Melbourne-based electropop / synthwave project Suburban Spell has released its latest EP, “Ceremony“, featuring two new original tracks and three remixes by Leæther Strip, Ant Trance and Ontic. The EP also includes a remix by Mark Tansley, guitarist of gothic bands Suspiria and Razorfade.

Note that the Bandcamp version includes a bonus track, “Bright Gold X” in a US mix.

Lyrically the title track critiques societal rituals and relationships, reflecting on the constraints of social contracts. “Fingers of Sin”, the second original track, delves into the lasting impact of early trauma.

About Suburban Spell

Suburban Spell is the solo project of Peter Endall, former keyboardist for 1980s Melbourne synthpop band Schizo Scherzo.

Schizo Scherzo, was active during Melbourne’s vibrant 80s music scene, performing alongside acts such as The Eurythmics, Pseudo Echo, Real Life, and Fergal Sharky.

Re-emerging on the music scene as Suburban Spell, Peter has discovered his niche in contemporary Australian electronica drawing inspiration from 70s and 80s synthpop and electronica.

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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Premiering now on Side-Line is the brand new Suburban Spell video for “When I Die”. “When I Die” is about euthanasia and the ability for oneself to choose to die with dignity. Peter Endall explains that “it’s a first person view of reaching the final stages of life and is what I think you would be thinking about when you have to make that decision.”

And he adds that lyrically “the track offers a mixture of pathos, humour, confusion and perhaps the fear and hope that your years of dedicated atheism is about to be tested (…) the song has a very dark theme, but I didn’t want it to be too turgid or dour, I wanted the music to be in contrast with this and lift the overall message to another place with a wry sense of humour. There is also reference to the life partner and recognition of the difficulties that they will have to face when presented with this scenario, hopefully this somber message is balanced with the decent pop song sensibilities.”

The video clip for this song was shot at an old Nun’s convent, apt for the song’s central theme. The Video was filmed and edited by Dingo Cross Films.

Suburban Spell is the project of the Melbourne, Australia-based artist Peter Endall who was the keyboardist for 1980s Melbourne synthpop band Schizo Scherzo. He recently took up songwriting again after a long hiatus. Influenced by 1970s and 80s synth pop and electronica, Suburban Spell is an instrumental project merging modern electronica through the lenses of Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre with edges of shoegaze guitar pop.

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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Peter Endall, keyboardist for 1980s Melbourne synthpop band Schizo Scherzo is back songwriting, producing and creating music after a long hiatus. Out now is a new single for the dark electronic project, Suburban Spell. The track is taken from the forthcoming album, “Incompatible”. “Being Incompatible” is a dark synthpop song about a relationship that has been built on mutual concessions and arriving at a point where one realizes a choice has to be made about the future.

Says Suburban Spell founder, Peter Endall, “I wanted to make a statement that continual compromising in a relationship can also have detrimental effects that can have far reaching consequences that can shape your entire personality, sometimes not always for the better.”

The track was written, recorded, mixed by Suburban Spell and mastered by Magpie Mastering (UK, Bristol). The video for the single was shot by Rick Plumridge and Paul Puccio from Dingo Cross films, editing by Dingo Cross 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 Veronica) The New Zealand dark pop outfit Robots In Love today share their latest EP, “Gossip in Your Head: Remixed”. The EP is the follow-up to the title-track’s original single release in September. “Gossip in Your Head: Remixes” is out now on Bandcamp, Spotify, and all the usual digital music outlets.

The new remix EP is accompanied by a video for the remix of the title track by Auckland’s dark electro-industrial dance act The Mercy Cage. Premiering exclusively on Side-Line, the video is a DIY effort, created at home by Robots In Love’s Elenor Rayner, who says: “For some reason, that remix makes me feel really joyful, so the video is a bit of fun.”

You can watch the video below.

On the “Gossip in Your Head: Remixed” EP you’ll find four different workings of the song, featuring The Mercy Cage and UK electronic artist Max Rael of Decommissioned Forests and History of Guns. Also included are Elenor’s own ‘Permanent Rain’ mix, and the song’s original recording, first written by Luke Anlezark and Graeme Jack of fellow Ōtepoti (Sydney) band, The Sound Key.

Elenor: “I love the variety of the tracks; each one highlights a different aspect of the song. The Mercy Cage remix is so dancey and bursting with energy. It makes me feel really happy whenever I hear it. The Permanent Rain version is more of a classic goth mix. Max Rael’s remix has a touch of trance in it, which is very seductive; and The Sound Key show their style of grunge rock indie.”

Josh Wood from The Mercy Cage says: “Gossip in Your Head is a killer slice of synthpop, and it was lots of fun to pull apart and piece back together.”

Max Rael adds: “Robots in Love always have such exquisite electronic textures in their music, and harmonies to die for. It was a real thrill to get the chance to remix their new dark pop single ‘Gossip in Your Head’. I wanted to push the Lynchian dream vs nightmare quality in the first half into the middle section, and then pump the energy and take it in a different direction for the rest.”

About Robots In Love

Led by Australian artist Elenor Rayner, Robots In Love became Elenor’s focal project in 2017, following her move from Melbourne, Australia to Dunedin, New Zealand. Elenor is currently joined in Robots In Love by drummer, multi-instrumentalist and electronic artist Alex Burchell; and bassist Tony Lumsden.

Elenor began playing the Australian pub circuit as a bassist during the 1980s when she was just 14, before switching to producing music on an Atari computer, “which opened up a universe of creating sounds and moulding them into rhythms and melodies until they evoke the exact feeling I need.” She has gone on to release hundreds of songs, appearing on more than 50 CD releases, and has played literally thousands of shows around the world with multiple bands and projects, including Soulscraper (1991-1994), Sobriquet alias Sobriquet Nation (1998-2016), Snog (1999-present), and The Crystalline Effect (2002-2014), among others.

After moving from Melbourne, Australia circa 2015 to Ōtepoti (Dunedin), New Zealand, Elenor ultimately adopted the Robots In Love moniker in 2017.

Elenor recently contributed to the gargantuan Goths For Sanctuaries fundraiser project for animal refuges, and is a prolific remix artist, producing Robots In Love mixes for IKON (Australia), JA/VI (Sweden), Voidant (UK/US), Suburban Spell (Australia), Justine Ó Gadhra-Sharp (New Zealand) and several others in the last eighteen months alone.

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 solo synthwave project of Peter Endall, Suburban Spell presents the new single and video “Bright Gold Cross”, a teaser for the forthcoming “Falling Down” EP. The track’s title directly alludes to the long-lasting repercussions of poor decisions and succumbing to guilty pleasures. The accompanying video was crafted by Melbourne’s Dingo Cross Films, with production and direction by Paul Puccio and Cassie Dart.

From April 25, “Bright Gold Cross” will be accessible on various esteemed digital platforms, such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Bandcamp. However, the video is already available for viewing today on Side-Line.

Suburban Spell, Peter Endall’s solo venture, melds numerous 80s synth-pop influences with a touch of noisy grind. Drawing inspiration from new wave’s golden era and 70s-80s electronica, his music is undeniably influenced by artists like Ultravox, OMD, Visage, Jean-Michel Jarre, The Cars, Gary Numan, and New Order.

Peter Endall explains that “the song ‘Bright Gold Cross’ symbolises absolution within a Christian religious context and how it can be employed to erase years of abhorrent behaviour. Absolution is a process that forgives mortal sins and allows one to perish in a ‘state of grace’, eventually gaining entry to heaven. This essentially serves as a ‘get out of jail free card’ for those inclined to exploit it.” He adds, “The peculiar circumstances of my childhood upbringing and the religious cult in which I was raised during those years have had a somewhat quixotic effect on me and Suburban Spell. Exposed to a belief system that ultimately proved to be flawed and maintained an inconsistent set of values throughout my formative childhood years, these challenges consistently resurface when creating music for the Suburban Spell project.”

Peter’s former band, Schizo Scherzo, was active during Melbourne’s vibrant 80s music scene, performing alongside acts such as The Eurythmics, Pseudo Echo, Real Life, and Fergal Sharky. Re-emerging on the music scene as Suburban Spell, Peter has discovered his niche in contemporary Australian electronica.

The “Falling Down” EP is set for release on June 23.

The “Falling Down” EP follows one year after his “Split Levels – Remixes” EP, a collection of reimagined tracks from his “Split Levels” album. The remixes feature goth-rock/post-punk legend William Faith (Christian Death, Mephisto Walz, Shadow Project, Faith & The Muse, The Bellwether Syndicate), as well as New Zealand’s Robots In Love, Australia’s Ontic, Pittsburgh’s Tragic Impulse, and Italian artist Kurs.

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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