Finnish industrial pioneer, And Then You Die, continues the digitization of its early catalog, announcing the remastered release of the “Geisteskrank” EP via Skithund Records on digital channels on May 3, 2024, and this over 30 years after its originally sold-out cassette release. The EP was originally released as a MC-cassette in 1993 via Medical Records and offers dark and experimental industrial music.

And Then You Die was formed all the way back in 1990 and were one of the first electro/industrial acts in Finland. The roots of the project’s sound lie in dark music with such artists as Einstürzende Neubaten, Swans, Godflesh and Scorn. The group paints their soundscapes with loops and sequences, heavy bass, guitars, analog synthesizers and sometimes even real drums.

Over the years the And Then You Die has released limited edition VHS singles, vinyl’s and cd’s plus a wide bunch of digital releases. With minimal promotion they have gained a certain cult status and been referred as one the best kept secrets in Finland. And Then You Die released their latest album “Electric Uterus” on May 2021.

Here’s the remastered version of “Geisteskrank”.

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: Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Italian bass player and multi-instrumentalist Massimo Pupillo has released massive things, collaborations and productions in his career. He got involved with Zu and collaborated with an endless number of famous artists like  Mike Patton (Faith No More), Jim O’ Rourke (Sonic Youth), Guy Picciotto & Joe Lally (Fugazi), FM Einheit ( Einstürzende Neubauten), Damo Suzuki (CAN), David Tibet (Current 93), Mick Harris (Scorn), Gordon Sharp (This Mortal Coil & Cindytalk) etc etc.

Content: This work sounds in the true line of Glacial Movements; a sonic exploration of deeply Ambient and Cinematic fields. The work is fully evasive although featuring a few darker, mysterious, parts -which are mainly emerging at the end of the work. The wafting side of the work has been accentuated by the effect of voices. 

+ + + : This work has a true visual strength which is totally fitting with the great artwork of the album featuring landscapes and pictures of tribes. It feels like traveling through isolated spaces mixing mainly relaxing passages together with a few obscure parts.

– – – : The main point with this kind of productions is that there’s no visual content and that’s what I’m a bit missing; a wider conceptual approach mixing music together with other artistic creation like film, photography, ballet etc..

Conclusion: An album inviting the listener to dream away and visit other dimensions and cultures.

Best songs: “Ulda”, “Beaivi”, “Sami”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.zuism.net/massimo /  www.facebook.com/massimozu

Label: www.glacialmovements.com / www.facebook.com/glacialmovements

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: Soundscape, Experimental, Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Mick Harris (ex-Napalm Death, scorn ao) set up Lull in 1990. He didn’t release new Lull stuff for a while but the lockdown brought him back to his love for Soundscapes creating this new work featuring four cuts.

Content: The Soundscape format is obviously noticeable from the very first seconds of the work. Dark, buzzing, sound corridors create an obscure sensation which is accentuated by a few, extra, noises.

+ + + : Both debut cuts are absolute freaky and definitely what you might expect from this kind of music. It’s a sonic metaphor to quicksand; it all happens progressively, getting you deeper away into a dark underground. The ominous atmosphere accentuates the state of fear and that’s precisely what lovers of this music genre expect.

– – – : Both last songs are more predictable and without a true climax.

Conclusion: The positive side to Covid-19 is that several artists -like Mick Harris, went back to somewhat forgotten projects.

Best songs: “Range”, “Expanse”.

Rate: 7½.

Label: www.coldspring.co.uk / www.facebook.com/coldspringhq

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

Cold Spring is to release “That Space Somewhere”, the first new album in 14 years from Lull – the dark ambient project of Mick Harris (Scorn, Fret, ex-Napalm Death). The 4-track release is the follow-up to 2008’s “Like a Slow River” and will be officially out on December 2nd.

Mick Harris began the project Lull in 1990, when he acquired a sampler, a reverb pedal and a 4-track recorder. After leaving the grindcore band Napalm Death, Harris wanted to create dark ambient music.

Here’s a video teaser for the new 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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Out today via Re:Mission Entertainment is the second album, “—-X—-“, in an ongoing collaboration between Dead Voices on Air and Snowbeasts. For this release the two bands took a slightly different approach during the recording. Most of the songs were passed back and forth via file transfer until the songs felt finished. “This resulted in a more composed, or thematic feel to the album, which features more lyrical content”, so the label emphasizes.

The release is out as a download and as a limited CD digipak (100 copies) via Bandcamp (where you can order it. A special T-shirt is also available for ordering.

Spybey’s lyrical content continues to be preoccupied by the political challenges of our time, believing that we have entered a new era of autocracy. He believes that we are in danger of being seduced by the incessant barrage of lies, half-truths, trolling and allegations. That we are being wilfully misled by petty tyrants, upper class twits, the filthy rich, pathological liars and narcissists.

The duo says: “We are oppressed through the weaponisation of fear, in a vain attempt to obscure the political and strategic ineptness of our politicians. The enemy is anyone who dares to think or act differently, or who challenges the kind of beliefs that have plagued mankind: hatred of others, hatred of minorities, hatred of those who seek to instil hope and compassion into our societies.”

Spybey specifies even further: “I’m 60 and I’m still pissed off. Perhaps more pissed off than ever. I confess I find it ever so hard to believe that with all of the advances that humans have made during my lifetime, all of the wonderful things we have achieved, that our countries (the USA and the UK) have ended up electing, being led and represented by people like Trump and Johnson. I can’t believe that anyone could be stupid enough to believe that the world is a safer and better place because of their contribution, or lack of it to the maintenance of peace, stability and wellness. To all of you who say that musicians shouldn’t get involved in politics, I have this to say. I make music because I am able to do it. It’s my right to create and by doing so I am afforded a voice and a platform. It’s one of the many privileges of living in a ‘free society,’ (whatever that means). I make music because I want to and if I didn’t think that by doing so that I couldn’t reach out to people and to respectfully challenge the status quo, in an attempt to make some kind of meaningful contribution to society, I’d quit tomorrow, pack up and go away. For Trump and Johnson, you can easily add another dozen or so ‘world’ leaders names to the list by the way. Politicians are not all the same, and if you think that, then I’d like to respectfully suggest that you might want to do something about it. We deserve better. So yeah, when I started to write lyrics for this record, I really couldn’t avoid mining some of these feelings and I’m kind of unapologetic about it. I don’t like to offend people but enough is enough folks, we deserve better.”

Simon Paul, a well known graphic artist from Toronto, Canada provided the artwork, which plays on a number of themes from the album. The CD was mastered by another member of the Dead Voices on Air family, Anatoly Tokee Grinberg from Moscow.

Here’s the album itself.

About Snowbeasts

Snowbeasts is the duo of Robert Galbraith and Elizabeth Virosa. The project was formed in 2014 in Providence RI after a series of heavy snowstorms. Earlier releases were cinematic modular landscapes and droning dark ambient while later tracks can be more beat oriented.

Snowbeasts has numerous releases scattered across their own Component Recordings and Paris’s MTronic. They have also recently completed a trio of albums with beat oriented noise artist, Solypsis including two for Ohm Resistance.

Along with Snowbeasts, Virosa and Galbraith produce techno under the name Obscure Formats and electronic dance as Pattern Behavior.

About Dead Voices on Air

Spybey started his career in the North-East of England with Zoviet France in the late eighties before moving to Vancouver. It was here that Dead Voices On Air were formed. Spybey also worked under the name Propeller and was an original member of Download, who included members of Skinny Puppy. Spybey was the voice of their 1996 release, “The Eyes of Stanley Pain”.

After leaving Download he started a series of collaborations, appearing on over 50 albums in a five-year period. Perhaps his most significant collaboration was being asked to be part of CAN guitarist Michael Karoli’s band Sofortkontakt! and appearing at the CAN 30th anniversary shows in 1999. Spybey was a close friend of Michael Karoli prior to his death in 2001 and had toured with him as part of legendary CAN vocalist Damo Suzuki’s Network in 1998 in North America, appearing in the German TV film by Peter Braatz, “On the Air”.

Spybey has recorded, toured and played live with numerous collaborators including Faust, Michael Rother (Neu!) and Dieter Moebius (Cluster), members of The Legendary Pink Dots, Mick Harris (Scorn, Painkiller), Jarboe (Swans), Simon Fisher-Turner, Richard Sanderson, James Plotkin (Flux, Old, Scorn), Robert Hampson (Loop/Main), Jochen Arbeit (Einzturzende Neubaten), Darryl Neudorf and Sugarpill (Abintra), Not Breathing, Pigface and Martin Atkins.

He has worked with a number of record companies, including Kranky, Nettwerk, Invisible, Cold Spring, U.M.P and Soleilmoon. Spybey was part of the band Beehatch with the late Phil Western of Download, who released three albums and toured Europe. In 2004 he formed Reformed Faction, a duo with founding member of Zoviet France and Rapoon mainstay Robin Storey. The band have released a number of albums and have played live in both Europe and North America. He now resides in his native Yorkshire, in the UK.

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 UK label Cold Spring has an interesting releasing coming up on November 26th, namely a vinyl release of “Moments” by Lull aka Mick Harris (Scorn, Fret, ex-Napalm Death). Originally released as a 99-track continuous CD in 1998 by Relapse, it is now presented on vinyl for the very first time in a 2xLP format pressed on 180gm brown (500 copies) and black (250 copies) vinyl and housed in a textured gatefold sleeve. It has also been expanded to 100 cuts with bonus material from the original recording sessions.

Harris had begun Lull in 1990 after leaving the grindcore act Napalm Death. Acquiring a sampler, a 4-track recorder and a reverb pedal, he set about creating dark ambient music and released five albums and several EPs prior to “Moments”.

Here’s the promo video for the release.

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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After working together on “You are Safe Here” (taken from “Burial 10”, released in February 2020) ESA once again comes together with Caitlin Stokes from Corlyx in the form of quite a powerful industrial anthem: “Eat their Young” as part of the “Eat their Young/The Scorn” EP.

The track was written and recorded in March, “after observing how differently the current challenges were affecting different classes of people” says J Blacker. “It felt obvious that some sort of tidal wave was going to hit, that has ended up happening in lots of guises since earlier this year and think we all can all logically predict it will likely appear again in the near future. Without delving into personal and emotional politics too much. I struggle with the notion of greed and general unfairness. There is a strange sense of superiority that seems to accompany money, whether earned or inherited and that pedestal has always confused and frustrated me. It seems to be partnered with a distinct lack of empathy and general entitlement that for me has little place in a fair and modern society.”

Here’s the video.

J Blacker also indicates that for the video itself it was decided to tone down any sort of nod to rioting and group protest in favour of ‘the broken man’ acting as a metaphor for the disenfranchised. Equally for the ‘insatiably hungry consumer ‘acting as a metaphor for the rich and upper class. “Caitlin did a great job of acting that part as I hope you’ll agree.”

You can stream/download the “Eat their Young/The Scorn” EP (out now on Negative Gain) right 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!

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Genre/Influences: Dark-ambient.

Background/Info: DeepDark (Dmitry Vologdin) and Paranoia Inducta (Anthony ‘Armageddon Destroyer’)both have already released several split releases with other artists and are now releasing their first split-album together.

Content: Each project has 4 featured cuts. DeepDark takes off with an overwhelming, powerful dark-ambient composition. Deep, vibrating sound waves and resonating percussion have been mixed with field recordings and humming voices. There also is a cut with haunting piano-like playing.

Paranoia Inducta moves on, in the beginning less overpowering, but quite progressively the tracks became heavier and joining certain sonic climax.

+ + + : I’m not especially a huge fan of split releases, but “Mind Games” reveals a perfect twist between two inspired artists. I was deeply impressed by the monstrous sound treatments in both first tracks of DeepDark while Paranoia Inducta revealed a similar power in both last cuts. The tracks are progressively built up, reaching a devastating climax with a strong visual appeal. Notice by the way the CD is limited to 149 copies and is available in a digi-sleeve format..

– – – : I don’t see real minus points here; both debut tracks from Paranoia Inducta feel like a warm-up, but quite progressively this project also reaches a total apotheosis.  

Conclusion: “Mind Games” is an interesting album, which will let you (re)discover two great projects in the dark-ambient music style.

Best songs: DeepDark: “Goals Of The Mind”, “Scorn” + Paranoia Inducta: “Torsion”, “Divine Invasions”.

Rate: (8½).

Artists: www.facebook.com/myDeepDark / www.facebook.com/paranoiainducta

Label: www.nvagant.com / www.facebook.com/nvagant 

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

“This Charmless Man: How Morrissey’s Big Mouth Struck Again … And Again”, that’s the title of an Independent opinion piece by Nick Hasted, which wasn’t really well received by Morrissey to say the least. Not surprisingly as the article is describing the singer’s views as “ugly”.

A cheap attack indeed, but one which Morrissey didn’t appreciate as he went online to vent his disagreement in a blog post titled “Why The Independent hates independence”. In the blogpost Morrissey calls the article “an extreme Hate Piece” that is “so loaded with vile bile that it almost choked on its own endless capacity to be appalled”.

Morrissey is assuming that he has attracted The Independent‘s scorn for “saying some things that many people are actually thinking”. Morrissey also suggests a new slogan for the paper: ‘All The Shit That’s Fit To Print’ instead of ‘All the slogans fit to print’.

Loving Brexit?

Responding to suggestions of him “loving Brexit”, Morrissey says: “I believe I have mentioned Brexit twice in my entire life, and neither comment expressed love. I had explained how Brexit had been a strike for democracy because of the disgust that the political elite had shown towards the people who did not vote the way that they were warned to by media bullies.”

And he adds: “I believe England can look after itself. It does not need the EU to police its laws, its thought, its borders or its liberty. It does not take a genius to arrive at this viewpoint.”

Everybody is a racist

And there’s more. Morrissey also writes that some of the media always come up with the racist tag when they have no more answers to give: “When the print media are lost for a reply, they simply change the subject by naming their opponent as ‘racist’, which is the perfect ploy because most people are naturally appalled to be called racist, and they step back in silence, and the debate collapses unresolved. Use of the word often only ever comes from people who themselves are intolerant. (…) British mainstream media is now so politically correct that basic truth is actually impossible, and although it is obsessed with promoting social diversity they will not accept diverse opinion.”

Morrissey covers The Pretenders

In more music related news, Morrissey has covered The Pretenders‘ “Back On The Chain”. The cover version will be released this summer.

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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