London-based musician and composer Ian Williams has released his latest work, “Le Mystère Lucie (Dossier Secret)”, today, July 25. You can download it from Bandcamp.

This album serves as a companion piece to the soundtrack for the 2023 French documentary “Le Mystère Lucie (Des Espions Contre Le Nazisme)” / “Codename Lucy (Spies Against Nazism)”.

“Le Mystère Lucie (Dossier Secret)” features compositions originally intended for the documentary but not included in the final 52-minute TV broadcast, which was initially conceived as a 75-minute film.

The documentary, directed by Éric Michel and Jacques Matthey, explores the pivotal role of a Swiss-based spy network in the Allied victory during World War II. A spy network led by the Swiss-based Jewish communist Sándor Radó was instrumental in precipitating the victory of the Allies during the Second World War.

Radó received confidential strategic information from the highest levels of the Nazi state and in particular from the HQ of the German army via Rudolf Roessler, a deeply anti-Nazi Christian who he never actually met. Roessler, codenamed Lucie because he was based in Lucerne, received his information from German supporters of the resistance, aided by notable members of certain industrial circles.

Here’s “Le Mystère Lucie (Des Espions Contre Le Nazisme)” as available on Bandcamp.

About Ian Williams

Ian Williams began his music career in Edinburgh in the mid-1980s as a founder of Beautiful Pea Green Boat. He later collaborated with Lebanese choreographer Joumana Mourad and her contemporary dance company Ijad, blending Arabic, classical, techno, and ambient styles. Williams has also worked with singer Claudia Barton in the duo Gamine, producing two albums of dark, piano-led torch songs and lullabies.

His solo releases include:

• “The Dream Extortionists” (2019): A debut album of dark piano and electronics.
• “Les Blessures Invisibles” (2019): An eclectic electronic soundtrack for another documentary by Eric Michel.
• “All Becomes Desert” (2021): An album of minimalist ambiences and warm analogue soundscapes.
• “Slow-Motion Apocalypse” (2023*: Described by Electronic Sound magazine as “designed to sound as if it’s on the edge of orgasm or violence,” likened to works by Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and Jean-Michel Jarre.

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, Dark-Ambient.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Third album by British artist Monty Adkins as Skrika. The album brings us once again into a futuristic sci-fi exploration.

Content: The work sounds more Cinematic than its predecessors but especially the ‘astral’ sound dimension the work has been made of is rather noticeable. Astral bleeps are emerging from a dense, and obscure, sound universe.

+ + + : Monty Adkins doesn’t repeat himself and that’s rather a good thing -although his debut-album “Fifth Nature” remains a true masterpiece. This album is more into exploration and even reminds me of early Ambient pioneers like Tangerine Dream. This astral dimension has been transposed into a darker and tormenting dimension carried by low sound resonations. I salute the elaborated composition of this opus. Last but not least the artwork is totally fitting with the theme of the work.

– – – : I was not disappointed by this work but the magic of “Fifth Nature” is far away.

Conclusion: I still would recommend discovering previous albums of Skrika before listening to this new opus.

Best songs: “Solitude Chamber”, “Crynopticon”.

Rate: 7½ .

Artist: www.facebook.com/skrikasoundstudios

Label: www.cryochamberlabel.com /  www.facebook.com/CryoChamber

Listen to “Vyeltyra Vortex”:

About Skrika

Skrika is the cinematic dark-ambient project of British composer Monty Adkins, started in April 2020 during lockdown and shaped over the following year. The name is the Swedish word for “scream”, a nod to Edvard Munch’s painting and the sense of awe and unease Adkins wanted the project to convey. Debut album “Fifth Nature” was released on Cryo Chamber, the label that also issued “Vyeltyra Vortex”, Skrika’s third album, at the end of 2023.

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: Electro-Ambient, IDM, Experimental.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: “Symbiosis” is the second album of Brien Hindman which has been released five years after the debut work “Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis” (2018). For “Symbiosis” he collaborated with multiple guest artists like iVardensphere, Imminent, [law-rah], Eva|3, Meredith Yayanos and Tim Kniep.

Content: The work is diversified and that’s clearly because of the different guest artists injecting their own touch and influences to the work. From IDM to pure Experimental music and from Industrial & Tribal to deeply Ambient Electronics -even reminding me of Tangerine Dream, there’s a lot of experience here.

+ + + : I’m always a bit skeptical when artists are inviting an important list of contributors. But I have to admit it works well at this opus and especially the track composed together with Imminent and iVardensphere is simply brilliant; an absolute masterpiece. I also recommend the totally different and Tangerine Dream-like “Cognitions”. 

– – – : Some passages are hardly accessible for their explicit Experimental content which sounds as a bit like an antithesis to some of the other cuts.

Conclusion: Diversified Electronic work which will mainly catch the attention of Ambient and Industrial lovers.

Best songs: “Vestigial Structures”, “Cognitions”, “Cladogenesis”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/brienhindman

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

About Brien Hindman

Brien Hindman is a video artist and musician who has directed clips for Asche/Morgenstern, Synapscape, Monokrom, and Mandelbrot. With Philipp Münch he released an album as Colony Collapse Disorder. His solo debut, “Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis,” arrived via Ant-Zen in 2018, featuring 6 tracks plus a remix by Münch.

“Symbiosis,” reviewed here, followed via Ant-Zen on 8 November 2023, five years after the debut. The album features guest contributions from iVardensphere and Imminent on “Vestigial Structures,” The [law-rah] Collective on “Imposter Syndrome,” Eva|3 on “Bereavement,” Meredith Yayanos of The Parlour Trick on “Eosophobia,” and Tim Kniep of Synapscape on closing track “Primordial Soup.”

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: Ambient-Electro, Experimental, Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl, Cassette.

Background/Info: Greek sound engineer Bakis Sirros strikes back again with a new opus of his Parallel Worlds project. I noticed the debut album of the project was released twenty years ago.

Content: The sound universe of this artist remains driven and directly inspired by some of the greatest and most influential Ambient-Electro composers. This work reflects the magic of astral Electronic atmospheres. The music brings us back in time reminding us of the genius of Tangerine Dream and also Kraftwerk.

+ + + : The tracks have been meticulously built up featuring unique, analogue sound treatments. Parallel Worlds never stop improving its composition process which has been accentuated and getting more accessible through slow -and sometimes heavy, rhythms. The work will make you dream and carry you away to  an imaginary soundscape.

– – – : My single regret is that I would like to hear the songs with some vocal parts and/or effects or just a few spoken samplings.

Conclusion: Parallel Worlds stands for the true magic of Electronic music and comes as an ode to some of its pioneers.

Best songs: “Virtual Carrier”, “Machinism”, “Tension”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.parallel-worlds-music.com / www.facebook.com/parallelworldsmusic

Label: www.facebook.com/moatun7records

Listen to “Applied Maths”:

About Parallel Worlds

Parallel Worlds is the ambient-electro project of Greek sound engineer Bakis Sirros. Its debut album was released roughly twenty years before “Applied Maths”, the release reviewed here, on Móatún 7 Records.

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

German musician Mike Erkau started making music forty years ago now! He got involved with multiple projects like Trackologists, Cosmic Noise Crew, Stimulus Response and his own sonic alter-ego The_Empath. Earlier this year Mike Erkau stroke back with the first new studio-album in eight years. “Black Holes” also is the first album released by Audiophob. This opus is a genius composition which is mixing good-old Ambient-Electro together with a more contemporary IDM touch; a kind of retro-futuristic voyage which might appeal for fans of Tangerine Dream and clock dva. I talked with Mike about this The_Empath masterpiece which took some time to get accomplished. This is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best albums from the year.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: I noticed you started dealing with Electronic music in 1993. What did you keep in mind from your early experiments and compositions and what remains today from the musician you were at that time?

Mike: It is a great challenge to consistently follow your path, to find your own style and to remain true to yourself. Not to lose sight of the big picture. To keep your heart and your antennae open for new things. Curiosity.

To think outside the box. To be inspired across all genre boundaries. It’s like picking flowers away from the mainstream. Searching for sounds and musical structures that touch something somewhere deep inside yourself. Playing around, recreating, adapting, taking apart, picking apart, recombining to find out what it does to you, and what it might do to others. To share with soulmates and walk a path together. Taking perspectives, approaches into your own toolbox. Learning and getting better. That’s exciting.

I see music as the perfect catalyst for any emotion, both positive and negative. In doing so, the balance should always point in the positive direction, because that generates the necessary energy for my musical journey. It’s an ongoing process.

Q: I read your newest The_Empath album “Black Hole” took you a while to achieve. Can you give us more details about the concept and composition of the album? What did you try to express?

Mike: The original idea for “Black Hole” came up back in 2016. At various festivals I heard some musicians whose music appealed to me a lot, and I felt like trying out collaborations with them.

Originally, it was supposed to be 6 sound structures of 12 minutes each, the theme was already called “Black Hole”, in the astronomical sense. The desire was to find out how something like that could sound. So I had 12-minute sound collages sent to me, which I wanted to use as a basis for adapting, refining and expanding them. A perfect playground, so far, so good.

A couple of massive impacts in the private sphere and the events that overruled everything valid until then  in the years 2020 to 2022 threw me completely off track and pulled me emotionally into a deep black hole.

The rat race was stopped, no one could tell where it was going, unforeseeable consequences. Omnipresent powerlessness and ambivalence. Social, ethical and moral upheavals and everywhere only masked insecure, dissatisfied, annoyed and angry people.

The mourning for the many dead, while others stuffed their pockets. The emotional hell for empathic people. “Lost Your Cygnal”, “Ergosphere” and “Supermassiph” are the most impressive sound documents for it. Luckily I always had the Cosmic Noise Crew around me at that time, and we used the lockdowns to revise the concept for the album in the studio, to explore sounds and to bring everything down to a good denominator.
That helped me a lot to get out of that black hole and not lose sight of the stars. To think positively. Examples of this are “Utopia”, “Star Cradle”, “Hypernova” and “Southern Hemisphere”.

Q: The concept of black holes seems to be a perfect source of inspiration for Ambient music but how did you proceed to transpose the concept into sounds, noises and finally songs? And can you tell us a bit more about the equipment you used?

Mike: I experimented with my hardware synths for a while in the beginning, but somehow it all sounded too ‘earthly’, too limited. In 2016, I only had a very small home studio due to lack of space. So I started chopping up the source collages, looking for loops and micro events on a granular level and creating iterations of them with effects. At the time I was collecting freeware VST’s – and experimenting my way through over 1000 plugins. Along the way I browsed the internet for sound samples -there are quite a few sound documents that have been made available to the public by NASA. Among them are recordings of the Cassini probes and radio wave emissions from supermassive black holes, e.g. TON 618, a distant, bright quasar in the constellation of the hunting dogs, or the black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster. These cosmic sound machines can be experienced by human hearing through translation.

In 2019 I had begun to build a sound spaceship into my apartment, just as I had always wanted since 1993. Stuffed with hardware sound generators covering a spectrum of synthesis types as wide as possible. Just like in a spaceship cockpit.

In recent years, a lot of good hardware has come on the market, which is above all also affordable, as well as tons of ingenious VST plugins. I use these depending on my mood, controlled by a Novation KS5 as a master keyboard. As a mixer I use a Behringer X32Rack + S16, for the USB stuff a Swissonic 1916 with Sub Hub’s. It really wasn’t until 2020 that I had all the technical requirements in place to be able to use all these options at will. And that without hitting technical limits during every studio session.

The following hardware sound generators were used on the album, among others: Access Virus Indigo, Clavia Nordlead 2, Korg MS20 mini, Novation KS5, Arturia Microbrute + Microfreak, Waldorf Blofeld + Streichfett, Doepfer MS404, Roland GAIA, Behringer Neutron + Pro-1. VST plugins: Sonic Charge, GForce, NI Absynth(!) + Reaktor, Spire, Sylenth, Valhalla, Arturia V-Collection etc.

When I look back to 1993 – oh man. With my beloved Amiga500 with 1MB RAM and Clarity Sampler, Doepfer MS404, Novation Bass-Station Rack and Korg DW8000 with the most rickety keyboard I’ve ever experienced -without the possibilities of any audio warping and DAW controllers, let alone boundlessly huge sample libraries and tons of VST’s. You had to be inventive and willing to experiment and have fun doing it. At that time, you couldn’t buy creativity, and you still can’t.

Q: You invited a few guest artists to collaborate on three tracks from the album. I’m especially wondered how the track together with Heimstatt Yipotash happened as both of you are still involved in Trackologists? What made this collaboration different? And do you still have further plans with Trackologists?

Mike: At that time I was already on the road for a while as a VJ with the guys from Heimstatt Yipotash and we hatched the idea for a joint music project on a trip to a gig. When I started with “Black Hole”, the first Trackologists album  (cf. “No Surrender, No Retreat”) was just finished, and while rummaging through the huge collection of material, I stumbled across leftovers, field recordings and experiments, a few tracks played several times slower and so on. I then processed them further, added more layers to them and expanded them. I simply wanted to have these sounds on “Black Hole”. The special thing about our collaboration was and is that we first and foremost understand and complement each other super humanly and musically and always have a good time together.

YES, there are further plans with Trackologists. After the whole difficult time, which has more or less burdened everyone in all areas, we have resumed the common track. At the moment we are working on a come-back EP and structuring sketches and ideas for a second album, whose theme and name is already fixed. It will follow the first album musically and in terms of content, with more lyrics and a musically more homogeneous concept. This will hopefully be followed, desirably, by a series of gigs where we can really let off steam for ourselves and the audience.

Q: Next to music you also have a true passion and fascination for visual creation. You already did numerous live shows for other artists. Tell us a bit more about this other aspect of your art and do you’ve plans about any kind of imagery for the The_Empath album “Black Hole” (think about live shows, clips…)?

Mike: My fascination for visual design has resulted from the desire to see another media layer at live gigs, complementing and enriching the music, performance and light show. Not necessarily just a flickering background wallpaper, but matching the music, reacting to the music. So to speak an amplifier for the message and thus for the transported emotion.

I started doing that during my studies, for my own tracks and every now and then at parties as a VJ. From 2005 to 2015 I was often on the road with XABEC and learned and got to know immensely. The absolute highlight from this time is still for me the gig at the Maschinenfest 2008 in Krefeld, from which a DVD was created afterwards. I am very grateful for this time. It resulted in many contacts, and when I was up for a festival, I asked friends: ‘hey, can I make a video for you’ and was in the middle of it instead of just being there. Give and take. There were also facade projections for multimedia festivals and a trailer for Tzolk’in.

Working with these techniques is no less complex than creative work with audio, unfortunately at least as time-consuming and was/is often put on the back of the line for cost reasons. I still enjoy producing videos because I like the aesthetics and the interplay. At the moment, however, I’m concentrating more on my own projects.

For “Black Hole” there are no promising ideas for live shows and clips yet due to time constraints.
A dream would be to play the album in planetariums on 3D audio systems. If it comes so far I am then quite fast with the thing.

Q: You already mentioned Cosmic Noise Crew which is another project you’re involved with. I think it sounds  even more Ambient-driven than The_Empath but what makes the difference to you between all of your projects? And do you’ve specific references and/of ‘masters’ when it comes to this kind of music?

Mike: The difference between the projects is primarily the subject matter and secondarily the intensity of the emotions that are processed with it. For a long time I resisted opening up different pigeonholes and sorting my emotions into them. However, it became increasingly difficult for me to bring all this into one mould, and for the listeners it was certainly not easy to classify it. Mixing my musical preferences for aesthetic soothing sounds alternately with brute beats and noises, I was fortunately able to get away from this by splitting up into different projects. Cosmic Noise Crew clearly has Ambient, healing musical structures and sounds as its goal, where inspiration and the musical socialization of several players come into play and complement each other. With Trackologists it’s more forward, also sometimes straight in your face -full speed ahead. Here we act out, with a view to content and sound aesthetics, but without destroying. We put in the texts many clues between the lines for the people who are looking for it. To hold up the mirror, but not only to others, but starting with ourselves.

The_Empath I need as an island for myself, but on which everyone is welcome at any time, who is able to enrich this project with positive energy.

References and masters, a tricky question to finish. I can only answer for myself. I would say to be a reference deserves everything that combines the attributes honest, technically brilliant, creative, surprising, expanding the horizon, rousing and emotional. The list is endless, and it never stops growing. My master is the universe.

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: Ambient-Electro, IDM,Experimental.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Mike Erkau started dealing with Electronic music in 1993. Thirty years later he can look back at different productions and now strikes back with his first new studio album since 2015. “Black Hole” also is his debut album on Audiophob. As the title might indicate it’s a conceptual work which took many years for the artist to achieve.

Content: The_Empath invites the listener to a ‘retro-futuristic’ Electronic travel. The Ambient-Electro side is the guiding line through the album which has been mixed with contemporary IDM influences. More than once I got the sensation listening to the fictive mix of Tangerine Dream and Clock DVA. The work is however driven through an impressive astral dimension reinforcing the concept of the ‘black hole’. Heimstatt Yipotash, =mp45= and Mortaja contributed each to 1 track.

+ + + : This album sounds as an impressive come back. It took years for The_Empath to achieve this work but it sounds as a true accomplishment. The tracks are characterized by total sound intelligence; the mix of vintage sound treatments reinforcing the ‘astral’ dimension of the work and IDM parts. The work sounds complex and yet easily accessible. The addition of rhythms even bring some tracks into dance. The work reveals different great songs but you can’t get away from “Lost Your Cygnal” and “Hypernova”.Last but not least I also want to say a word about the artistic digipak (DVD format).

– – – : I don’t see true minus points here.

Conclusion: The concept of this album remains a true mystery which never stops fascinating scientists. This feeling has been perfectly adapted into great music. 

Best songs: “Lost Your Cygnal”, “Hypernova”, “Southern, Hemisphere”, “Utopia with =Mp45=,” “Ergosphere – with Mortaja”.

Rate: 9.

Artist: www.subroom.com / www.facebook.com/the.empath.music

Label: www.audiophob.de / www.facebook.com/audiophob

About The_Empath

The_Empath is a solo project of German musician Mike Erkau, who started making electronic music in 1993. He is also involved with the projects Trackologists, Cosmic Noise Crew and Stimulus Response, and worked as a VJ with XABEC between 2005 and 2015, including a performance at Maschinenfest 2008 in Krefeld.

“Black Hole” is The_Empath’s first new studio album in eight years. In a Side-Line interview, Erkau said the concept originated in 2016 from collaborations with musicians he met at festivals, and that the album’s darker material, including “Lost Your Cygnal” and “Ergosphere,” was shaped by personal events between 2020 and 2022. “Black Hole” is his debut release on Audiophob.

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: Ambient-Electro, IDM.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Czech artist Martin Pavlik strikes back with the seventh full length album of his sonic brainchild Frontier Guards. He got help from Patrick Lev (Cydonia 2056) while a female singer ‘Mia Bohemia’ sings on one track.

Content: “Colony” has been announced as a ‘new sound and concept’ and that’s true. You immediately notice a very explicit space-like sound atmosphere which is reminding me of Ambient pioneers but Frontier Guards also holds on its very own sound identity. So in the end you get a fascinating mix between Tangerine Dream and Clock DVA. Evasive passages have been driven by slow, sophisticated, rhythms while other passages are more into bombast and Industrial sound treatments featuring icy, menacing, elements. Both last tracks are remixes featuring one by Pyrroline.

+ + + : Seven is the final state of accomplishment in alchemy… and this is exactly how I would define the seventh album by Frontier Guards. I’ve always supported this project from the very first work and each new album revealed new discoveries. But I now get the feeling the project’s Pandora’s box has been really opened, creating new sonic paths while holding on to the intelligent Electronics from the past. A deeply, astral, sonic travel created by outstanding sound treatments and arrangements mixing bombast and refinement. The way the composition has been accomplished makes me think of an imaginary sonic surgery; meticulous and precise.

– – – : Both remixes are great but just a level below the original tracks; no reason to complaining!

Conclusion: Frontier Guards has already accomplished great works but “Colony” might be considered as one of the absolute references. It’s just a pity this project never got more recognition!

Best songs: “Moon Landing”, “Phobos”, “Space Race”, “Cydonia 2056”, “Artefact”.

Rate: 9.

Artist: www.frontierguards.eu / www.facebook.com/frontierguardscz

Label: www.label.aliens.sk / www.facebook.com/pages/Aliens-production-label/200028820052578

About Frontier Guards

Frontier Guards is the electronic project of Czech musician Martin Pavlik, known for a sound blending ambient-electro, IDM and industrial elements. Pavlik has released albums via Aliens Production, UTSC and Advoxya Records, returning to Aliens Production for his fifth album “#You#” in 2019 and continuing the partnership since. “Colony” is his seventh full-length under the Frontier Guards name, again released via Aliens Production, and features a collaboration with Patrick Lev on the track “Cydonia 2056” and a guest vocal from Mia Bohemia.

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 June 30th via the MIG music label is the S.A.W. album “Hydragate”.

S.A.W. consists of Johannes Schmölling (formerly of Tangerine Dream from 1979 – 1985), the Mannheim sound designer Kurt Ader (known for producing sounds for Dream Theater, Nightwish, Enigma, and many more), the Berlin-based sound mixer, producer, and composer Robert Waters (including collaborations with Loom, Johannes Schmölling, and Jerome Froese), as well as Andreas Merz, a Munich stalwart of synthesizer music and a member of Weltklang since 1973, who is also renowned for his visuals.

This is already the project’s second album offering a mixture of ambient, electronica and cinematic sound collages although it also holds rhythmic tracks, for example on “Distant Memories” and “Stop And Go”.

The album “Hydragate” was developed and recorded in various studios in Munich, Berlin, Mannheim and Hitzacker, using various samples, analog drum machines, modular and digital synthesizers.

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

Genre/Influences: Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl, Cassette.

Background/Info: Hailing from The Netherlands, Nortfalke has released several productions in a rather short lapse of time. “Seefonktjúenderee” was originally released in 2021 but later on released in different formats.

Content: The sound has been defined as ‘dungeon synth’ which makes sense but I personally experience as pure Cinematic music with a true dark edge. The 3 extended pieces create an abyssal sensation, the sound being a dark wink to Ambient pioneers like Vangelis and Tangerine Dream.

+ + + : I like the contrast between the evasive sensation of the production on one side and the darker touch on the other. There’s something malefic hiding behind this work which also accentuates the visual strength.

– – – : The tracks are maybe a little bit too extended.

Conclusion: Nortfalke brings the listener into a strange world of fantasy.

Best songs:  “Seefonktjúenderee”, “Yn it schymenryk”

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100040874921527

Label: www.facebook.com/dunkelheitprod

About Nortfalke

Nortfalke is a Dutch project working in dark cinematic and dungeon-synth-adjacent territory, drawing on ambient pioneers like Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. The project has released several productions in a short span of time on Dunkelheit Produktionen. “Seefonktjúenderee”, originally released in 2021, has since been reissued across digital, CD, vinyl and cassette formats.

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

Akustikkoppler  is the sonic symbiosis between two, legendary, German, Electronic, artists. Matthias Schuster (Das Institut, Bal Paré, Geisterfahrer, Im Namen Des Volkes ao) and Malte Steiner (Notstandskomitee, Das Kombinat ao) once met in Hamburg. Their common passion for electronic gear brought them to set up Akustikkoppler. They this year released the project’s fourth full length album “Alles Muβ Raus” which can be defined as styled, minimal, electronic music. The work has been released by Malte’s own label Block 4. I asked a few questions to both artists.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You guys have been involved with numerous projects so what incited you working together and set up Akustikkoppler? 

Malte: We met when I was living in Hamburg, I think it was in the Hörbar, a place for experimental music which I founded with some others in the early 90s and that still exists. Our common love for synthesizers and experience of studio production alone can result in long conversations but also our shared preference of weird music and art. And then of course the whole history of Matthias and his role in German New-Wave / Post-Punk…

Matthias: Yes we met at Hamburg Hörbar and later on I have heard about Maltes projects and art installations and was amazed about the videos and music from Das Kombinat, Notstandskomitee etc etc

Q: What makes the chemistry and complementarity between the both of you? What did you learn from each other and how do you work together?

Matthias: At that time I was a pure hardware freak, I had so much vintage synthesizers like Moog, ARP, PPG, KORG, ROLAND etc so I was absolute excited about Maltes software instruments like PureData etc. He even programmed his own software synth, and the sound was amazing!

Malte: When I am in Hamburg we meet in Matthias’ Geisterfahrer Studio, switch on everything and start to improvise. There are no rules or conversations about what we want to achieve. It is just experimenting and then hitting the record button at the right moment, usually one of us yells ‘hit record, it can’t get better’. All is recorded mixed on stereo without any overdub, and I take the files with me into the achieve, and compile albums out of the best tracks and remaster them.

Matthias: I always was interested in making ‘realtime’ music I practiced in the past with Jürgen Weiss, my Geisterfahrer drummer so it was obvious to do that together and let surprise by ourselves and the machines who played us and we played them too.

Q: I noticed your new album “Alles Muβ Raus” features songs that were originally written between 2008 and 2012. That was right at the beginning of the project so why didn’t you release the songs earlier and how was it to work on ‘older’ stuff?

Matthias: Yes, there is no hurry. Malte moved to Denmark, so we only meet sometimes in a year to do one or more sessions and our music is timeless and follows no trends etc…

Malte: Since we both are busy with gazillion other projects, it can takes a while to compile and agree upon an album, years sometimes, and I think we’re living the “Theory Of Obscurity” by The Residents, we often forget the tracks and rediscover them. That and the fact that the vinyl required a year in the pressing plant lead to the perceived delays, but we are not in a hurry anyway. Everyone including the big guys are pressing records, in several editions at once, therefore the smaller labels are put on hold when a Major drops an order for 100.000 records. Anyway, “Alles Muß Raus” is our fourth album, plus there was a 7”.

Q: Tell us a bit more about “Alles Muβ Raus”? What is the work all about and what did you try to express & achieve sound-wise?

Matthias: There’s no concept, but it’s like a concept album I think… a concept album by random.

Malte: I still believe in the album as a concept and art piece and when I suggest a selection of tracks to Matthias, they have to form a journey, a development from start to end. I have access in our archives to material from many years, back to around 2004 when we started to work together so the meaning and overall vibe comes late in the process and not when we record the tracks. For instance the tape “Inspektor” which we released on the French label Serendip Lab I discovered that some tracks formed a Soundtrack to a crime movie in my mind, a very cheesy one, probably from 60s Germany.

Q: Akustikkoppler has this typical vintage sound DNA, which brings us back to the magic of analogue equipment. What’s your perception about the evolution of electronic equipment and the way of composing; from analogue to digital to the cheap software synths and -programs of today?

Matthias: When I started in the early 70s there was no Midi etc only CV/gate which I hated because of the different systems like 1V octave, or Hertz volt etc. Bands like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, etc… ruled over Electronic music and of course Stockhausen, Pierre Henry, etc

After years of struggling with equipment it was so great to have the first digital machines like PPG Wave, DX7, Atari Computers… Today is best with the mix with software, computers (Apple now) and vintage analogue.

Malte: One reason might be that we both are vintage. It’s decades of music experience which comes together here, we each started long before Techno and even before Hip-Hop became something. I love the development of equipment, it’s amazing what is possible today, especially for a low price. Personally I don’t have any preference. I equally use analogue and digital synthesizers and all kind of computer software, partly stuff I develop on my own. I usually bring some device or software on my laptop to the sessions which Matthias don’t have -which is difficult- just to add another color.

It’s good to have again available all kinds of analogue, digital and modular synthesizers. One major development for me, apart from ‘Machine Learning’ which I use with projects like Notstandskomitee or Elektronengehirn since years, is the rise of resolution in the control-data and therefore improved expressivity.

Q: How do you see yourself as musicians/producers when it comes to self-criticism, perfectionism and eventually criteria and/or references you’re using? And what are the further plans?

Matthias: Of course we will stay in composing/recording process! But we are our own listeners, so the process of criteria is in our own hands, means we decide what will comes out and what not!

Malte: A speciality of Akustikkoppler is that we don’t allow ourselves to edit the tracks except a bit in the mastering process way later, which is complete decoupled from the composing process. Everything is recorded in one go played manually, only with the help of step sequencers and drum computers here and there. That saves us from the perfectionist loop which can destroy creativity, see for instance the latest remarks of Karl Bartos about the arrival of the computer at Kraftwerk’s studio. A story I heard often since the dawn of Midi composition, it is both a blessing and a curse. Something I struggle a bit with at Notstandskomitee, everything can be edited, rerecorded and processed endlessly, it’s difficult to decide to finish a track and let loose. With Akustikkoppler we don’t have that problem.

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

(Photo by Michaela Olexova) A year on from the release of his debut album, “Insubstantial As Ghosts”, the London based experimental electronic artist BArTc is to issue a seven track companion piece entitled “Ghosts” tomorrow.

His debut album, “Insubstantial As Ghosts”, plus much of his brand new companion piece “Ghosts” were recorded in early 2021 while the UK was in lockdown. ICR label owner Colin Potter, himself a well known figure in the experimental genre as a member of Nurse With Wound and sound engineer, heard some of Barton’s work and offered to release it, handpicking several of the tracks that subsequently appeared on the debut and mastering both that album and “Ghosts”.

“Ghosts” features two reworked tracks from the project’s debut (“Energy Field [long]” and “Malleus Incuss Tapes [inner ear mix]”), plus five further pieces recorded around the same period. “Ghosts” mixes layers of analogue synth, dark ambient drones and experimental work combined with field recordings.

The release was mastered by ICR owner and Nurse With Wound member Colin Potter and is available digitally via bandcamp and in a very limited Bartefact edition with handmade and numbered artwork from tomorrow on.

Here’s the video for “Energy Field [long]”.

About BArTc

BArTc is London based experimental electronic audio visual artist Jason Barton. BArTc is comprised of the symbols for three chemical elements – Boron (B), Argon (Ar) and Technetium (Tc) – while also giving nods to both Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and his own surname.

Initially inspired by instrumental electronic records in his father’s record collection by Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre, Barton gravitated towards underground industrial icons such as Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Chris & Cosey and Skinny Puppy while in his teens, before digging deeper into the work of early German electronicists such as Cluster, Musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, plus the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. He cites sound recordist (and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder) Chris Watson as a key influence.

Having collected synthesisers and made music (both alone and with friends) for several years, Barton subsequently started the project Less Than One to create accompanying videos that he began posting on Instagram. It has led to commissions from the likes of Daniel Avery and Alessandro Cortini.

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

Genre/Influences: Ambient-Electro, Cinematic.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: “Simulation” is a collaborative work between American artist Derrick Stembridge aka Drifting In Silence and Ukrainian born Pavlo Storonsky aka Tineidae.

Content: The work sounds as a true melting pot between the experienced Ambient project Drifting In Silence and the more IDM/Ambient approach of Tineidae. The result covers a wider range of Ambient-Electronic music with a wink to pioneers like Tangerine Dream. Space-driven tracks, which are sometimes moving to a darker edge, but often getting back to ‘pure’ Ambient work.

+ + + : The debut track is an impressive opener revealing a true complementarity between both artists. The overwhelming sound production reflects maturity, but still vintage sound elements typified by astral sound effects and sweeps. The rhythmic running through the opus makes it all more accessible. 

– – – : The debut cut is also my favorite one and I’m missing similar sound blasts on the rest of the work.

Conclusion: This is a successful collaboration between two artists with a somewhat different background although totally connected with each other through the magic of Ambient-Electronics.

Best songs: “Reality”, “Dark Matter”, “Simulation, Pt.2”.

Rate: 7.

Artists: www.facebook.com/driftinginsilence / www.facebook.com/71ne1dae

Label: https://labilerecords.com / www.facebook.com/labilerecords

About Drifting In Silence and Tineidae

Drifting In Silence is the ambient project of American artist Derrick Stembridge, formed in 2003. The 2021 album “False Awakening”, built around Carl Jung’s dream theories, was released on the Secret Press label.

Tineidae is the IDM/ambient project of Ukrainian-born, Warsaw-based artist Pavlo Storonsky, active since the 2012 debut album “Lights” on Tympanik Audio. It was followed by “Shadows” (2014), “Slowly Drown In Static” (2019) and the Cryo Chamber album “Exo” (2024). “Simulation” marked the two artists’ first collaborative album, released via Labile Records.

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

I already interviewed BySenses four years ago right after the release of the third album “People”. This Belgian solo-project driven by Didier Dewachtere took me by surprise dealing with an intelligent Electro-Ambient style which is clearly inspired by the ‘Berliner School’. The artist this year self-released his fifth opus “MonoCHROOM” on which he confirmed to have a talent for sophisticated Ambient music. This is an album appealing for fans of Tangerine Dream but more than simply an emulation BySenses is a project with an own approach and a fascinating sound.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Tell us a bit more about your musical background and roots? How did you finally come to set up BySenses? 

Didier:As a little boy, at home I was mainly brought into contact with French chansons, Charles Aznavour or American artists, such as Nat King Cole, Dean Martin or Orchestral melodic music. The time on the radio is still in my head today, and yes, I did like that. As a child, you develop naturally and you end up in your own world. A world of New-Wave, Front 242, The Neon Judgement, Simple Minds etc… New-Wave pubs were the place where a lot of my music started. In Ghent, there was no shortage of such nice bars either, The Fifty Five for instance. 

At one point I heard the opening tune “Equinoxe 5” by Jean-Michel Jarre on the “Musique de France” broadcast on the radio, presented by Zaki, father of, father of the Soulwax-brothers. It was a bit of a surprise, because the opening tune really didn’t match the French chansons that were presented, but it was a start. “Equinoxe 5” did catch my attention. I went looking for that music and finally bought the single. Later, the LP-version was added, so my parents were obliged to buy me a record player. But actually, my first distant contact with Electronic music was at the Bargee’s institute in Wetteren, where the catholic brother played Vangelis’ music at night, while the lights were off… very special, but I think that has stuck. He then played “To The Unknown Man”. It was only when I bought “Spiral” that I recognized it.

In Sluis (Holland) I came across an album with a purple background and a big X sign. I didn’t know what and who it was, but I had the album played on the turntable in that shop. I was overwhelmed. After a long time of sawing, my parents let me buy it… and then the purchase of many albums by Klaus Schulze.

Also the album “Live” came up and if it would just happen that the song “Sense” is on it and that’s how I came to the name BySenses. I thought it was a nice pun on one of my great examples

Q: Your work is clearly inspired by Ambient music. Does this label fit with what you’re doing and what means Ambient music to you? 

Didier: I can imagine that people place my music in that genre. Just putting together different sounds, looking for a setting, atmosphere is very important to me. Music has to be able to take you along, whether it’s Rock, Jazz, Hard-Rock or House or Classical music, if it takes you along, I think you’re on the right track. 

You can’t compare Klaus Schulze’s music with VANGELIS’ music. These are two different environments, two different atmospheres, two different worlds. Where Vangelis mainly feeds on his fantastic melodies, Klaus Schulze feeds more on his Soundscapes, composer of different tones, sounds. I find that an incredible thing. Am I influenced by it, certainly, and that’s no problem, they will have been influenced by other artists as well. “Le Grand Petit”, from the digital album “5 Jours De Liberté” tends much more towards the melodic, while on the same album there are pieces where I try to create an atmosphere with pure sounds. It’s the same on “MonoCHROOM”. The album “People” tends more towards sequencer work and more Techno-like rhythms. 

Q: You already mentioned Klaus Schulze and Vangelis who both passed away quite recently. You already talked about it but in which way do you feel connected with their work and what made both artists and their work that special? 

Didier: It is indeed terrible, Electronic music is losing its founding fathers. Let’s not forget Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream.

Both are absolute founding fathers of Electronic music, each in their style the synthesizer was used in a totally different way. 

Klaus Schulze in his own style took me into his environment, the build-up, his build-down, his sounds… “Dune” is the biggest example for me, a song that carries me away in all its facets. I feel the same way about Brian Eno’s “Dune”-melody. If you play Frank Herbert from the album “X”, you get sucked into his own way of sequencing. Tangerine Dream on “Rubicon” or “Stratosfear” and “Ricochet” give me that same feeling.

Vangelis, also in his own style, takes me into his melodic music. He manages to play every note in the right way, less experimental, more in the sense of ‘ Here I am, here I present you something to accompany me in my journey through this album’. For a man who hasn’t learned a note and wins an Oscar… hats off. “To The Unknown Man” is a great example of how he manages to change the melody in one song.

To me, both are pioneers of the highest level, both can be placed next to great composers such as Mozart, Beethoven…

Q: Over now to your own work and the newest opus “MonoCHROOM”. How did this work took shape and what kind of album did you want to achieve?

Didier: “MonoCHROOM” has a small history. When I was at boarding school in Wetteren, an educator told me: ‘There are people who only like one colour. White or black’. He gave it a name. I had forgotten that name and actually spent a long time looking for it. A friend of mine, I think it was Johan Depaepe from Owann, my friend in “The Tower Tree”, told me that it might be that word. “MonoCHROOM” was born.

At first I had in mind to make pieces that were separate from each other again, but more and more the album grew into one big whole. Had I been able to make one 60-minute song, I might have done so. But I still wanted to see the differences between black and white and other colors. That’s why the cover is black and white and the inside is colored balls of different sizes (an idea of Alain Wymeels of Midician by the way). 

When the album was OK for me… the music goes to the mastering man, Dries De Vreeze. A man who regularly puts me in my place, in the positive sense of course… but he gives it an extra dimension through his mixing and mastering. I can only be grateful to him for the additions he makes.

I wanted to release an album that pushed the monotony aside, and made it like a multi-color festival. There is more than one color in your life, and when you open the book (the CD cover), you see the diversity. It’s the same in everyday life. 

Q: Your albums are always composed around a theme or should I say conceptual theme, which is not that different for “MonoCHROOM”. Does the theme and/or concept become the main inspiration to compose your music or how does it happen? And how do you transpose ideas/concepts into notes and songs? 

Didier: I like to talk about one subject, because that is what I can focus on best. I then try to further develop the project, the idea. Maybe in the future I will try to make a story CD, spread over several CDs. 

In “Monos” (cf. the first track), I wanted to bring out the monotony of color by working very hard on a light build-up, repetitive song, which eventually ends in an uptempo. The Industrial beginning points to how hard it must be to enjoy only one color. “Monos” means one color. 

“Chroom” means more colors, which makes me start more rhythmically. I also wanted to add another instrument. I had seen Peter Moorkens playing his experimental guitar solos when we were in Ghent for the Sonic Emissions concert. At the Antenna Festival in Evergem I saw him working on his modular systems and thought, maybe we should do something together. Peter immediately liked the idea of playing guitar on “Chroom”. Because of this mixture, I think that the diversity has come out well. 

Most of the ideas grow bit by bit. The melody lines are sometimes done in one night. The rhythmic piece on “Monos”, the solo, was recorded in one take. I like that. You’re in the zone, and … then it comes anyway… 

Q: What did you try to express by live performances and how do you transpose the songs on stage?

Didier:I try to draw people into the story. Since live performances are a bit monotonous for EM musicians, we usually bring in some film, so that the movements are more pleasant than watching one person behind a battery of synthesizers. I find film very important in EM. Once I asked Johan De Paepe (Owann) at the concert in Ghent, Sonic Emission 1, when “People” came out, to take pictures of the people who were there. These were then incorporated into the film, directly, and put on the screen. That clicked well, because the CD “People” had just come out and you’re bringing people live. You can imagine that the people who suddenly saw their faces on the screen were shocked, and they liked that. Involving the audience, I find that very important.

I also try to adapt the songs, so that we don’t get the feeling that we are playing a play button. It goes without saying that I can’t manipulate all synthesizers with two hands. Some sequencers and samples are recorded beforehand… the PC is therefore the replacement of the old tape recorders that used to be on stage during live performances.

On Youtube, a 45-minute film called “45 Minutes De Liberté” is circulating, a precursor to the digital CD 5 “Jours De liberté”. There you can also see a film during my concert. 

I am very happy when people say to me after the concert, ‘we enjoyed it’. I think that is the intention of all artists.

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

Originally released as download only on March 31, 2022, Maschine Brennt is to release the CD version of “Grief” at the end of July. The album is the follow-up to last year’s “Puls” album.

Maschine Brennt is the one-man project by Swedish musician Joacim Thenander (formerly one of the founders of Cultivated Bimbo). While the project’s earlier releases offer mainly minimal electro/machine-pop “Grief” is a conceptual, very atmospheric piece of work offering more classic-ambient oriented music with elements of the Berlin school electro and experimental electronic music. You can easily say it’s a mix between Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Brian Eno, Vangelis.

This album was conceived as a kind of bitter soundtrack to our current reality including alienation, pandemics, war conflicts, political confrontations etc.. In addition, one of the inspirations for “Grief” was a photo exhibition by Russian photographer Pavel Otdelnov, dedicated to the “industrial beauty” of a chemical plant in Dzerzhinsk.

The “physical CD-version” contains two bonus tracks compared to the download release, “Ice” and “Last”, and is released as an ultra-limited edition of 150 hand-numbered copies.

Check out “Isolation”.

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

Genre/Influences: Ambient-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Didier Dewachtere is a Belgian artist active under the BySenses moniker. In 2018 his album “People” was released by Wool-E Discs but he has now self-released his latest opus “MonoCHROOM”. It’s the fifth album by this Belgian project.

Content: The work features 2 cuts, each 30 minutes. Both tracks have been meticulously built up and reveal an impressive sound arsenal. Taking off with Industrial sound treatments the work progressively evolves into a pure Ambient featuring dark, minimal Electronics, low bass lines and sequences reminding me of Tangerine Dream. The next cut reveals a similar evolution featuring swiping noises, hard, droning kicks and psychedelic guitar play by guest musician Peter Moorkens (Onsturicheit).

+ + + : The work of BySenses is a kind of sonic painting. There’s so much to discover and so many details to analyze. The composition has been built up with a perfect twist between vintage sound treatments reminding me of Electronic pioneers -like Tangerine Dream, and a more personal and contemporary input. The constant progression of both tracks is pretty exciting and especially for the ultimate apotheosis which is reached.

– – – : I don’t have real minus points to mention but get the feeling this project is still able to do better.

Conclusion: BySenses is confirmed to be one of the greatest Belgian talents in Electro-Ambient music. This artist definitely deserves more recognition for his work.

Best songs: “CHROOM”, “Monos”.

Rate: 8½.

Artist: www.facebook.com/BySenses-489962864349446

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: Ambient, Electro-Ambient.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Tangerine Dream is for sure one of the greatest Electronic projects in history. Set up and driven by Edgar Froese, the band was already active a while before most of the people reading this review were born. Froese passed away in 2015, but his ‘mates’ Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane and Paul Frick went on. This is the second full length without the founding member, although the others have access to his sound archives.

Content: “Raum” is a production which pays homage to the original ‘atmospheric’ sound of the band while adding a touch of modernism. Slow rhythms are carrying the space- and evasive-like sound treatments. The 7 tracks are moving from ‘classical’ Tangerine Pieces to some modernism.

+ + + : Tangerine Dream remains a visionary project which gave birth to the so-called ‘Berliner school’. And even after the loss of Edgar Froese, his acolytes hold on to the true spirit of Tangerine Dream. “Raum” features the ‘basic’ ingredients of the band’s sound while looking forward. The future still must be written and that’s precisely what the opening piece “Continuum” seems to reveal. “In 256 Zeichen” is a song for the die-hard fans; a sonic voyage of nearly 20 minutes which sounds like a sonic postcard. I like the dreamy style emerging at “You’re Always on Time”.

– – – : The initial effect of surprise is gone, but the spirit remains.

Conclusion: Even after more than 80 albums and becoming orphans of their instigator, the Tangerine Dream fans will not be disappointed.

Best songs: “You’re Always On Time”, “Continuum”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.tangerinedreammusic.com / www.facebook.com/TANGERINEDREAM.OFFICIAL

Label: https://kscopemusic.com / www.facebook.com/Kscopemusic Read the news on ‘Raum’.

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: Electro-Wave, Minimal-Electro.

Format: Digital, 2CD.

Background/Info: Belgian MatesGeert Coppens and Peter Bonne (aka ‘Chrismar Chayell) started off as Autumn and one year later, in 1982, moved on with Twilight Ritual. The band released several noticeable productions. Chrismar Chayell later became a member of the legendary A Split Second. This album is a retrospective featuring some early songs, and also revealing previously unreleased tracks.

Content: From the very first notes and songs you clearly notice the typical 80s influence. This is ‘pure’ Electro-Wave mixing melodic parts together with darker, atmospheric passages. Harder cuts are carried by solid EBM bass lines. The work also features a few relaxing and somewhat Cinematic parts, which are even evoking Tangerine Dream. The vocals are rather clear.

+ + + : This work is an opportunity to (re)discover an ‘old’ and somewhat forgotten Belgian formation from the 80s. I like the magic of the analogue sound treatments, which are bringing the 80s alive. My favorite song is one originally released on the album “The Factory Scream” (2002). “Black Track” is a solid piece carried by a great EBM-minded bass line. The fans will be also pleased with the box of this album featuring next to both CDs a DVD with 15 songs. And there’s more good news as Twilight Ritual seems to be busy releasing completely new stuff.

– – – : I’ve never been a huge fan of the vocals’ production, which is missing passion and conviction.

Conclusion: Twilight Ritual was an interesting formation, but operating in the shadow of the Belgian great names from the 80s.

Best songs: “Black Track”, “Ums”, “Ups & Downs”, “Surrounded”, “Ever Changes”, “Tears On The Wall”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.micrart.com /  www.facebook.com/twilightritual

Label: www.waverecordsmusic.com / www.facebook.com/waverecords Read the news on ‘1982-2021’.

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

Hungarian born Gyorgy Turoczy aka ‘Mortum’ has been releasing music as Human Vault since 1997. Operating from (USA) he released an impressive discography. While nearly all of his work has been (self)released on Exabyss Records he joined hands together with Aliens Production unleashing a kind of retrospective work featuring songs composed between 2011 and 2021. “God Under Construction 2011 – 2021” is an album appealing for lovers of intelligent and sophisticated Electronic music reminding artists like Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Mortal Constraint ao.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You’re already  involved with music for quite a long time, but can you tell us how you got in touch with Electronic music and how Human Vault saw the daylight?

Mortum: Well, in 1987 my sister bought a cassette album of Pet Shop Boys, the title was “Actually” and I did love it a lot. However, the old accountant guy next door had quite a big vinyl record collection, and he showed me 2 albums, both from the legendary project, Tangerine Dream. “Phaedra” and “Rubycon”, they were my first real encounters with Electronic music. No whining, crying and high pitched ‘male’ vocals that you can hear on almost every synth pop new wave album. No dancefloor oriented rhythms and easy listening melodies. Tangerine Dream opened a door to an entirely new realm of soundcrafting and sound miracles. It was just a matter of time for me to start seeking for deeper and more daring sounds.

A few years later, when I got myself into occult literature, I found a label with amazing music. That label was Cold Meat Industry from Sweden. I became obsessed with its releases [not the dungeon synth Mortiis] and super soon I found myself collecting European Industrial music as well.

Over the years I gradually emerged myself into creating sounds, field recordings, super cheap synths and noise boxes, tape modulations and found objects with contact mics. Human Vault as a music project slowly became part of my life. No exact date when the name was first used as the official project name, but the first cassette release of mine was named as Human Vault in 1997.

Q: You’re involved with an impressive number of projects, which makes me say music clearly is a true passion. What does music mean to you and what makes the differences between all of your projects/bands? Is there any project more important than another?

Mortum: Music means everything to me! I listen to music for hours and hours a day. I also can do both of my favorite activities together at the same time, reading and listening to music, which is great and a serious time saving, too. I know I am involved in a good number of projects and it can be many times very exhausting.

Lately I have put an end to many of my projects so that I will be able to focus on the few remaining ones in the future. Hence the answer to your question, yes I consider Human Vault, the Hungarian Nadragea and my super deep and personal project, Stone Wired the most important ones. All the rest are fun and cool, and I love them, and I am serious about them, but if they are over I will not shed tears for them.

Q: Human Vault is clearly driven by good-old EBM standards, mixing power with dark atmospheres. What are your main sources of inspiration and what’s your global approach in composing the songs for Human Vault?

Mortum: When I write a song for Human Vault, I focus on rhythms. Otherwise I would end up writing another Stone Wired Death-Industrial-track. My inspiration comes from different sources. I Love Death-Industrial, Dark-Ambient music more than EBM. I also prefer old-school Dark-Electro music and here I am not talking about this Aggrotech, Trancy, Cyber Glitch, ‘cheesy’ Electro. All these influences will eventually get in the flow of composing a new song. A good track is about the author who writes it and not about the audience. I want to express something, tell something in a way I wanna tell, and I really do not give a damn if you as audience understand it or not. The problem here is that people think they are so important that music should be about them, about their feelings, their life…. that music is made for them, to entertain them, to satisfy them. At the beginning of time music was created in order to tell you a story, a story that has nothing to do with you and your feelings. A story that gives you meaning and not the other way, you give meaning to the story. Human Vault is being written with no restrictions and limitations. Human Vault does not care about anyone!

Q: You last year released the album “God Under Construction 2011 – 2021”, which is a kind of retrospective, right? How do you perceive this ‘retrospective’ and how did you see Human Vault evolving?  

Mortum:  “God Under Construction” is the actual essence of Human Vault. If one does not want to spend hours and hours listening in order to get familiar with the project, then this compilation is the right and perfect way to go. Although this release does not show the entire evolution of the music due to the fact that I had to omit tracks recorded in the very first period. Anything before 2011 is considered as a constantly fluctuating Experimental era where Dark-Electro and Death-Industrial could walk hand in hand together. Another reason why I really could not add tracks from that ear to this compilation is that I unfortunately lost all the archive files of the songs and all I have left is DAT / regular tape recordings. After 2011, Human Vault has been focusing on authentic Dark-Electro sounds putting experimental recordings aside so that I focused on this era only when I selected the tracks for the compilation. 

Q: Most of your work has been released on Exabyss Records, which is your own label and a platform for most of your projects. What have been your experiences so far and especially considering aspects like: distribution, promotion, physical formats vs. streaming platforms? And what might you expect from another label like Aliens Production?

Mortum: When I started distributing my recordings in 1997, I went through clubs, music related communities, from person to person interactions. I grabbed my cassettes and spread them amongst people, real people, not virtual existences. It took an enormous amount of time and effort, it drained my energy down to the core but it worked. People started asking me where to buy my releases. I had no platform for selling so I let it sink into oblivion. What a mistake I made. If I had grabbed that opportunity I could have built a good foundation of a fan base, but I missed that chance.

So in 2005, I officially launched my own label, Exabyss Records, and I faced the reality of a very indifferent market, a society that has been overrun and overwhelmed with abundant music. Just in the EBM genre now, at least 10 hours of new music can be reached via The Web with no effort daily. While in the 90’s, in my small town in Hungary, the EBM club community counted around 100-150 people and only 2 persons who wrote music, now in the same town the EBM fun club counts only 50 people at the most and 20 of them who write music. Put this standard pattern up in a big city scale like New York City where I live now. Only big names, such as Front 242 recently did, can draw in people in number over 300 for a live gig, which is far less than acceptable and way less than enough to pay the bills and create profit. There is no EBM club in NYC any more, and I am not making this up, that is the reality presently. All the darkwave and goth clubs can generate 80 to 150 people per club night, which is outrageous and sad. What about the musicians? Oh my gosh, NYC has got at least half a thousand musicians in the industrial genre and its sub-genres that regularly release music via the internet. You just can not keep up with this! Quantity over quality! You are tired already of digging through hundreds of hundred hours of new music just to find the real and good ones. In brief, as Exabyss Records, I realized that operating a record label is just adding to the global problem. I truly believe that stopping all distribution of music would give people time and space to breathe and relax as well as time to start appreciating music again. Therefore, as Human Vault, I create music for myself only. Aliens Production is willing to release my recordings and I am more than happy with that since I know there is a close circle of fans there that my sound can reach through the label, and that is enough for me.

Q: You’re Hungarian born, but living in the US. What are the main resemblances and differences when it comes to music and music culture?

Mortum: I honestly and truly have to admit that there is no difference between the music and its surrounding culture in the US and in Europe. Dead music market, ignorant audience, too many musicians and even more music, no appreciation on all levels, fashion freaks who dont give a damn about the music or its culture. There is no culture any longer! Only music! An overwhelming amount of music that no one listens to!
What we all have got, though!? An unoperational and deeply damaged society. A collective mind cracked open! People who scroll down the timeline of their social network and click on the like button without even reading the post or clicking on the link just to give at least a second listen to the song posted. People who gather virtual friends while not giving a damn about any of them! People who have no time to do something real in real life instead of spending hours and hours on social media networks where they also have no time to read or react to the posts. People, who are shallow and hollow in their heart! People like me, who are just meaningless and useless parts of the big machine… and we all know it but we just don’t care about it anymore!

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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Tangerine Dream have released a new video, “You’re Always On Time”, ahead of the February release of their all new album “Raum”, their sophomore studio release after the passing of TG founder Edgar Froese, inaugurating their ‘From Virgin to the Quantum Years’ tour. The “Raum” album continues in the same direction as offered on the November EP “Probe 1-8” featuring Berghain resident Barker and Grand River remixes.

You can watch “You’re Always On Time” right below. The video documents and gives fans an insight in to how the band captured field recordings and sampled material for 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: Experimental, Minimal-Electro, Cinematographic, Ambient. 

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: This album resulted from the collaborative efforts between established Italian composer/producer Paolo F. Bragaglia and a couple of producers. The concept deals about a retro-sci/fi dystopian world getting us back to the 70s.

Content: “The Man From The Lab” is mixing pure Experimental Electronics and minimal sound treatments. The bleeping sequences and Ambient atmospheres sound like evoking Electronic pioneers and I can’t get away from the feeling this work has been inspired by Tangerine Dream. That’s maybe not a coincidence as Edgar Froese started releasing his music in the 70s. The instrumental tracks sometimes reveal a few spoken-like samplings. 

+ + + : It’s quite a long time ago I heard new stuff from Minus Habens and it was a cool surprise listening to this work. I like the minimal approach, mixing different influences together. But “The Man From The Lab” is clearly evoking the early days of Electro-Ambient music. The analogue sound treatments and effects bring this period back alive. It sounds minimal and experimental, but always accessible. 

– – – : The debut part of the album is definitely more exciting than the second one so in the end it all became a bit predictable and monotone. The addition of a few vocals might be an idea.

Conclusion: This work deals with a cool concept and has been adapted into some cool vintage songs. 

Best songs: “The Mixture”, “The Man From The Lab”, “Black Swan”, “Monkey”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.paolobragaglia.com / www.facebook.com/paolobragagliamusic 

Label: www.minushabens.com / www.facebook.com/MinusHabensRecords 

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

Tangerine Dream announce their sophomore album “Raum” – after the passing of TG founder Edgar Froese. The album is due out next February via Kscope/Eastgate Music, inaugurating the ‘From Virgin to the Quantum Years’ tour. The new album will follow in the sonical footsteps of the November’s EP “‘Probe 1-8” featuring Berghain resident Barker and Grand River remixes.

The video for “Raum” is a Super-8 document of the band’s creation process at their Berlin Neukölln studio.

Tangerine Dream nowadays consists of Thorsten Quaeschning, Hoshiko Yamane, Ulrich Schnauss, Paul Frick. The quartet says their new work is directly inspired by Froese’s Cubase arrangements and Otari tapes.

For now enjoy this new Tangerine Dream video for the single “Raum” which comes in a special single edit.

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only continuous member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the group was its mid-1970s trio of Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann. Read the review of ‘Raum’.

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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Twenty years after Forma Tadre’s last physical release, the project has prepared another CD album: “Geiger’s Day”. The album is going to be self-released and is available via Bandcamp as you can see below.

Behind the German electronic music project we find Andreas Meyer.

He explains the concept behind the album: “‘Geiger’s Day’ is about a journey – set in the near future – from the West Coast of the US to the east after the breakdown of civilization. It features a lone protagonist and a sci-fi setting, where broken machinery has come to life and most of the laws of nature have been turned upside down.”

The tracks were written and recorded in the period 1999-2001, shortly after the release of “Automate”, Meyer’s second album. You can already check out a few below.

About Forma Tadre

Forma Tadre began as a three-piece band in 1986 including Andreas Meyer. Andreas was heavily influenced by the electronic band Tangerine Dream which provided the impetus for the name Forma Tadre as a sort of portmanteau from Tangerine Dream’s album “Force Majeure”. The band recorded the EP “Brightful Times” in 1987, which was produced by German producer Robert “Bobby” Giddens who worked with many German bands including DAF.

After this release, two of the members eventually split from the band without producing any more releases together, leaving Andreas as the sole member by 1994. Andreas was then convinced by Björn Junemann – a member of Haujobb at the time – to submit demo tapes to record labels, which eventually led to the attention of Off-Beat Records, who released his next two albums.

In 1996, Andreas released his first album as the sole member of Forma Tadre, “Navigator”, which was a marked style departure from the previous, more traditional three-piece incarnation of the band mixing together epic, symphonic instrumentals with numerous highly-technical EBM tracks. After “Navigator”, Andreas was approached by Daniel Myer of Haujobb to work together on a music project, which resulted in the formation of Newt. The duo would produce two albums and a single between 1997 and 1999.

Beginning around 1995, Andreas worked with a female vocalist on a project which offered traditional, classical music via electronic instrumentation. The project, named Eisriesenkönig, released only a single track – a remix of a Forma Tadre song – on the 1996 Off-Beat compilation “The O-Files”.

Forma Tadre’s second album, “Automate”, was released in 1998 and offered a more ambient style of music. The 13-track album “The Music of Erich Zann” would follow almost 10 years later. In 2019, a hybrid vinyl-digital reissue of “Brightful Times” was released, adding eight tracks recorded between 1987 and 1992 to the original four track EP.

In 2020, Forma Tadre released a pair of anthologies. “Navigator Travelogue” contained remixes, singles, demos and unreleased tracks from the project’s most active years 1994-1997 while “P-SongX” contained unreleased songs that Andreas recorded during the span of time between “Brightful Times” and “Navigator” along with one new track, “M15 – She a threat?”.

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: Electro, Ambient-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: “Memoirs” is the third album by Greek artist Manos Zafirakis. The album comes three years after “Kilonova”.

Content: Iris Manta hasn’t really changed the sound formula from previous albums. It remains a sound influenced by early Electronic pioneers, reminding me of JM Jarre, Tangerine Dream and co. The songs feature an astral sound dimension created by the typical old-styled Psychedelic leads. The album features 6 songs, which all are instrumental edits. 

+ + + : The compositions of Iris Manta remain well-crafted and elaborated with subtle sonic details. Melody lines are more accentuated than on the previous work. I get the impression of listening to a refreshed version of Tangerine Dream. The analogue sound treatments and –effects have this unique touch of magic.  

– – – : I personally experienced this work as a bit more ‘cliché’ than its predecessor. It’s a sound we’re familiar with for years so the songs become a bit predictable after a while.

Conclusion: If you like the early pioneers of Electronic music, you definitely are going to like this work.

Best songs: “Misguided”, “Tiny Distractions”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/Iris-Manta-767551936654269

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

BArTc is a London based experimental electronic one-man project (Jason Barton). Out in September is the project’s debut full length “Insubstantial As Ghosts” containing 14 dark atmospheric soundscapes. ICR owner Colin Potter, himself a well known figure in the experimental genre as a member of Nurse With Wound and sound engineer, heard some of Barton’s work and offered to release it. He has handpicked several of the pieces included on “Insubstantial As Ghosts” and also mastered the album.

Initially inspired by instrumental electronic records in his father’s record collection by titans such as Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre, Barton soon gravitated towards underground industrial icons such as Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, Chris & Cosey and Skinny Puppy, as well as digging deeper into the work of early German electronicists such as Cluster, Musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, plus the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Barton has cited sound recordist (and Cabaret Voltaire co-founder) Chris Watson as another influence, adding: “I have always loved environmental sounds and often carry a field recorder on my travels which I use to create texture in my pieces. I build layers to create something abstract yet strangely beautiful, mixing source material, organic and experimental sounds plus field recordings that are heavily distorted with various effects. For me, creating music is a form of meditation, and to lose oneself in an improvisation is a wonderful experience. I just need to remember to hit record!”

Much of “Insubstantial As Ghosts” was recorded in January 2021 while the UK was in lockdown. Barton: “I participated in an annual Instagram music making challenge, where artists post a short piece of music every day using the hashtag #jamuary2021. Recording my contributions at the same time every evening (22:23), I amassed many minutes of music and ideas. Some of these were expanded to become tracks for the album or inspired further recordings through the dark winter nights.”

Check out the 3rd track on the album: “Malleus Incuss Tapes”

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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Audioglobe sent us some interesting news about Faust. Who? Faust!

Faust are a German band which was formed in 1971 in Wümme by producer and former music journalist Uwe Nettelbeck. The band was originally composed of Werner “Zappi” Diermaier, Hans Joachim Irmler, Arnulf Meifert, Jean-Hervé Péron, Rudolf Sosna and Gunther Wüsthoff, working with engineer Kurt Graupner. Their work was oriented around dissonance, improvisation, and experimental electronic approaches, and would influence subsequent ambient and industrial music.

As such they are considered a central act of West Germany’s 1970s krautrock movement which included acts like Can, Neu!, Amon Düül II, Faust, Harmonia, Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Guru Guru, early Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Cluster.

They secured a recording contract with Polydor and soon began recording their debut, “Faust”, which sold poorly. Meifert was sacked shortly afterwards because, as Peron wrote in 2004, “he discussed things, because he had flat buttocks and an absolutely beautiful girlfriend, because he practised every day, because he always kept his room neat and woke up every morning to first wet a cloth he’d put in front of his room to keep the dirt out, because he played such a hard 4/4th that we had to travel into the tongue, ready to drop, ding dong is handsome top.”

The band did have its loyal fans. “There is no group more mythical than Faust”, Julian Cope once said. And Stephen Morris (Joy Division/New Order) remembers: “The first Krautrock record which made a lasting impression on me was the debut album by Faust. The transparent disc looked spectacular and the music was mindblowing, not songs as such, it was something absolutely unique, the polar opposite of everything the Rolling Stones, Beatles and the like were doing. It was right up my street.”

To be released via Bureau B later on this month is the 7LP + 2×7”-boxset and the 8CD boxset “1971-1974”. This box is the first virtually complete collection of the band’s works from the years 1971-1974. In addition to the debut album it also includes the 1972 album “So Far”, the legendary 1973 Virgin UK release “The Faust Tapes”, “Faust IV” and, for the first time ever, the mythical, so-called ‘Munich album’ “Punkt”, which Faust recorded at Giorgio Moroder’s Musicland Studios in 1974. For one reason or another, this last album never saw the light of day – until now.

The bonus albums “Momentaufnahme I” and “Momentaufnahme II” also feature unreleased material. Two 7-inch singles round off the Faust 1971-1974 compendium: “Lieber Herr Deutschland” is the demo recording they sent to Polydor in 1971, The second 7-inch single in the box is a rerelease of “So far”, the first Faust single on Polydor, originally issued in 1972.

Mastered from the original tapes, Faust’s “1971-1974” is available as a limited edition vinyl set (2,000 copies) and 8CD-Box (1,000 copies).

Here’s an idea how the band sounded like in 1973.

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 Tom Hilverkus) Synth-pop artist Alice Hubble has announced a new album, “Hexentanzplatz”, out September 10th via Happy Robots, a boutique independent record label, based in London.

Alice Hubble (one half of Arthur & Martha) released her solo debut “Polarlichter” in September 2019. Her ingredients: layered vintage synthesisers and mellotron. The album was inspired by the 70’s recordings by Tangerine Dream, Ashra and Mike Oldfield (particularly the records he made with his sister Sally). The recordings were completed & mixed at Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, co-produced by Mikey Collins.

With the new single “My Dear Friend” she introduces us to the follow-up album “Hexentanzplatz”. It was inspired by the discovery of a collection of love letters written by Hubble’s mother to her father around the time that they first met. Alice Hubble: “My mother passed away when I was in my teens and these letters gave me a real insight into who she was as a person, her ‘newly in love’ giddiness jumping off the page.”

“Hexentanzplatz” is named after the German mountain and translated literally means ‘Witches’ Dance Floor’. “Hexentanzplatz” will be available on vinyl, CD and digital on September 10th via Happy Robots.

Watch “My Dear Friend” 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

Genre/Influences: Ambient-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Penterakt is a new project driven byBelgian artist Tom Coppens and the English artist Andy Bloyce. They’re mates and still part of the trio Kubusschnitt, which is already active for years now. “Conquest Of The Moon” has been released during the very last days of 2020 and features four tracks.

Content: This album is a new chapter of the Belgian NeuMusik series and brings a new exploration of Ambient-Electro music. Penterakt brings us back in time, not only for the style and influences, but also for the use of only analogue equipment. The album sounds like a reincarnation of ‘Berliner School’-music reminding me of Tangerine Dream and co. The tracks have been progressively built up, revealing elaborated structures. It’s a sonic trip through space carried by some Psychedelic synth leads and down tempo rhythms.

+ + + : This is music for all lovers of good-old Ambient-Electro, but I was especially impressed by the sophisticated and elaborated song structures. The magic of the analogue synths create an overwhelming sensation, which comes directly through at the opening track. The compositions have been meticulously created and progressively evolving; sometimes from a rather chaotic beginning till dreamy and rhythmic passages. “Life On The Moon” not only is the last cut from the album, but also a great apotheosis of a great work.

– – – : The only possible negative point about this work is that Penterakt doesn’t reinvent anything; this kind of music no longer has secrets… but who cares when you discover an amazing results.

Conclusion: Penterakt is a highly recommended project in the Belgian NeuMusik concept.

Best songs: “Life On The Moon”, “Preflight Introspection”, “Meteor Strikes Again”.

Rate: (8½). 

Label: www.wool-e-discs.be / www.belgianneumusik.be /

www.facebook.com/woolediscs

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: Ambient-Electro, Cinematographic.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Age is an ‘old’ Belgian project active since the late 70s. Driven by the creative spirit of Emmanuel Dhaeyere and Guy Vachaudez this project has released an impressive list of productions in Ambient-Electro music. “Shadows Behind Me” was released in 2020 and features fourteen songs.

Content: “Shadows Behind Me” sounds like a move back into time, discovering the Belgian Tangerine Dream. This album first of all reveals diversity, switching classical Ambient-Electro compositions with a strong space-like touch on top with other ambient pieces carried by slow rhythms. Most parts are dreamy-like, but a few passages also reveal a darker sound approach.

+ + + : Age is not exactly a band I am familiar with, but I got the opportunity to discover different works (visit their Bandcamp page), which makes me say this is probably one of the best Belgian hidden secrets! The project sounds in the purest tradition of pioneers in the Ambient-Electro genre and in a way, belongs to those pioneers. The songs are elaborated and accomplished with irresistible analogue sound treatments. The slow cadence injects a dynamic element to the work, which even becomes danceable at some moments. “Endless Hope” is an absolute masterpiece, but I also have to mention “Unknown Destination Suite” mixing bombastic arrangements together with refined piano playing, “Solitude Of July”, which will appeal for Tangerine Dream fans and “Shadowed Lives”, which is a composition with a great progression and dreamy strings in the final part. Other tracks like “Broken”, “Captain Of My Soul” and “On My Way” are also accomplished and sophisticated pieces.

– – – : The artwork of the album could have been better and more professional, but in the end we first of all buy physical releases for their content.

Conclusion: If you’re into good-old Ambient-Electro and the Berliner school, you for sure are going to like Age.

Best songs: “Endless Hope”, “Solitude Of July”, “Unknown Destination Suite”, “Broken”, “On My Way”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: http://agemusicbelgium.blogspot.com / www.facebook.com/emmanuel.dhaeyere / www.facebook.com/guy.vachaudezturmes

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: Ambient-Electro.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Hyperkube is a Belgian solo-project driven by Tom Coppens who’s also involved with Kubusschnitt. “Remnants” is a collaborative work between festival organization Littl’Antenna and Wool-E Discs subdivision ‘Belgian NeuMusik’.

Content: From the very first seconds and notes, this work clearly reminds the famous ‘Berlin School’. Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream aren’t far away and clearly appears to be important sources of inspiration. The work features 5 songs, which have been progressively built up featuring low bass resonations, analogue sound effects and multiple bleeps and sweeps.

+ + + : This is not an album you’re going to buy for its originality, but simply because you like Ambient-Electro and more especially the famous ‘Berlin School’. The songs have been well-crafted, elaborated mixing dreamy and more mysterious passages. The last song “In Fine Principium” appears to be a true apotheosis due to some overwhelming sound blasts right at the end of the song. “Remnants” appears to be a sonic puzzle featuring an endless number of little sonic noises and effects. 

– – – : I think it’s just a pity there’s no more innovation in the global approach of this work. It remains an emulation of some famous pioneers… although a well-crafted work!

Conclusion: “Remnants” is the debut release in this Littl’Antenna Live Session, which clearly confirms Belgium is a prolific ground for talented artists in the Ambient-Electro genre.

Best songs: “In Fine Principium”, “Calling From Beyond”, “Remnants”.

Rate: (7½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/tom.coppens.52

Labels: www.wool-e-discs.be / www.belgianneumusik.be /

www.facebook.com/woolediscs / www.antennafestival.be

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: Electro-Ambient, Cinematographic, Experimental.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: The Roswell Incident is a Belgian project set up and driven by the brothers Koen and Jan Buytaert. They claim to be inspired by the legendary ‘Berlin School’. They’re now busy for more than ten years and previously self-released four albums. “Trapped Part One” is their fifth full length album released in 2019 for the “Belgian NeuMusik”-series set up by Wool-E Discs.     

Content: This album clearly reflects the Ambient influences from the so-called Berlin School. Impossible here to not remind me of the genius of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. The work features only 2 tracks, which are pretty elaborated. You feel like you are embarking on an Ambient trip on which stars have been transposed into bleeps. Both tracks have been progressively built up, featuring different passages. You now and then will notice some piano arrangements, but the main characteristic remains the astral dimension of the work. Deep, vibrating bass tones are accentuating the progression of the tracks, which both are ending into pure climax. 

+ + + : The Roswell Incident doesn’t innovate, but sounds as an intelligent and successful emulation of the ambient music those brothers like. They accomplished both tracks with passion and patience; finally reaching the ultimate point of each song, which is comparable to a sonic orgasm. I like the low, vibrating bass lines and the subtle little bleeps, which are even more efficient when listening to the work using headphones. But this is also music to play loud at a cold winter evening. The sound production is absolutely phenomenal; it has something pretty vintage-like and yet it has been composed with digital equipment.

– – – : The only reproach you can make to this band is they avoid any kind of innovation, but simply emulate the music they like.

Conclusion: The Roswell Incident took me by surprise; this album being without a shadow of a doubt the most accomplished one in the “Belgian NeuMusik”-series. This is an absolute must-have!

Best songs: “Trying To Escape The Möbius Timeshift”, “Folded Spaces”.

Rate: (9).

Artist: www.the-roswell-incident.com / www.facebook.com/The-Roswell-Incident-Electronic-music-176312299051915

Label: www.wool-e-discs.be / www.belgianneumusik.be /

www.facebook.com/woolediscs

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

Here’s a release which will interest the more eclectic readers. The ‘Novocibirsk’ project is the product of experiments conducted by Hervé Isar between 1982 and 1993 in his home studio, connecting a network of synthesizers and analog sequencers to test their communications or synchronize their messages and speed multiplication, testing multi-oscillators pads out of mono generators, trying octave distribution, voltage additions and substractions.

The result is artificial music inspired by pioneers of the 70’s and raw minimalism of the underground of the 80’s. Listening to the material you’ll inevitably will think of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze. The whole is enriched with vocoder chants. Five of the tracks recorded back then are now being released on “Télévision 1945 (Volume II)”, the second series of Novocibirsk’s recordings that is being released on the productionB label.

“Télévision 1945 (volume II)” will be released on February 26. 2021, as digisleeve CD album and digital download and a 12″LP vinyl edition might be released later this year. Pre-orders are available here.

Here’s an edit of “Nuclear Propagation”.

About Novocibirsk

Hervé Isar, the brain behind the project, is actually a French law professor at the university of Aix-Marseille. Unlike other musicians Isar has always considered his ‘music’ to be a technical research rather than music. Nevertheless in 1997 his album “Excerpts And Experiments” was released on the newborn French label BOREDOMproduct (home to Celluloide, Dekad, Foretaste, …).

20 years later the French label launched a subdivision called productionB focusing more on minimal electronic works and decided to reactivate Novocibirsk, releasing ‘old’ songs for the very first time on CD. “Télévision 1945 (Volume I)” was released in 2019 with “Télévision 1945 (Volume II)” being released in 2020.

You can read an interview with Hervé Isar right here. Read the review of ‘Télévision 1945 Volume II’.

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

MOTOR!K is a Belgian Krautrock formation set up in 2018 by Joeri Dobbeleir  (guitar and synths), Dries D’Hollander (drums) and Dirk Ivens (guitar and effects). The Belgian trio released its self-named debut album in 2019 on Out Of Line. It was a rather surprising signature on the label, which is more familiar with Dark-Electronics, EBM, Electro-Pop and since a few years Metal music. MOTOR!K moved on unleashing a new album this year. The work sounds as a perfect offspring between Psychedelic guitar play, transcendental Electronic sound treatments and exciting drum patterns. Time for a chat with Joeri Dobbeleir.

(Picture credits by Danny Quintelier / Interview courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: How did you guys get in touch? We of course know Dirk Ivens from his numerous projects, but can you tell us a bit more about your background? 

Joeri: I’ve met Dirk many years ago because we live in the same town. In 2017 he released the debut album from my other band, The Whereabouts Of J. Albert. While meeting somewhere in 2018 we’ve decided to start a new band because of our mutual interest in the Krautrock-Kosmische Musik genre. Initially we jammed with a drum computer and a bass sequencer, but soon it was clear that we needed a more ‘human’ drum sound so I’ve asked Dries, who I also knew for many years and who was the drummer for Suburb Songs, one of my first bands. From the first rehearsal with 3 members it was clear that we’ve made the right decision. The fact that he also lives in the same town as Dirk and I made it even more appealing. Even our rehearsal room is nearby so it was easy to set up rehearsals and start working on the tracks.

Q: How do we have to understand MOTOR!K referring to the influences you incorporated and criteria when it comes to production? 

Joeri: Of course we have certain influences like NEU?, HARMONIA or WIRE, but above all we try to obtain our own sound production-wise. I feel that with every album we are reaching that goal even more. Most of the basic bass tracks, synths and overdubs are recorded in my home studio and the drums and guitars in the rehearsal room. The mixing of the 2 albums was done at Dries his place because he has these very great sounding vintage 70’s monitors. 

Q: Your music has been defined as Krautrock, which is a music genre evoking the German late 60s and 70s; the revolt of the students, the call for liberty, drugs etc. What does this period evoke to you and what does Krautrock –and its revival today, evoke to you? 

Joeri: Musically it is a very interesting period because of the pioneering work of bands such as NEU?, Tangerine Dream, ASH RA TEMPEL etc…

The revolting and 60’s hippie part  is least interesting to us, it’s only the love for the music. 

The bands who are playing today are more straight-forward, including us. There is a certain similarity  between all these ‘modern’ bands in the genre and that is this trance-evoking drive.

Q: I experienced your new work as more mature featuring more elaborated and accomplished songs. What’s your own perception about the evolution from the debut work towards “Motor!k 2”? 

Joeri: When we finished the first album we never took the stage as a band. Before recording the 2nd one we’ve played nearly all of the tracks live so they could grow on us. I think that’s the main difference. Our main goal is to improve with each new album. 

Q: What’s your way of working together and what’s the input of each member? What makes the chemistry between you all? 

Joeri: I write all the basic synth and guitar tracks and record them as some kind of demo. Then I send them to Dirk and Dries and afterwards we jam to get versions we all like. Dirk did most of the overdubs for the 2 albums on guitar and synth.

Dirk his role in the band is to make weird groovy noises on guitar and synth to make it all less ‘poppy’ and Dries is holding it all together with his minimal drumming and electronic percussion. My role in the band is to play more melodic guitar parts and creating guitar loops. Because each of us has a significant role in the band, that easily creates a chemistry between us.

Q: Bacause of Covid-19 pandemic bands no longer can play live. Is that the reason you released different clips from songs of the new work? Tell us a bit more about the clips and how do you see things evolving for MOTOR!K? 

Joeri: We only played one live streaming concert since the Covid-19 pandemic, which was a very strange thing to do, because we were used to play in clubs and at festivals packed with people. 

When playing live, the visual aspect is very important to us. That’s why we use strobo’s and moving visuals to enhance the Trance-like feel of the music. The clip for “Sundown” was created by Monade Li, who also took care of the layout of our album “2”. The one for “Ritual” was made by E. Gabriel Edvy from Blackswitch Labs (who also worked with Dirk before for Dive) and “Headlights” was done by Ingo Sporl. 

They all did a splendid job and we can’t thank them enough for putting so much effort in their work at these uncertain times. 

As we speak we are preparing the third album, which we hope to record in a few months. Our goal from the start was to release an album every year, so we stick to that promise to ourselves. When all gets back to how it was before we hope we can catch up playing many gigs and promote our albums.  Read the review of ‘Motor!k’.

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

Tangerine Dream, one of the true pioneers of electronic and ambient music, are to release the classic recordings they made for Virgin between 1980 and 1983 in “Pilots of Purple Twilight – The Virgin recordings 1980 – 1983”, a 10 x CD box set.

The UMC box set features newly re-mastered versions of the albums “Tangram”, “Thief”, “Exit”, “White Eagle”, “Logos Live”, “Hyperborea” along with the previously unreleased soundtrack for “The Keep” from the 1983 movie directed by Michael Mann. All audio has been drawn from the original master tapes and has been enhanced by new stereo mixes by Ben Wiseman.

“Pilots of Purple Twilight” also features previously unreleased material across 4 discs, including the full concert at The Dominion Theatre, London (November 1982). In addition, it includes 4 tracks from “White Eagle” and “Daydream – Moorland” that are released for the first time on CD and digitally. “Thief” includes “Dr. Destructo” (extended version), previously only used for promotional use only. The Tangerine Dream tracks featured on the Virgin soundtrack LP for the movie “Risky Business” are also included in the box set, including “Love on a Real Train” and from the Virgin archive, the unreleased songs from the soundtrack to the 1982 movie “The Soldier”, which was scored, composed and performed by the band.

Ahead of the release on the 30th October, Tangerine Dream share “The Night in Romania”, taken from the much sought after and previously unreleased soundtrack to “The Keep” (1983), directed by Michael Mann, and more tracks as you can hear 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

Following the “In Search of Hades” Boxset (2019 and available here), Tangerine Dream’s classic recordings for Virgin made between 1980 and 1983 are to be released in “Tangerine Dream: Pilots of Purple Twilight – The Virgin recordings 1980 – 1983”, a 10 x CD box set, on the 30th October and available here.

The UMC box set features newly re-mastered versions of the albums “Tangram”, “Thief”, “Exit”, “White Eagle”, “Logos Live”, “Hyperborea” along with the previously unreleased soundtrack for “The Keep” from the 1983 movie directed by Michael Mann. All audio has been drawn from the original master tapes and has been enhanced by new stereo mixes by Ben Wiseman.

“Pilots of Purple Twilight” also features previously unreleased material across 4 discs, including the full concert at The Dominion Theatre, London (November 1982). In addition, it includes 4 tracks from “White Eagle” and “Daydream – Moorland” that are released for the first time on CD and digitally. “Thief” includes “Dr. Destructo” (extended version), previously only used for promotional use only.

The Tangerine Dream tracks featured on the Virgin soundtrack LP for the movie “Risky Business” are also included in the box set, including the band’s biggest streamer, “Love on a Real Train” and from the Virgin archive, the unreleased songs from the soundtrack to the 1982 movie “The Soldier”, which was scored, composed and performed by the band.

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 is “P-Songx, the hidden path”, an album that was recorded & mixed back in 1989-1993 (except for the track “M15 – She a threat?” which was re-recorded in June 2020) by Andreas Meyer we all know from Forma Tadre.

The genesis of the songs on this release is quite an interesting one as the musician explains.

Andreas Meyer: “Until the early 90s everything Forma Tadre did was recorded and mixed on tape. The very common analogue cassette tape to be precise, cause we had no money to buy better stuff. The tapes were numbered (50-60 still exist), but there have always been, right from the start, two different kinds of tapes. One type was labeled “Forma Tadre”, the other one was labeled “P-Songs”. P-Songs stands for “personal songs”, songs that I wrote and recorded without the help of the other two band members. These songs were set apart from the regular recordings and they also differed stylistically from the official Forma Tadre output – they were much more electronic in nature than what we did as a trio (or later, until 1994, as a duo).”

The band’s earliest recordings (like “Brightful Times”) had been post-punk, dark wave and NDW, while the P-Songx tracks were mainly EBM, electro-industrial, soundtrack and experimental electronica.

Andreas: “The two kinds of recordings were like two paths leading through a forest (this is a crooked analogy but I can’t think of a better one right now). Both paths went into the same direction. They were parallel, but only one was open to the public – the other one was hidden. That hidden path was the P-Songx path.”

The electronic tapes never saw the light of day. Back then, Forma Tadre was ruled by a certain formula as Andreas puts it: “Me writing the songs plus at least one other band member performing the vocals and/or writing the lyrics and/or playing the guitar. As a result, solo works or P-Songx could not become part of Forma Tadre. I could have, of course, released the P-Songs under a different band name. But that idea somehow never occured to me.”

When in 1994 Forma Tadre split up, with the last remaining member of the original trio leaving the band, it was “Plasmasleep” (the demo version published on “Travelogue”) that had been the turning point in all this.

Andreas: “Despite its definition as a solo work and therefore originally filed under “P-Songx”, I released the song on a local tape compilation as “written by Forma Tadre”. This eventually led to the final break-up – but it also led to a record deal, because the German record label Offbeat became aware of the compilation and contacted me.”

Golem 100 luckily didn’t make it as a band name

After the break-up Meyer started to work on “Navigator” – using a lot of the P-Songs he had written before. He signed the contract with OffBeat and thought about renaming the project – to mark a fresh start. The alternative and brandnew band name would have been “Golem 100” (after a science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester).

Andreas: “I thought about this for a very long time but finally dismissed the idea – at the last moment – before the official release of “Navigator”. Everybody at OffBeat was relieved, I still remember their faces. After all, “Forma Tadre” (the original band name) was my own creation: I remember having read Pink Floyd’s biography years before. Until then I had always thought that “pink” stood for the colour only but found out, that Pink was the just the given name of a blues musician called Pink Anderson. And Floyd was the given name of another blues musician called Floyd Council. So, Syd Barrett created the name “Pink Floyd” by combining two names of musicians he adored. This idea appealed to me. But instead of taking the names of two other musicians I took just one name of another band (Tangerine Dream) and an album I adored at that time (Force Majeure). To make it even more complicated and to give the name a little bit of mystery I dissected the words. The result was “Forma Tadre”. I still think that this is the way the name was created, but to be fair – a former band member claims otherwise.”

Check out the songs 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

Genre/Influences: Electro-ambient, experimental, minimal-electro.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Signal Bruit strikes back with a second album, which comes nearly four years after “Planisphère(s)” which was released on Meshwork Music. Member U-0176 –who’s also involved with the French electro-pop project Celluloide, now released this album on his own label –which is a subdivision of BOREDOMproduct. This album is a kind of conceptual work inspired from the Greek mythology and more specifically about the voyage of Pytheas.

Content: “Planisphère(s)” was a pleasant work, but this new work is clearly more elaborated. Inspired by synthesizer icons like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream ao this work is a fusion between pure retro electro-ambient music and a very own approach. The songs are instrumental edits, revealing the magic of vintage electro sound treatments. The work features 9 songs, which never stopped catching my attention. 

+ + + : Signal Bruit has seriously improved all aspects of the production. If the debut work revealed some real good ideas and cool songs, this album clearly moves several steps further. It’s a pretty sophisticated composition built up with ingenious sound treatments, great vintage sweeps and effects. I’ve been impressed by some of the deep, resonating bass lines and the minimal electro approach mixed with space like atmospheres. There are numerous outstanding tracks featured in this work, but “Baltique” and “Sirēnes” both are little sonic wonders. The slow rhythmic carrying the songs make the composition only more accessible and accomplished.

– – – : The major difficulty with intelligent electro compositions is to reach a wider audience. Therefore this kind of production remains a challenge… which I fully support!

Conclusion: Signal Bruit has released a truly masterpiece, which I highly recommend if you like intelligent, vintage electronics.

Best songs: “Baltique”, “Sirēnes”, Lacydon”, “Pentēcontēre II”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.facebook.com/signal.bruit

Label: www.production-b.fr / www.facebook.com/productionB.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

25 years after their debut studio album “Navigator”, the German electro-industrial music band Forma Tadre releases “Navigator Travelogue” on Bandcamp. The album is a collection of remixes, singles, demos and previously unreleased tracks from the years 1994-1997, a total of 17 tracks and 2 bonus tracks.

Forma Tadre was founded in 1986. The sole member is Andreas Meyer. Originally from the Lower-Saxon region of Germany, Andreas Meyer was heavily influenced by the electronic band Tangerine Dream. In fact, the name Forma Tadre is a sort of portmanteau from Tangerine Dream’s album Force Majeure.

Meyer has worked with Psyche and Haujobb, forming the side-project Newt in the late 1990s (with Haujobb’s Daniel Myer). Meyer also executed remixes for Coil, Joachim Witt, Wumpscut, Assemblage 23, Seabound and others.

In 2008, after 8 years of silence Forma Tadre returned with a new 13-track download-only album, “The Music of Erich Zann”.

Here’s what you can expect from 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!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Ambient-pop,  electro-pop, experimental, cinematographic.

Format: Digital.

Background/Info: Lights A.M is a new name signed by Alfa Matrix although featuring a familiar musician from the label roster. This new project is driven by Erlend Eilertsen who’s also involved with Essence Of Mind. This project has disappeared from the radar, but we now get something totally different, Lights After Midnight being reintroduced as the exploration of ‘the mysterious, the spiritual and the unknown’. After a self-released debut single (cf. “Lightworker”) in 2018, Alfa Matrix has now released the official debut EP (which more looks like a mini-album) featuring six songs.

Content: Lights A.M has been introduced as a project inspired by some electronic pioneers like Van Gelis, Tangerine Dream and co. The comparison makes sense as a similar astral sound dimension has been recreated. The songs are mainly driven by instrumental passages –vocals being more accessory, taking the listener away on a dreamy voyage to imaginary galaxies. The sound is totally retro-like!

+ + + : This work appears to be a truly challenge. It first of all has nothing in common with Essence Of Mind, while it’s mainly ambient- and cinematographic like. It’s however well-crafted with noticeable sound treatments and detailed arrangements. The best cut comes right at the end and is the already familiar “Lightworker”, which is a little sonic jewel in its genre. I also have to mention “Walking Through The Dark” for its elevating sensation.

– – – : From a pure ‘commercial’ point of view, this EP is a total challenge! This is not exactly music for dancefloors, which is not exactly a point. I however experienced the songs as a bit linear and without a real climax –except “Lightworker”.

Conclusion: Light A.M enlarges the sonic horizon of Alfa Matrix offering an ambient travel to fans of relaxing music.

Best songs: “Lightworker”, “Walking Through The Dark”, “We Are Ready”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.facebook.com/lightsaftermidnight 

Label: www.alfa–matrix.com / www.facebook.com/Alfa.Matrix Read the news on ‘Shine Our Lights’.

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

MOYA81 is a rather unknown name active at the wider fields of eletro-pop music. Based in Helsinki (Finland), this artist grew up in Santiago Of Chile (Chile) where he got in touch with electronic music. The debut album “ESP”, which rather looks as a mini-album, has been released last year on the Russian label ScentAir Records. The work is not only featuring great songs, but the music is a genius, sonic fusion between different influences; MOYA81 is not just electro-pop music inspired by Kraftwerk, but it still reveals elements of new-beat, Italo-Disco and also reminds me to the famous Frankfurter techno-scene from the 90s. Time now for an introduction!

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Let’s start with the beginning, how did you get in touch with music and more specifically, electronic music? Tell us a bit more about your first steps in music?

MOYA81: I came from a family of musicians on my mother’s side, and I grew up with a piano at home. Around my teen years I became a cassette collector and at 15 I met a local group of people who were listening to electronic music, which sound-wise was related to Kraftwerk and early EBM. Then the transition was natural. At 17 I was a vinyl record collector and did my first professional club-gig (around the year 1998), which was into acid-house and proto-goa.

Q: You grew up in Santiago Of Chile so tell us a bit more about the electronic scene in the capital and in Chile properly speaking?

MOYA81: The electronic- and experimental music scenes are huge in Chile. We respect people who think by themselves. Back in time while the first electronic- and experimental acts started such as John Cage, we in Chile had a music composer and teacher from the Universidad de Chile, creating something similar. Chile is very rare in terms of art, maybe due to nature, mountains and spectacular landscapes bring an open mind to the people. After the military regime (70s), early ’80s many Chileans who were living abroad due to political problems came back to the land and their kids were growing up in Germany, Belgium, USA, Canada, France and Sweden (normally). Those kids where already over 20 years old while the parents, mainly teachers or intellectuals were connected with the bohemian- and cultural scene of those countries so you can imagine what happened when they come back all together with tons of records. It was MAGIC!

Art and Music took over the country. Freedom was back. Since then we had bands dealing with new-wave, industrial, synth-pop, electro, techno and more styles.

Q: You last year released your official debut album “ESP”, which is more a kind of mini-album. What kind of work did you want to accomplish and how did the writing of “ESP” happened?

MOYA81: “ESP” is the synthesis of my life. It is an active meditation. Cybernetic and spiritual, just as we live this reality. As a composer, I want to create music that might contribute to the evolution of the listeners. Poetry/unconventional music computation. There were no difficulties on this creation, it was a continuous flow as the track “Atlantis”.

Q: The songs aren’t only into electro-pop, but still featuring elements of Italo-disco and even new-beat. What can you say about potential sources of inspiration and is there one specific artist and/or music genre, which you consider as an absolute reference?

MOYA81: This project is not looking to have tags as a supermarket product. This music is a manifestation of life experimenting this virtual reality. About influences I can mention Kraftwerk (from Ralf & Florian until the “Electric Cafe”-album), Gary Numan (70s – 80s era), Jean-Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream (mainly late 70s until ’86). Styles of music? EBM such as Clock DVA. Dharma (“Plastic Doll”) and Klapto (“Mr.Game”) when it comes to Italo-disco. Early new-beat is also a big influence in my life and as a producer.

Q: I noticed you also released on digital format several cover versions from legendary artists such as Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Modern Talking, Gloria Gaynor, Bobby Orlando.. What do you like in the songs you covered? How do you look back at these songs and what did you try to accentuate in your versions?

MOYA81: I cover tracks that you possibly could call ‘anthems’; tracks that aren’t only good, but that changed the electronic- or dance music culture forever. Gary Numan is a totally underrated artist, he did much more than “The Cars”, he created an aesthetic style that is unique and is used worldwide. Bobby Orlando is a producer who without him, HI-NRG and much of the greatest electro- and disco music would never be created. Kraftwerk needs no further explanation, but Modern Talking, yes. Even if they’re not one of my favorites they incorporated elements from the Italian-, American- and European Dance Music sound to create a perfectly balanced sound. Kick, snares, voices, everything sounded round and perfect in an era where many great tracks sounded terribly bad; Italo-Disco has many examples of this. Modern Talking created an audio standard for

electronic-disco music.

Q: What brings 2020 for Moya81 and especially considering topics such as live performances, remixes, clips, new songs and new releases?

MOYA81: A new album will be released in 2020; there’ll be a vinyl and digital releases. Great music, very synthetic, super robotic, poetical echoes from the future. I got contacts for live performances in Germany and France, but all the information will be shared at the right time.

Thank you very much for this interview and the support of all the music fans.

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: Cinematographic, ambient, psychedelic.

Format: Digital, CD, vinyl.

Background/Info: This is the debut album of a so-called enigmatic solo-artist, who achieved a conceptual album as a kind of imaginary soundtrack ‘based around the end of the world and a zombie takeover’. However it has been introduced as a solo-work, some famous artists like Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Simon Hinkler (The Mission), Julianne Reagan (All About Eve) ao contributed to this work.

Content: The dystopian and somewhat SI/FI theme of the work resulted in a deeply, cinematic inspired work. From vintage electronic sounds to psychedelic guitar play, this work sounds a bit like the offspring between Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. There are numerous, noticeable piano arrangements. While most of the songs are instrumentals edits, you also will notice a few tracks with vocals and/or chants.

+ + + : The music has been conceived as a soundtrack and it clearly sounds that way. I like the vintage electronics and multiple effects while the psychedelic passages inject an exciting 60’/70’ touch. One of my favorite cuts is the extra elaborated “Don’t Look Now”. This song is more melodic as well. The contribution of all the guest musicians for sure is an extra attention grabber.

– – – : The album is easily enjoyable, but there’s no truly climax. It’s an ambitious work, but without becoming a real soundtrack it might get lost in anonymity.

Conclusion: This album will appeal for lovers of dark soundtrack music and psychedelic experiences.

Best songs: “Don’t Look Now”, “Inferno”.

Rate: (6½).

Artist: www.lecygnenoir.co.uk / www.facebook.com/lecygnenoirmusic

Label: www.cherryred.co.uk / www.facebook.com/CherryRedRecords

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

Numb is a Canadian electronic formation that saw the daylight in 1986. The band was driven by Don Gordon, David Hall and Sean Stubbs. Singer David Collins joined the band in 1995. Numb started as an electronic formation, but the sound progressively evolved towards a harsh and merciless industrial sound. Numb on stage was a bit like facing a merciless noise wall. They released several successful albums on major companies such as KK Records and Zoth Ommog. The band splitted in 1998 and instigator Don Gordon moved to Vietnam. Twenty one years after the last album “Language Of Silence” released by the long-time defunct Zoth Ommog, Numb strikes back with a noticeable electro-driven opus “Mortal Geometry”. The work got released on Metropolis Records and reveals a somewhat old-school, fascinating electronic creation. It talked about it with Don Gordon.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: “Mortal Geometry” stands for the return of Numb, but also the return of Don Gordon as musician/composer. How do you look back at the past years, the feeling to be no longer releasing new music and what incited you to strike back and writing this new work?

Don: After completing “Language Of Silence” and “Halo_Gen” in 1999/2000 I had intended on taking a break from Numb. However, this break extended for longer than originally planned due to a number of opportunities that I was able to pursue when I arrived in Vietnam. That being said, the limited amount of Numb material released over the last 20 years (ie. remixes for other artists and some compilations/re-issues) doesn’t reflect a lack of activity on my part in other areas of music/sound production. After moving to Vietnam I focused more on commissions, commercial sound design and production rather than Numb. A couple of highlights from the commissions included writing and performing the music for “Missed Connections”, a video installation work by artist Richard Streitmatter-Tran that is now part of the Singapore Art Museum permanent collection. The track “The Waiting Room”, which is included on “Mortal Geometry”, had its origins as a short 30-second soundtrack for a YouTube promotional clip to the novella of the same name by the literary erotica author Remittance Girl. 

I was also engaged in audio production work in advertising and teaching music/sound production at a university in Vietnam.

About 3 years ago, I started writing material as a personal response to the social/political changes I was seeing and Numb felt like the relevant instrument through which to comment… “Mortal Geometry” is the outcome of this.

Q: You are a kind of veteran, who has seen it all; you have been involved with music since the 80s, you released multiple successful albums with different projects, you played live all over the world, worked with prominent record companies etc. How do you look back at it all and what have been the main changes/evolutions throughout the years?

Don: A complete answer to this could probably fill a book but to summarize a few observations:

-The evolution of music technologies from the 80’s through to the present day has completely transformed the way in which I write, record and produce music. The creative/technical potential that I have to work with in my home studio was unimaginable not so many years ago.

-The mass adoption of digital media technologies has radically changed how music is consumed and used by audiences as well as redefining the relationship between artists and their fans.

-The music databases at Spotify, Apple etc have created this interesting scenario in which they both provide an incredible resource for music fans and musicians while at the same time creating a situation in which new artists are now competing for attention with the whole history of recorded music

Q: “Mortal Geometry” sounds a bit like ‘going back to the roots’, but what kind of album did you want to compose and what means this album to you compared to previous Numb-productions?

Don: From the outset I intended for “Mortal Geometry” feel contemporary, but recognized that at the same time it also needed to evoke a sense of continuity with previous Numb releases. One of the ways this was accomplished was to consciously reference elements of earlier Numb to act as a bridge… a bit like picking up on a lapsed conversation with an old friend you haven’t seen in a long time through the introduction of some familiar ideas and then to build on these as the foundation for new explorations.

The actual approach to production for “Mortal Geometry” was quite different from previous releases reflecting both changes in technology and in the fact that as a solo production I was able to bring the vocals into the process earlier on. This allowed for a more tightly integrated link between the music, lyrics and vocal delivery.

Q: Next to the harder songs I also noticed cinematic/ambient passages running through “Mortal Geometry”. Where do they come from and do you’ve references and/or favorite artists when it comes to this specific music genre?

Don: Numb-releases have always included aggressive industrial/EDM tracks along with abstract/cinematic tracks. On “Mortal Geometry” this is more pronounced as there are several instances in which both aggressive and cinematic elements are combined within a single track.

I still think of an album as an integrated whole through which the listener navigates, rather than as a collection individual tracks.

My interest in cinematic/abstract music goes way back to my first hearing of releases like side 2 of Bowie’s “Low”-album, early Berlin period Tangerine Dream and composers like Edgard Varese. My exposure to traditional Asian musical forms over the last 20 years, in particular Gamelan and Smot, has furthered this interest. There is an abstract trance-like quality to this music that is particularly strong when experienced live.

Q: You said you started to write new songs ‘as a personal response to the social/political changes’ so what did you try to express with the album title and the lyrical content of the album?

Don: The title and artwork reflect a convergence of different themes that are explored on the album. Living in Asia for the last 20 years has had a massive influence on me so it was important that the cover art visually capture an element of this experience.  The visual core of the artwork is a series of images by Andrew Stiff who produces ‘extrusion photographs’ as a part of his PhD research. In particular he is looking at the application of Tschumi’s architectural theories of space, event, and movement in the context of the (destructive) urbanization in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. This approach to representation easily extends to include how digital technologies are mapping/recording our lives as data points within spatial geometries over time… in essence, surveillance to predict and control. In parallel to this there is the impact of digital disruption on communications/media that corrupt and erode meaning by intent (editing/redaction/hacking), error (glitch), spectacle and apathy… and through this, a death of social rationality. So “Mortal Geometry” is a kind of metaphor for this convergence visualized through an Asian lens.

Lyrically the album presents a number of themes that reappear across the different tracks. The challenge was to present these in a manner that draws a listener in rather than coming across as didactic… to seduce and entertain rather than having the listener feel that they are being lectured to. I think that Mortal Geometry has been successful in this.

“Redact” is very much a reaction to the corruption of language and meaning in the media-sphere to ultimately redefine a new compliant ‘reality’ that aligns with the narrative of those wanting power and control. It contextualizes ideas presented in the novel “1984” within the modern media environment of social media, commercialized news, contemporary technologies and the rise of authoritarianism. “When Gravity Fails” reflects some of the same issues but presents this more from the perspective society becoming increasing divided and falling apart.

“Hush”, suggests that rather than the dystopian cyber-punk futures, or a technological utopian futures suggested by some… these have been replaced by a ‘future’ that looks suspiciously like the past and which in turn looks like the present… a kind of ‘forever now’ loop. Mark Fisher and others have written about this sense of ‘haunted by lost futures’, the ‘persistent recycling of the past’ and an ‘inability to escape old social forms’.

“Complicit Silence” builds further on some of these themes while at the same time rejecting a simplistic, homogenous view of society. Silence is about so much more than just an absence of sound. Its power comes from what it reveals or makes you confront… the objects, events and ideas that are normally masked or unspoken and as a result gain an acceptance just through their being. Noise, on the other hand, is about immersion in complexity, diversity and change…qualities that I see as desirable. So the line ‘resurrect the worlds of noise’ is a call to embrace this.

“How It Ends” is about lost opportunities, a society contracting on itself, a focus on spectacle over the real and the rise of the sense of ‘the other’ through the distancing of human interaction.

Instrumental tracks like “The Waiting Room”, “Shadow Play” and “Mortal Geometry” reflect aspects of my time living in Asia while the ‘morality of altitude’ theme from the first Numb-album finds a new expression on “Mortal Geometry” in the track “Summer Lawns”.

Q: I think too much bands are sharing a similar sound today while “Mortal Geometry” sounds as a truly antidote! I can’t understand the more equipment and facilities so-called ‘artists’ have the less creative they become! What makes “Mortal Geometry” different from the rest and what means ‘creativity’ to you?

Don: For me creativity is a process in which an initial core idea gets translated into a final form which successfully communicates its intended ideas and emotional context. The challenge in this is in developing the core idea into the larger form that both amplifies and reinforces the initial inspiration without losing its essence. This can be harder than it might seem and for me is where most of the effort is applied. Interesting core ideas often come out of improvisations or  ‘planned accidents’ which help you get beyond your own habits and the strictures of hardware/software interfaces that try to force you into a particular way of interacting with them.

“Mortal Geometry” succeeds at a number of levels. It is a very personal statement that incorporates a diverse range of experiences and influences; it challenges the listener with new ideas while still retaining a sense of familiarity.

The ‘early’ decades of electronic music coincided with quantum leaps in music technologies… the introduction of drum machines, analog/FM/wavetable/digital synths, samplers, etcetera. This meant that musicians, both through intent and chance, were creating new timbres, forms and genres that had never been heard before almost by default. While music technology is still evolving today these changes are much more incremental so the seeming quantum leaps in creativity appear to be fewer. Also, electronic music has been with us for at least 40+ years and as a result has developed a canon in much the same way that rock or classical music has. One outcome of this is that new electronic music tends to be viewed and contextualized against this framework by audiences and artists.

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: Electro-ambient, experimental.

Background/Info: Peter Moorkens remains in the flow releasing another album for Wool-E Discs’ “Belgian NeuMusik”-series. This is number 18 and already the fourth consecutive work by this Belgian musician.

Content: “Impressies” (translated “Impressions”) is without a shadow of a doubt the most diversified opus from Moorkens. The modular machines bring us back to early pioneer work reminding me of Tangerine Dream. That effect comes especially through at the debut song, which is a live recording from nearly 20 minutes. The 5 tracks left are somewhat different and often spiced with an Eastern sound touch. It injects a part of mystery, which is fitting with the ambient content. I noticed delicate piano sound arrangements and even a passage with a slow, somewhat danceable technoid rhythmic.

+ + + : Onsturicheit is an invitation to travel and that comes perfectly through at the opening –live cut “Denkbeeldig Tentenkamp”. The global progression and production of this track is close to a real masterpiece. But I also enjoyed the other cuts left with this intriguing Eastern sound flavor on top. “Hondsdol: Incubatie” is one of the best tracks I’ve heard from this artist and that’s maybe because of the slow, danceable rhythm. This work also reveals different elements from the previous works.

– – – : Both last cuts from the album can’t convince me in a similar way.

Conclusion: There where the previous work “Splinter” was a little less a repetition of “Angstzweet”, this work is different and again revealing new aspects from Onsturicheit.

Best songs: “Hondsdol: Incubatie”, “Denkbeeldig Tentenkamp”, Hondsdol”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.facebook.com/Onsturicheit-2000817190200670 

Label: www.wool–e–discs.be / www.facebook.com/woolediscs

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

Steve Roach, one of the leading American pioneers in the evolution of ambient/electronic music, is back with an all new album. “Bloom Ascension” will be released by the end of August. This is Steve’s first release conceptualized for LP since “Desert Solitaire” (1989).

The new album will hold 4 tracks:

• The Beauty Relentless [12:12]
• Motivating Factor [06:43]
• Synesthete [06:18]
• Bloom Ascension [16:11]

Originally a Motocross racer, at the age of 20 Roach taught himself to play the synthesizer after being inspired by such influential synthesizer artists and groups as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, and Vangelis. His debut album “Now” appeared in 1982, followed by “Structures from Silence” in 1984. In 1986 he released his acclaimed “Quiet Music” series. In 1988, he released what has been described by critics as his masterpiece, the double-album “Dreamtime Return”. The rest is history, which each ambient music fan should know by heart.

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

Electro-pop lovers know the French label BOREDOMproduct. This label is the host of bands such as Celluloide, Dekad, Foretaste… but do you remember the first ever released album on the label? It brings us back to 1997 and the album “Excerpts And Experiments” by Novocibirsk. It was a minimal-electro production inspired by the sound and especially the machines from Kraftwerk. It also remained the single CD-album ever released by Novocibirsk. More than 20 years later the French label launched a subdivision called productionB. The label seems to focalize on more minimal electronic works and decided to reactivate Novocibirsk, releasing ‘old’ songs for the very first time on CD. I’d a chat with Hervé Isar.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: The album “Télévision 1945 Volume 1” takes us back from the early 80s till the early 90s. Can you remind us what incited you to set up Novocibirsk and what were the main sources of inspiration?

Hervé: My first source of inspiration is Kraftwerk and in particular “Radio-Activity”, since I bought the LP when it came out: In 1976 “Radio-Activity” (the single) was played on many radios. It was an unexpected success and a small report was broadcasted on TV. This is where I saw for the first time a synthesizer (Minimoog type if my memory is good and actually only a few seconds) and especially a kind of electronic drum (apparently handmade by the band), but of which came out percussive and metallic sounds that immediately captivated me. In addition, this repetitive music brought me a feeling of certainty and security that hypnotized me.

So I immediately went by bus down the Canebière where was, at the time, the ‘big’ record store from Marseille. I entered the store for the first time, and asked for the ‘Germans that are played on the radio’. They had it, I paid, and I rushed back home to listen to the record on my father’s record player once, twice… a hundred times! I still have this record that I keep as a kind of relic. Then it was Tangerine Dream, especially “Rubycon” and “Stratosfear” and finally a concert of Klaus Schulze related to the album “Mirage”. I do not remember the date, but, I think I was 13 years old or so. So, very young, and almost by accident I met this type of music, that I had no idea how it was made, as long as I did not see with my eyes this concert of Klaus Schulze, which took place in a cathedral. It was a complete hallucination. I had a cousin older than me, very into music, who offered me to go and see a concert of Klaus Schulze in Marseille. I had never been to a concert, I did not know what it was, and no idea who was Klaus Schulze then. The concert was held in the cathedral of Les Reformés at the top of the Canebière.

My parents dropped me there and went to the cinema, while we went to see the concert. And I went into a universe that I really did not know; I did not know what a modular looked like, for example… let alone a concert of junkies, because you had to see the wildlife that populated a concert of Klaus Schulze at that time, there was about a meter of smoke of canabis that covered the whole church, there are even people doing injections… it was still rather ‘particular’.

It was during this concert that I discovered, finally, what a synthesizer looked like -what I did not know, and that I decided to assign my first salary to it: I thought ‘the day you work, your first salary will be spent on the purchase of one of these machines’. I did not know how much it costs, or anything else, of course. Then I continued to listen a lot to this type of music, and then one day I had a first salary. I was 20 years old and I went for a synth… but it did not exist anymore. We were already entered a period the digital was making its appearance, we were at the beginning of digital, almost at the time of the appearance of the DX7 which would become the fashionable machine.

But I was not interested at all by a DX7, I wanted a Moog or a modular, which I had seen at Klaus Schulze’s concert. This is where I realized that it was not available anymore. So I did all the music stores in Marseille and the surrounding area, visiting their cellars and that’s how I started to build my collection, my ‘studio’, piece by piece, with synthesizers of collections that people no longer used, which nobody wanted. As a result, this machines often did not have a user manual, and for someone who did not know anything about it, without instructions for use, without knowing what a VCO or ADSR is… believe me, it took me quite some time to worked it out! That’s how it began.

Q: And so you set up Novocibirsk, but have you been involved with other projects and were you still in touch with the electronic underground scene?

Hervé: Absolutely not. I was never involved in one way or another in a group or linked to a scene… I spent my time experimenting in my apartment, without any other ambition.

Q: A lot of things have changed/evolved throughout the years; from the equipment (analogue towards digital) to the format (cassette and vinyl towards CD towards streaming) to recording techniques to the rise of social media etc. What do you think about all these evolutions? Pros and contras?

Hervé: I think that the technological evolution, both of the synthesizers and music diffusion, has increased tenfold -at least, the possibilities, but I do not have the feeling that the imagination in term of musical creation, the innovation in term of composition or experimentation has changed a lot.
The potentialities seem to me today much better than those I have known, but the imagination that could have accompanied these advances, I do not see it in the same proportions.

Q: How did the re-release of “Télévision 1945 Volume 1” happened and what’s your feeling about the final result –the songs having been re-arranged and re-mastered?

Hervé: These songs were absolutely not intended to be diffused and were only recorded for reasons of technical constraint to simply hear what I did.

But I met someone insane enough to be released in this kind of things, to whom I gave these cassettes, unsorted, in a plastic bag. He digitized them, sorted them, which gave names to the tracks and next followed a first confidential edition in CDr and cassette, very amateuristic way.

Then with this same person, and the creation of this new label (productionB) these pieces have been given an official release, CD, LP and streaming.

Q: I get the impression you were more focalized on the creation of sounds instead of writing a ‘classical’ song format (chorus – verse). What was it really all about and what can you say about the equipment you used?

Hervé: You’re absolutely right, the approach that was mine, was not to compose music, but to use electronic machinery to try to master it technically, to create sounds and sequences that I liked. And besides, the structure of the songs is systematically the same, it is a form of “Bolero”, with tracks (even if it is not really about tracks since at the time everything was live) which are layered on each other one by one. In fact, it’s simply because I increased the volumes of each synthesizer manually, and then when these volumes were almost where I wanted, I pressed keys to change the notes, mainly to keep the oscillators syntonized.

The objective was mainly associated with the production of sounds, the mixing of sounds, but not necessarily with the elaboration of a piece of music with a melodic structure, an organization in the time… I didn’t really think of it. In fact, these pieces are just technical tests.

Since these machines were relatively rare (and less expensive than today), I bought them when I found them. And I made new tracks, especially when I had a new synth, to test its abilities and make it communicate with the others. I did not feel any limitation, since I was always testing a new machine and networking with others, which was the second goal of my approach. I would say, it was both ‘tension’ and ‘trigger’. Things have been built over the constitution of the collection.

Q:  Are there some plans to re-release other ‘old’ Novocibirsk productions and do you’ve plans to release new material or getting back ‘into business’ again?

Hervé: Back to ‘business’, well, I’ve never really been into it, and it’s been a long time since I have unfortunately no time to control VCOs anymore… so I do not think so, no… even if I think that I would always have a great pleasure in playing with these machines.

I think I still kept a bag with several cassettes… it would have to be found somewhere in the cellar of my parents, but the most interesting things have certainly been digitized already. Of course, it’s the label that decides, and I think there’re plans for “Volume 2” and maybe another album. I’m already satisfied like that, but I will not oppose other releases, of course.  

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

Coming up is a brand new mega boxset by the true pioneers of ambient and electronic music, Tangerine Dream: “In Search of Hades: The Virgin Recordings 1973 – 1979”. The boxset holds 16 CDs and 2 Blu-Ray discs and can be ordered right now.

Content

8 of the 16 CDs and the 2 Blu-Rays hold previously unreleased audio and video content. The whole is completed with a 68-page hard-back book containing a new essay and unseen photographs. The sleeve notes were written by renowned Dutch writer and TD expert Wouter Bessels and furthermore include quotes from Edgar Froese and Steve Joliffe, plus contributions by Steven Wilson.

The albums “Phaedra”, “Rubycon”, “Ricochet”, “Stratosfear”, “Encore”, “Cyclone” and “Force Majeure” are all present in newly remastered stereo taken from the original first-generation master tapes. The 2 Blu-Ray discs feature new 5.1 surround sound versions of “Phaedra”, “Ricochet” and the full soundtrack to “Oedipus Tyrannus” – all mixed by musician/producer Steven Wilson. Also included on the Blu-Ray set is the surviving 35-minute footage of the BBC’s Tangerine Dream concert at Coventry Cathedral, and the previously unreleased full German television documentary “Signale aus der Schwäbischen Strasse”, which features Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann performing live, plus interviews with the band, John Peel and Richard Branson.

Further stereo audio content featured are full concerts at The Victoria Palace Theatre, London, The Rainbow Theatre, London and the Royal Albert Hall, London, plus an audio-only version of the BBC Coventry Cathedral concert. Last but not least are two CDs of stereo out-takes from the “Phaedra” sessions at The Manor Studios, Oxfordshire.

Complete tracklist

The complete mega setlist (which is enormous) can, be viewed here. You can order this mega set box right now.

Stream unreleased track + artwork

You can stream a first unreleased track below: “Act 2: Baroque”.

The artwork of 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!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Electro-ambient, cinematographic.

Background/Info: Hailing from The Netherlands, Lars Meijer (owner of Narrominded Records) strikes back with his Hunter Complex project. “Open Sea” is the third album of this project and the first one in six years. A few EP’s were also released in between albums.

Content: “Open Sea” is an instrumental album with a very strong soundtrack-appeal. This is pure electronic music, which has something retro/80s like, but still something more contemporary. I sometimes get the impression this sounds like a modern approach of some pioneers like Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and co.

+ + + : “Open Sea” appeals to lovers of electro-ambient and cinematographic productions. The songs are well-crafted, revealing beautiful synth passages. I especially like the 80s like element. The sonic spheres will make you forget your daily stress and awake in a mysterious, but relaxing universe.  

– – – : The sound formula is pretty similar, the tracks become a little less predictable after a while. I think it would have been interesting to hear a few (spoken) vocals now and then.

Conclusion: Hunter Complex is a modern ode to synth pioneers.

Best songs: “A Float For A Marker”, “Account Of The Moon”, “We Fought For America”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.huntercomplex.com / www.facebook.com/huntercomplex

Label: www.facebook.com/deathwaltzrecordingcompany

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

2019 will mark 25 years since the formation of Download, the avant-garde, post-industrial project featuring Skinny Puppy’s Cevin Key, and Vancouver fixture musician Phil Western.

“Unknown Room” is the project’s 11th studio album, recorded in Los Angeles over a several-year period, culminating in a recent two-month session in the Fall that Key describes as being “extremely intense.”

On “Unknown Room”, one hears some of the old Bites-era sampling techniques coming through, as well as a strong Tangerine Dream influence. Fans of second-wave Download, early Skinny Puppy, minimal techno, and off the wall zaniness from the 1970s and 1980s pioneers that mixed prog experiments with analog equipment will love what is here.

You can get this album in various vinyl versions via the band’s Bandcamp page.

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

Read the review of ‘People’.

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: Ambient.

Background/Info: Belgian solo-project Sensory++ Sensory Plus Plus) joined hands together with Wool-E-Discs to unleash its first official album, which is featured in the ‘Belgian NeuMusik’-series.

Content: “Art Of Sadness” takes you away, in a distant, but familiar sonic universe. You’ll feel like awakening somewhere in the late 70s – early 80s listening to the first electronic ambient experiments composed by young and visionary artists such as Klaus Schülze, Tangerine Dream, J.M. Jarre and co. Somewhat mysterious, but always evasive, the six tracks have this retro-feeling accentuated by extended wafting string parts.

+ + + : I like the purity of the composition, which has been achieved with great sound treatments and this familiar, but essential astral dimension. The songs have been meticulously and patiently built up, resulting in a beautiful artistic expression. I noticed one somewhat different cut (cf. “Just Breathe”) although driven by a solid ambient basis. I also have to say a word about the sound production, which is absolutely phenomenal. “Silent Tears” probably stands for the ultimate track of the album where I got mainly impressed by the deep vibrating sound treatments.

– – – : The sound formula is a familiar one so it all starts to become a little less predictable after a while. Another little point I want to mention is the front cover, which is less representative for the kind of music Sensory++ is dealing with. I know this is just a detail, but in times where CD-sales are going downwards I would have preferred to get a more ambient-related artwork.

Conclusion: Sensory++ hasn’t stolen its place among the ‘Belgian NeuMusik’-series. I can’t say it’s one of my favorite releases, but it definitely is one of the most beautiful productions.

Best songs: “Fading”, “Just Breathe”, “Turbulent Feelings”.

Rate: (7½).

Artist: www.b–wave.be / www.facebook.com/SensoryPlusPlus

Label: www.wool–e–shop.be / www.facebook.com/woolediscs

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 September 7 is the compilation “Auferstehung (Elektronische Musik aus Berlin 1983/1984)” by Lapre. Lapre is the duo consisting of electronic musician Rudolf Langer (Tyndall) and guitarist Peter Preuß who teamed up in 1983. Their output can best be described as a mix of repetitive sequencer patterns via synth pop all the way to atmospheric, hypnotic minor key expanses.

By 1984, Lapre had released two tapes and a 12-inch vinyl. This new compilation presents the most compelling tracks from these releases which are all appearing on CD for the very first time.

Below is a preview of the compilation:

Rudolf Langer began his musical career as one half of Tyndall. The duo released four albums on Sky Records between 1979 and 1983 (all recently reissued on Bureau B). By the time the two musicians reached the fourth album, they were barely on speaking terms, so each recorded one side of the LP on his own.

Preuß, a guitarist, then hooked up with Langer and they produced two tapes over the next two years (“Tedan” in 1983 and “Flokati” in 1984), each numbering 30-50 copies, intended for sale at concerts. A 12-inch single on their own label (“Oeso” followed later in 1984.

Although guitar features on every track, Lapre’s early recordings relate to the Berlin School, with their music, specifically their use of synthesizers, echoing the tradition of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze et al.

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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