Genre/Influences: Post-Punk, Electro-Wave.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl, Cassette.

Background/Info: Hailing from Grenoble (France) Lovataraxx strikes back with their first new album in five years. “Sophomore” is their first production released by German label Cold Transmission Music.

Content: This work is driven by good-old Electro-Wave and Post-Punk vibes. There’re multiple other influences like EBM and Dark-Wave running through the work. I even noticed a kind of Indie-Pop driven song in the end of the album. The female vocals are also cold and definitely 80s like. 

+ + + : Lovataraxx brings the 80s awake; nothing really new but accomplished with devotion and diversity. This is great Minimal-Electro music that might appeal for lovers of Paradox Obscur, Rue Oberkampf, Syzygyx, Hante and co. The songs sound simple but well-crafted. The female vocals are injecting this kind of raw, sterile, sensuality which has a magic touch. There’re several cool songs featured but I especially recommend “Harmony Boast”, “Tilda Vaast”, “Zerrissen” and “Marybone”.

– – – : Lovataraxx is a band with a great potential and I think they’re even able to do better. 

Conclusion: Lovataraxx is one of those bands symbolizing the renaissance of Electro/Minimal-Wave.

Best songs: “Zerrissen”, “Harmony Boast”, “Tilda Vaast”, “Marybone”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.facebook.com/lovataraxx

Label: www.coldtransmission.com / www.facebook.com/coldtransmissionmusic

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

Editors note: We completely distance ourselves from the Russian band Ploho on this line-up. They have have done nothing to express their support for the Ukrainian people or to condemn the cruel and unwanted invasion in Ukraine, on the contrary. The organisors of the festival have been made aware of our view on this.

The Greek darkwave and post-punk music lovers are in for a treat as the Death Disco Athens Open Air Festival 2023 announces its line-up. Set to take place at the Technopolis City of Athens on Saturday, July 22 and Sunday, July 23, the two-day event will showcase 14 bands across two stages.

The festival opens on Saturday, July 22, with a diverse roster of acts, including VNV Nation, The Soft Moon, Selofan, Rue Oberkampf, Ploho, Kalte Nacht, and Youth Valley. On Sunday, July 23, the event continues with headliners The Sisters of Mercy, followed by performances from She Past Away, ACTORS, Absolute Body Control, Mecano Un-Ltd., Mechanimal, and Data Fragments.

Located at 100 Piraeus Street, the Technopolis City of Athens is easily accessible by metro, trolley, and bus. To reach the venue, festival-goers can take the Blue Line (Line 3) to the Kerameikos station, trolley No. 21 from Omonoia station to Fotaerio Stop, or any of the following bus lines: No. 049, 815, 838, 914, Β18, and Γ18.

Tickets for the Death Disco Athens Open Air Festival 2023 are now available for pre-sale. For more information about the event and to purchase tickets, visit www.athens-technopolis.gr or call (+30) 213 0109300 or 213 0109324. Don’t miss out on this exciting opportunity to experience some of the best live music in the heart of Athens.

Here is the list of all bands playing:

• The Sisters Of Mercy
• VNV Nation (Do also check out this VNV Nation interview.)
• She Past Away
• The Soft Moon
• Actors
• Absolute Body Control
• Mecano Un.Ltd
• Selofan
• Ploho
• Rue Oberkampf
• Kalte Nacht
• Mechanimal
• Youth Valley
• Data Fragments

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: Cold-Wave, Minimal-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Rina Pavar is a female solo-project based in Leipzig (Germany). This album released by Cold Transmission Music features the self-released debut-album “Vivid Night” (2021) and the self-released EP “Things We Hide” (2022) as a little bonus. Notice by the way the vinyl edition only features the “Vivid Night”-album.

Content: Rina Pavar is one of those artists inspired by the icy, electronic, music from the 80s Cold-Wave movement which has been adapted into a deeply, minimal, composition. It sounds dark and even ominous with sterile, female, vocals on top.

+ + + : I never heard of this artist before but Rina Pavar is for sure a name I’ll keep in mind. I like the minimalism of the composition which doesn’t need that many sound layers to get a great, irresistible sound. It’s all about coldness and the mood matching with it; crystalline sound treatments and poignant retro-strings. I also have to say a word about the low, grunting, linear bass lines which are sometimes reminding me of early Mentallo & The Fixer. On top there’s this typical emotionless singing which is also very 80s driven. This project will appeal to lovers of Paradox Obscur, Rue Oberkampf and related artists.

– – – : I’ve been never that fond of songs ending with fade outs.

Conclusion: Rina Pavar took me by surprise unleashing a brilliant album of cold Electronics. This work sounds like an impressive debut.

Best songs: “The Things We Hide”, “Vivid Night”, “Nervous World”, “Lake Of Ice”, “Eternal You”, “Like Wolves”.

Rate: 8½.

Artist: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082538510549

Label: www.coldtransmission.com / www.facebook.com/coldtransmissionmusic

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: Minimal-Electro, Electro-Wave.

Format: Digital, Vinyl.

Background/Info: German formation Rue Oberkampf took me by surprise with their debut album “Christophe-Philippe” released in 2019 on Young And Cold Records. The work revealed a great mix of Minimal-Electro-Wave and EBM. “Negativraum” is their first production on Ant-Zen.

Content: “Negativraum” features two songs, opening with the title-track which is an Electro-Wave orientated piece driven by bleeping sequences, cold synths and Julia’s French spoken vocals. “Caméra – Doom Version” sounds more monotonous and is clearly a B-side cut.

+ + + : I like the good-old single format of this work; a cool title track and a B-side song! Rue Oberkampf confirms to have a nose for composing retro-minimal Electronics while the French vocals have something sexy on top. “Negativraum” is a cool song and debut single for the band on Ant-Zen.

– – – : The B-side song doesn’t exactly add any bonus to the single.

Conclusion: Rue Oberkampf is a cool addition to the Ant-Zen roster, but it also remains a band to watch out for.

Best songs: “Negativraum”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.facebook.com/RueOberkampf

Label: www.ant-zen.com / www.facebook.com/antzen.official

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

Despite of their French band name, Rue Oberkampf is a German formation set up in 2016. The trio started to release digital singles inspired by minimal electronics and composed with analogue gear. They next released the EP “Waveclash” (2018) on No Emb Blanc and the single “Sans Toi” (2019) on Circonstances Aggravantes. The debut album “Christophe-Philippe” was released by the end of 2019 on Young and Cold Records. It’s a truly masterpiece mixing minimal EBM together with electro-wave. I talked about the debut opus with the three band members. (Picture credits by KEYI Studio)

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: First of all there’s this intriguing band name, but also the title of the album and the nickname of your singer (Julia De Jouy), both inspired by the French naturalized German industrialist Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf. The idea for this name must have been during a trip in Paris, but what is it really all about and what do you know about the industrialist Oberkampf?

Julia: When I was a child, I used to go to Paris with my mom to visit my family. Being raised bilingual, I was disturbed by the name of this metro station called Oberkampf. The ‘Germanish’ word it sounded hard to me, but since I was in France, I didn’t understand the deeper meaning. When we were looking for a band name I remembered this weird name and street ‘Rue Oberkampf’. So it’s a combination of personal history, the German- French sounding name which is a bit provocative in German, but comes from a very admired and social personality in France: Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf.

He was a German cloth manufacturer who moved to France in the eighteenth century and created a very specific type of cloth, called toile de Jouy. My grandmother was a tailor and she used that material as well -so here’s my perfect pseudonym.

Q: Next there’s your music, but how did you get in touch with each other and what were the initial purposes and ideas about sound creation and music?

Damien: Each one of us had been playing around with analogue- or digital instruments for quite a while. We all knew each other since the early 2000s but we only had the idea to work on music together around 2016.

Michael: First, it was just all about having fun, but then we created this cover of Absolute Body Control’s “Melting Away“ (“Le Train”) and we definitely wanted to publish it. We posted a video and a few days later, Dirk Ivens shared it on his Facebook account – that was probably our point of no return…

Q: You music sounds inspired by vintage electronics composed with good-old analogue gear. How does your home studio(s) look like and is there a particular procedure in the writing of the songs? What’s the input of each member and is there someone taking the final decisions?

Damien: Our music definitely is inspired by vintage electronics and analogue gear! Most of the time, we’re working in my home studio in Passau. It’s not huge, but there’s place for my analogue gear like a Korg MS20, an Arp Odyssey, my Waldorf Pulse 2 and Micro Q, several analogue effects and my favorite one, a DSI Pro-2. The most important ‘gear’ are my two cats – the most analogue step sequencers we have.

Julia: We’re very lucky to have 3 places for music production. Like Damien said we have his home studio, a little home studio in Munich and the absolutely amazing Young and Cold Records studio in Augsburg with all those synths, a great mixing console and vocal booth. And of course, the lovely Young and Cold Team with Daniel Hallhuber and Marcel Leidenroth.

Michael: Usually, we start with a synth sequence. One of us, mostly Damien, creates a very first idea and then we iterate it together or one by one. We all work in the same amount on the whole production but sure, everyone has his/her ‘specialities’. Damien is very good in tweaking our synths’ knobs to the right sounds and creates awesome sequences. Julia is the queen of effect automation and drops…

Julia: …and Michael is great in building the right track structure and snappy drums.

Q: I think you were active as DJ’s before setting up Rue Oberkampf. What did you learn out of your DJ activities to compose your own music? And what’s your perception of DJ’s in the contemporary electro-underground scene?

Michael: That’s right, we’ve had several DJ projects by ourselves or also together -mostly in the dark underground. For my part, I also had my own Soul and Mod event in early 2000. As a DJ, I sure get my energy and motivation from the crowd on the dancefloor.

Julia: As a DJ in this scene (at least in southern Germany), you have to know your crowd very well and learn to predict which songs will work. You have to be able to do a right mix for all the lovers of those different sub-genres -at least if you’re interested in a full dancefloor. The less ‘gothy’ the crowd is, though, the less do people only dance to songs they know -that’s my experience.

Damien: When we’re producing new tracks, we automatically think about how ‘danceable’ a song is. Both because we love to dance and based on our experience as DJs.

Q: I noticed you’ve already (self)released several clips. What fascinates you in this universe? What’s the impact of clips today and what do you try to expose throughout the content?

Julia: For us, Rue Oberkampf always has been a multimodal experience. First of all, sure, there’s the music, but also the visuals/lights and the bass/percussion that goes through your whole body. I feel a very strong need to frame our tracks and songs into a visual body. By our light pyramid (live) and videos, we want to create a holistic experience of Rue Oberkampf. In addition, the video clips underline the meaning or general topic of the lyrics. We also get others’ view on our music by collaborating with other (video-)artists, which is really special for us (see “Es Versucht“, “Le Soir Bleu“ and “Tokyo“).

Michael: You also asked about the impact of the clips: even if the golden era of MTV is over, we realized that our tracks with video are spreading waaay better than those without. We hope that we’ll have enough time to create videos for everything we produced one day…

Q: Because of the Covid 19 pandemic all concerts and festivals have been cancelled/postponed, which I think must be really frustrating –and especially for a ‘new’ formation, when you’ve your first album out. What’s your feeling about the whole thing? What have you been doing during the lockdown and what brings the future?

Michael: On the one hand side, yes, it is quite frustrating, especially since this year would have been our first ‘international’ year. We were booked for shows in London, Leiria, Moscow and many others. You could say, that 2020 could have been ‘our year’! So sure, for our band live, this period is really depressing. But on the other side, there’s simply so many more important aspects now -health, having a great supporting network, a job etc.

Damien: We’re all pretty forward looking, so we try to make the best out of it and take some more time for working on new stuff, doing some interesting cooperations for which we would not have had the time in the ‘other’ 2020.

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: Minimal-electro, electro-wave, EBM.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Set up in 2016, “Christophe-Philippe” is the official debut album from the German trio Rue Oberkampf. The name of the band and the title of the album are clearly inspired by the French naturalized German industrialist Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf. The album features eight songs plus one remix.

Content: Rue Oberkamp is clearly inspired by Christophe-Philippe Oberkampf as their songs are all sung in French. But the main characteristic is the cold and retro-like electro style of the trio. It sounds pretty minimal and analogue-like awakening good-old 80s demons. But a few cuts are somewhat harder, revealing solid EBM lines. Julia De Jouy is the lead singer, but some songs are also featuring male vocals. Most of the songs are sung in French, but you’ll also discover passages sung in English and German.

The last song is a remix of “Agitation” (a song originally featured on the EP “Waveclash”) remixed by Björn Peng”.

+ + + : This debut is absolutely sensational! It’s not that in the style and influences, but in the achievement of the songs. There’s a perfect balance between the differences influences and a cool twist between pure minimal-like electro-wave songs and harder EBM-inspired cuts. The sound treatments are simply magic. I admit I’m a freak when it comes to analogue sound treatments, but this album reveals well-crafted melody lines and great bass lines. Last, but not least the female vocals are injecting this little touch of sensuality!

– – – : I regret the album only features 8 songs and the remix of “Agitatiuon” is not that convincing. 

Conclusion: “Christophe-Philippe” is a fully accomplished opus, but still an amazing debut album for a band I can only encourage to discover!

Best songs: “La Course”, “Glycine”, “Kalt”, “Es Versucht”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/RueOberkampf

Label: https://youngandcold.de /

www.facebook.com/youngandcoldrecords

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