix, and many others) to his work as a producer for bands such as Youth Code, Paradise Lost, and Fear Factory. He also works under the name Conjure One, which is a cinematic solo project that features collaborations with vocalists such as Sinead O’Connor and Leigh Nash.

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 Christian Neubert) This news just arrived. Canadian keyboard player and programmer Jeremy Inkel is no more. He died January 23 due to complications arising from an asthma condition. He was only 34 years old. Best known for his involvement in the most recent albums by the veteran act Front Line Assembly, he was also the co-founder of Left Spine Down (LSD) and produced tracks for various other musicians.

Based in Vancouver, he was welcomed into Front Line Assembly in 2005, co-writing and producing the album “Artificial Soldier” that was released the following year. He also toured with the band and continued working with FLA on their ensuing albums “Improvised Electronic Device”, “Airmech” (a video game soundtrack) and “Echogenetic”.

Bill Leeb of Front Line Assembly has this to say of Jeremy : “I am truly shocked, heartbroken and saddened beyond belief. Jeremy’s animated larger than life personality will be truly missed. Everyone who met him walked away saying that he was one of the nicest people they had ever met. His creativity will also be sorely missed. He had a huge passion for for music, film and a love of performing. We had recently started creating ideas for a new FLA album, while he also participated on our upcoming ‘Airmech 2’ release, which we are dedicating to his memory. Rest easy….there will always be a place for you with us.”

Metropolis Records also released a statement: “We are stunned and saddened to learn of Jeremy’s sudden death. We wish to extend our deepest condolences to his family, bandmates and friends. His family requests that anyone wishing to make a gesture in his memory to please make a cash donation at your local food bank. They also request that we all please remember Jeremy for the kind, funny, soulful and talented person that he was.”

Below is a pictuure of Jeremy Inkel (centre) on the FLA tour bus with Bill Leeb (l) and Rhys Fulber (r).

For more on Front Line Assembly, see 50% off vinyl test pressings Front Line Assembly, Cevin Key, Die… 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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