Metropolis Records has reissued five titles from its catalogue on limited edition coloured vinyl, among them two VNV Nation albums, The Tear Garden‘s “The Brown Acid Caveat” and two 16Volt records.

The VNV Nation pressings cover two different periods of the Irish-German electronic group’s catalogue. “Noire”, originally released in 2018, is the band’s 10th album, a release built around dark-and-light contrasts, melodic dance beats and post-classical soundtrack pieces. Its 2023 follow-up, “Electric Sun”, arrives in the same reissue wave. Both are pressed on clear 2xLP vinyl. Metropolis Records holds North American rights to VNV Nation’s catalogue, and the reissues are being sold through the label for that territory.

“The Brown Acid Caveat” gets a tangerine vinyl pressing timed to the first North American tour by The Tear Garden, the occasional side project of cEvin Key (Skinny Puppy) and Edward Ka-Spel (The Legendary Pink Dots). The album was originally released in 2017 as the duo’s eighth full-length under that name and marked 30 years of the pair’s collaboration.

The two 16Volt reissues, “Skin” (1994) and “LetDownCrush” (1996), were both produced by band founder Eric Powell alongside Keith Auerbach and Jeff Newell, who have also worked with Ministry and Angels & Airwaves. “Skin” was the band’s sophomore album; “LetDownCrush” followed two years later. The new pressings are on red and yellow vinyl respectively.

All five titles are available now through Metropolis Records and its retail partners.

VNV Nation’s reissue history with Metropolis

VNV Nation has been on Side-Line’s radar for years, most recently with a look back at their album “Automatic” on its anniversary. The band, led by Ronan Harris, has built its catalogue steadily since the 1990s, and Metropolis Records has periodically returned to that catalogue for vinyl reissues as demand for physical formats has grown.

16Volt has had a similarly active relationship with the label in 2026: Metropolis released a remastered edition of the band’s debut album, “Wisdom”, and issued the “NegativeOnArrivals” album on vinyl, following an earlier CD-only release. The “Skin” and “LetDownCrush” vinyl pressings extend that reissue campaign further back into Eric Powell’s catalogue.

About VNV Nation

VNV Nation was founded by Ronan Harris in Leeds, England, in 1990, initially as a solo electronic project before relocating to Ireland. Mark Jackson joined as live drummer, and the band went on to release a long run of albums on Metropolis Records and Anachron Sound, including “Empires” (1999), “Futureperfect” (2006) and “Automatic” (2011), building a following across the electronic, EBM and futurepop scenes. “Noire”, released in 2018 as the band’s 10th studio album, combined the group’s melodic dance material with more cinematic, orchestral passages. “Electric Sun” followed in 2023, drawing on both vintage and modern analog synthesizers. The Metropolis vinyl reissues of both albums bring that catalogue back into physical circulation alongside new pressings for labelmates The Tear Garden and 16Volt.

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

VNV Nation, the British-Irish futurepop and EBM project led by Ronan Harris, released “Automatic” on 16 September 2011 through Anachron Sounds. The album turns 15 this year. Harris recorded it at the band’s own studio between May and August 2011, wrote the words and music, produced it, and made the artwork.

It was the eighth VNV Nation studio album, issued in Europe as a CD digipak, with the North American physical CD following on 25 October 2011. In its first week it entered the German Media Control chart at number 8, the duo’s first top ten placing there, and stayed three weeks. It also reached number 66 in Austria, number 77 in Switzerland and number 50 in Sweden, and spent four weeks at number 1 on the Deutsche Alternative Charts.

VNV Nation’s ‘Automatic’ tracklist and credits

The record runs ten tracks: “On-Air”, “Space & Time”, “Resolution”, “Control”, “Goodbye 20th Century”, “Streamline”, “Gratitude”, “Nova”, “Photon” and “Radio”. “Control” went out as a free download ahead of the album without being issued as a single, and “Nova” picked up German radio airplay.

VNV Nation at the time were Harris and Mark Jackson. André Winter handled additional mix production and mixed the album with Harris, and Miles Showell mastered it at Metropolis Mastering in London. Ben Wolf shot the photography. Copies sold on the road during the Automatic tour in 2011 were signed and hand-numbered by the band.

The album stayed in the live set long after that. Across December 2016 and late 2017 the duo ran the Automatic Empire tour, playing “Automatic” and “Empires” almost in full, leaving out only “Photon” from the former and “Firstlight” from the latter. A double vinyl edition followed in clear and black pressings, reported here in VNV Nation reissues ‘Automatic’ on double vinyl (clear/transparent + black).

About VNV Nation

Ronan Harris grew up in Dublin, where radio introduced him to Kraftwerk, DAF and The Human League. He joined a band called Die Fabrik in 1983, moved to London in 1989 and began writing under the name Nation, then relocated to Toronto in 1990. In 1994 he revived the project as VNV Nation, taking the initials from his motto “Victory Not Vengeance”.

The first release, “Advance and Follow”, appeared in 1995. Harris has described it as a set of demos rather than a finished album, and a 2001 reissue, “Advance and Follow 2.0”, added re-recorded vocals and five bonus tracks, two of them Front 242 covers. “Praise the Fallen” followed in 1998. Through the same period Harris wrote for Side-Line and served as the magazine’s webmaster until 1999.

“Empires”, released in 1999, spent seven weeks at number 1 on the Deutsche Alternative Charts. “Futureperfect” arrived in 2002, built entirely with software synthesizers, and around that point Harris and Apoptygma Berzerk‘s Stephan Groth were credited with coining the term futurepop. Mark Jackson, the band’s live drummer since the mid-1990s, was by then the second half of the studio line-up. “Matter + Form” came in 2005 and topped the DAC albums chart, and “Judgement” followed on 4 April 2007, written and recorded in the band’s own room inside the Soundfactory Studios complex in Hamburg.

The box set “Reformation 1” reached Europe on 24 April 2009, which pushed the next album back. Harris told Side-Line the title referred to the 3 things that people desire and which can make you or destroy you, and “Of Faith, Power and Glory” reached Europe on 19 June 2009. “Automatic” followed in 2011 and “Transnational” in 2013. The orchestral collection “Resonance: Music For Orchestra Vol. 1” was recorded at the Babelsberg Studios outside Berlin in February 2015 and released that 15 May, reaching number 7 on the official German album chart.

Jackson’s departure in November 2017 was reported in Exclusive : Mark Jackson leaves VNV Nation. Read full statement., with the band’s statement saying he had left to pursue other paths in life. Harris continued alone. “Noire” arrived in 2018, covered in VNV Nation releases new album ‘Noire’ – Out now, on Anachron outside North America and on Metropolis Records in the United States, and it carried the project’s first official music video, reported in VNV Nation debuts official video for ‘When is the future’. “Electric Sun” followed on 28 April 2023, covered in VNV Nation has a new album out, ‘Electric Sun’, 5 years after previous studio album ‘Noire’, and Harris talked through that record in the Side-Line piece VNV Nation interview: ‘Life goes on, the world goes on’. North American dates with Traitrs ran into 2024, announced in VNV Nation launches extra North American tour dates with Traitrs. “Construct” arrived on 9 May 2025.

Fifteen years on, “Automatic” sits in the middle of that run as the record that gave VNV Nation their first German top ten 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

VNV Nation has postponed four European festival shows to 2027 and cancelled its Unity Festival dates in Oberhausen and Berlin, the band announced on 14 July 2026. Frontman Ronan Harris had a procedure to fix a problem causing severe back pain and now needs time to recover and undergo physiotherapy.

The Castle Party show in Bolków, the Amphi Festival appearance in Cologne, the Unter dem Himmel festival in Thale and the Klaffenbach open-air are all postponed to 2027. New Thale dates are confirmed for 31 July and 1 August 2027, with Klangstabil and Ductape added to that bill. The Unity Festival dates in Oberhausen and Berlin are cancelled outright, as assembling that lineup is not possible for the foreseeable future due to other commitments among the participating bands. VNV Nation‘s December shows in Hamburg and Chemnitz are not affected, and no dates after October 2026 are impacted.

Ronan Harris on the surgery and recovery

Harris describes dealing with severe back pain intermittently for over a year before its cause was identified. “After a string of specialists, theories and scans over the last 12 months, the very elusive cause was only discovered very recently and I had to have an operation last week to fix the problem,” he stated, adding that waiting risked being in agony onstage and causing further damage. His specialist has told him recovery will take several weeks, running alongside four months of physiotherapy. “I also want to finish an album that’s been interrupted too many times. I can focus on a goal of coming out of this better than before,” Harris added.

The back procedure follows a separate health issue Harris disclosed in December 2025, when he underwent vascular surgery that later led VNV Nation to postpone its April-May 2026 North American tour dates for follow-up tests. That postponement did not affect the band’s European shows at the time.

About VNV Nation

VNV Nation is the electronic project of Ronan Harris, formed in 1990 in Ireland before relocating to Hamburg, Germany, where the band has been based for years. Harris writes and produces the music, joined on stage by drummer Mark Jackson since the mid-1990s. The band’s sound spans futurepop, EBM and electronic body music, built on Harris’s synth compositions and vocals.

VNV Nation released the studio album “Electric Sun” in 2023, its first full-length in five years following 2018’s “Noire,” preceded by the single “Before the Rain.” The band has toured extensively across Europe and North America in the years since, including extra North American dates in 2024. Side-Line has covered the band’s album and tour announcements, as well as its December 2025 vascular surgery and the resulting postponement of its spring 2026 North American tour. The band’s live schedule now resumes with previously unaffected December 2026 shows in Hamburg and Chemnitz, while the postponed festival dates and the cancelled Unity Festival shows mark the immediate impact of Harris’s back surgery.

Britta Pirkko

For almost 15 years I’ve been writing about music, interviewing artists and reviewing releases for Peek-A-Boo Magazine. Recently, I also launched my own WordPress website, where I continue to share interviews, reviews and news from the underground scene. The darker side of music has been part of my life for more than 30 years, with a passion for everything from ’80s synthpop and New Wave to EBM, Futurepop and dark electronic music in general. Also Metal and Rock is part of my world. Away from the scene, I work in a public library, where books are part of my everyday life. I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction, especially books on politics, religion, health and travel. I’m also a fan of thrillers and horror films. When I’m not listening to music or reading, you’ll usually find me exploring nature, enjoying a good sauna, experimenting with vegan cooking, or travelling to my second home, Finland. I’ve always believed the underground has the best stories. My job is simply to help tell them

The iconic Belgian dark electro/future pop act Aiboforcen recently returned with their 7th studio album, “Between Noise & Silence”. Led by Benoit Blanchart and featuring the enigmatic Patrice Synthea (REGENERATOR), this album merges melancholic dark synth/EBM anthems with thrilling collaborations! Notable appearances include EBM/industrial legends like Patrick Codenys of FRONT 242, POUPPEE FABRIKK & IMPLANT (in a duet), and NUMB. The album also features outstanding female vocalists from the pop wave scene, such as Mari Kattman (HELIX), Noemi Aurora (HELALYN FLOWERS), Emke (BLACK NAIL CABARET), and SORROW STORIES… Without forgetting the splendid collaboration with Jan Dieckmann of NORDERNEY who sings on several songs and strongly contributes to crafting the album’s magic through moving lyrics, catchy dark pop melodies, and upbeat EBM sequences that often evoke the melodic and emotional depth of VNV NATION!  Benoit gave us more insights on his new album… 

You can order the new album now on Bandcamp as download and on 2CD via the Alfa Matrix webstore. Note that the 3CD version was sold out immediately.

S. “Between Noise & Silence” is your 7th studio album and features an impressive 22 tracks. Can you share the journey of creating such a substantial body of work, and what inspired the album’s title?

B. I started working slowly on what would become this new album during the covid period.  Like many bands, those very special times allowed me to concentrate and spend much mor time in the studio creating new sequences and sounds.  After a few months, what was started with no clear objective became to take shape and I started gathering several demo tracks thinking I could use them for an EP or album.  It was a very creative period and also (hopefully for me) the opportunity to learn/improve a bit more the mixing and production side of the aïboforcen sound…  I thus also started thinking about the right vocalist for each track.  The title track “between noise & silence” is actually a sentence coming from a demo track that Tina from SORROW STORIES was working on for me…  it became the title for the track but also for the album.  It’s a bit of a special track (a bit more complex) that I really wanted to be on the album but couldn’t find the right vocalist for it…   Then Tina did a test and she nailed it down!! 😊  It also has a double meaning because since I’m not considering myself as a musician what I create in a studio probably lies in the grey area between noise and silence! 😉

S. On this album it seems that Patrice Synthea and Jan D. play a key role as vocalists? Tell us more about these collaborations?

B. Well, Patrice (REGENERATOR) has been the main vocalist with aïboforcen for quite a long time now and she helped creating some kind of a trademark for us.  But I’m always interested in working for certain tracks with other vocalists, either male or female.  Of course it can break a bit the cohesion of the album but for me it’s more like trying to avoid the monotony of the album. I see/hear the different voices as new instruments I can play with, and it can totally change the result of the tracks.  I also appreciate the fact that I can offer a broader pallet of sounds and emotions. I was introduced to Jan while working on a remix for our label mates of ELEKTROSTAUB.  I knew a bit of his project NORDERNEY that I also appreciated a lot and I thought he would be the right vocalist for a track I was working on at the time.  I sent him a demo and after a few days he came up with something really brilliant for me. I was so pleased with the result that I asked him to do a second track and the result turned out to be even better…  He has such an emotional voice that it really adds another dimension to the song and brings them to a next level.  After a while we started swapping ideas but also sequences and sounds and he eventually became more and more involved in the whole process.  He helped me a lot giving advises and also programmed several synth lines, what was totally new and unusual for me… it was surprising, challenging and it contributed in creating a more mature and developed sound.  In the end he helped for a great bunch of the album in various forms…  Therefore the album is also much more balanced between male and female vocals.  He also made a duet with Patrice on the track “everything” and I’m pretty sure that it’s something we should try again in the future…

S. The album indeed boasts collaborations with a variety of other artists too, from EBM/industrial legends to outstanding female vocalists. How did these collaborations come about, and what unique contributions did each guest artist bring to the album specifically?  

B. As I said, when a demo is finished I try to think about what would be the right vocalist and what it would add to the sound of it.  Of course there are some people/singer I would dream of having on the album but sometimes I have to stick to reality.  My choice is influenced by the music I listen to, people I met through remixing, bands I know and so on… I’ve been blessed in the past working with great artists such as Jean-Luc from FRONT 242 and this album also gathers some legend from the scene such as Henrikk from POUPPEE FABRIKK or yet Don Gordon from NUMB who both helped me deliver the most aggressive cuts from the album.  Tina from SORROW STORIES was also really involved in the process, contributing to several tracks that we can find both on the EP and the album but also on the special 8cm cd available with the limited edition.  I had met her through a remix I had done for PSY’AVIAH actually and I had been mesmerized by her rather delicate and otherworldly vocals. She is also a very passionate and nice person, and meeting and exchanging  with people is another aspect of collaborating on tracks.  Then there is also Noemi Aurora who helped us with her very characteristic and powerful voice and it helped adding the extra touch to “cycle of life” and “heaven knows” you can find on the album.  It was a pleasure working with her and she’s a professional and also involved and more than passionate with music…  Also doing a track with Emese from BLACK NAIL CABARET was really an honor for me.  She has one of the most distinctive voice from the scene at the moment and the result is a very captivating cut with upbeat sequences.  I really hope listeners will like this track as much as I do…

Mari Kattman also lends her voice on the opening track as well as on a remix of “In My Arms” (a track from the previous album) and she also has a very distinctive and beautiful voice. Last but not least I also worked with Len from Implant since he is a long time friend of us and I was glad to have him back in one form or another.  With the lyrics of the track he did evoke, it’s like a celebration of a long-time relationship between us (including also Seba, Bernard, Stephan) and how it was when we started this all as students (the magazine, the label, the bands, the gigs).

S. Your sound is often compared to iconic acts like VNV NATION, FRONT 242 or yet COVENANT. How do you approach honoring these influences while still maintaining your own distinct identity as AIBOFORCEN? “Between Noise & Silence” seamlessly weaves between oppressive industrial assaults and catchy synth-pop tunes. Can you discuss the creative process behind balancing these contrasting elements to create a cohesive listening experience?

B. Well, it’s sure that I’ve been listening to those bands a lot (one of my first vinyl was 242’s politics of pressure, along with Kraftwerk radioactivity’s 7”) but I am also influenced by other acts from inside and outside the scene.  I listen to a lot of music from the EBM but also to darkwave, gothic, experimental, industrial or yet metal…  All this is ingested and some parts/influences appear here and there in my music.  Also I hope that with time I manage to create a bit of my own distinctive sound and style. 

As far as VNV NATION is concerned, I have to admit that Ronan has a deep sense for great melodies and a very emotional voice and is an example of what soulful music is. So if we sound a bit like this it’s a good point for us! 😊  Remember he remixed one of our track at our respective very beginning!  But I always try to balance catchier tracks/tunes with a rougher sound and more complex structures or experimentations.  For me it’s kind of logical and it can create a cohesion because some sounds, fx, way of treating things are the same and reflects the different side of one same “machine”.  Also  I tend to focus on recording an album with highs and lows rather than a succession of single tracks…  so this new album (especially the first disc) needs to be explored and listened as a whole, with the tracks kind of merging one into another.  I spent hours / days / months working on sometimes very little details of mixing, samples, eq’s to find the best result I could.  I like it when it takes several listening to really get all the details included in the tracks and hopefully surprise the listeners…

S. One of the tracks on the album is a cover of DEATH IN JUNE’s “Break The Black Ice.” What drew you to reinterpret this particular song, and how did you make it your own while staying true to the original?

B. We’ve always tried to include at least one cover song on any of our releases, either for fun or to show where our roots are…  I was introduced to DEATH IN JUNE’s music more than thirty years ago and the album “The World That Summer” from 1986 has always been a favorite of mine.  “Break the black ice” was an obvious choice because it is a rather simple, dark but catchy song, kind of desperate also and I really liked the version sung by Rose McDowall which is a fragile and delicate dark cut.  I thought that Patrice could do it as well and recorded a demo.  The first version was really slower and darker than the one on the album. We will feature it on a compilation from our label later this year actually.  The final version has a stronger beat and an aggressive lead sound while the original one is softer.  Both Patrice and I liked the version very much and what was a the beginning more like a “b-side” became one of the main important track from the album…  I hope fans of DEATH IN JUNE and AIBOFORCEN will be pleased by this tribute…  the structure is rather close to the original version from DEATH IN JUNE but of course it’s 100% electronics and there are some distortions here and there… 😊

S. The album is described as a high-tension dark elektro masterpiece. How did you approach crafting the sound production to achieve this level of intensity and maturity?

B. I always spend a long time editing, changing, mixing, adding details and I hope it can be reflected in the overall sound of the album.  I never intend to choose the easiest way while producing the music and I hope I raised the level a bit more on this new release.  I spent much more time on the vocals (cutting, eq’s , volumes, …) than on any other previous releases; there are lot of movie samples (hidden or not), lots of different synths and fx…  I can sometimes leave a track for one month and then come back with new ideas and Jan also helped me developing as much as possible this new sound which is probably more focused than before.  It still goes into any directions but with a common thread and overall atmosphere throughout the numerous tracks.  It was exhausting (especially at the end) but it was worth (at least personally) and I really hope our fans will like it… 

S. How important is the visual aspect of your music, and what role does it play in enhancing the overall experience for listeners?

B. It is important, not as much as the music, but it sets the tone for the whole album.  We always tried to have eye-catching sleeve or at least mysterious ones that will give the envy to enter into the universe of aïboforcen…  When I was a kid, I used to go to a place where you could rent vinyls and I would sometimes rent releases just because the sleeve would attract me in a way or another.  On this release we obviously used AI to create the graphics but it was intended and assumed. It was our easiest way to express and get the closest to the images we had in mind while creating the music.  And since our music relies on techniques, processors, synthetic soundscapes, it makes sense…

S. Lastly, the first 50 orders from the official Alfa Matrix e-shop received a signed version with an exclusive bonus mini-CD. Can you tell us more about the significance of this bonus content and what fans can expect from these exclusive tracks?

B. When the album was completed and sent to the mastering, I noticed that there were a few tracks left without vocals that couldn’t make it on the album but were a good insight of what it’s like being in the studio and working on new tracks.  It is more like demo’s but also I had the feeling that they could stand on their own and give another view on our music.  The first of those 4 tracks is called “eliza effect” and is a brand new one that maybe will give some infos of how the future sound of aïboforcen will be (or not).  The track “pulsions” (with vocals by Tina from SORROW STORIES) arrived too late in the process of the album but was good enough as well. In the end it gives the opportunity to the die-hard fans to have some extra tracks (unreleased) and have a bit more “intimacy” with 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

Glis, the electronic music project founded by Shaun Frandsen in 2001, made an unexpected triumphant comeback with the release of the “Gateway To Oblivion” album, a manifestation of the artist’s DNA, blending the raw energy of industrial music with the infectious melodies of future pop. The new album was produced by Sebastian Komor and also features guest vocals by his good old friend AYRIA, and is a strong candidate to be the best future pop album of the year… We did not resist call Seattle for a chat with Shaun…

The album is out now as download and streaming, including from Bandcamp, and on CD, available via the Alfa Matrix webstore.

SL: “Gateway To Oblivion” marks your unexpected return after many years. What motivated you to revive GLIS, and what themes or messages did you want to convey with this new album?

S. It’s partly the 20-25 year anniversary syndrome. I was feeling like I should do something to commemorate the passing of time. The main spark was last summer during a family vacation in Mexico. I was drinking margaritas and talking to my brother-in-law (who’s also a musician in the folk rock scene) about how music is the language of the cosmos and how important it is to create new things. When I returned home I finished “Sunrise v3.0” and then started working on brand new music.

SL:  The album blends industrial music with future pop, showcasing your versatility as a producer, vocalist, songwriter, and instrumentalist. Can you describe your creative process in developing such a diverse and spontaneous sound?

S. I feel like GLIS has always been a blend of different electronic sub-genres. Some albums more than others, but on this one I wanted to kind of showcase the overall aesthetic of the sound throughout the years. I feel you can get a reflection of each of the previous albums on this new album.

SL: Tracks like “Into the Flames” nod to influences such as NIN and DEPECHE MODE. How did these influences shape the mood and direction of “Gateway To Oblivion”?

S. Those are two bands that have been huge influences on me throughout the years (and both still making great music to this day). “Into the Flames” is a kind of intro track that I imagined would also be the intro to the live gig as well. Yes, we want to play live again too! I think you can definitely hear both NIN and DM influences in this track. A bit of “Songs of Faith and Devotion” and “The Fragile”…

SL: Songs like “Ascension” and “Mexico” evoke a straight-up early 2000s synth pop vibe. How do you balance nostalgic elements with contemporary sounds to create something fresh and relevant?

S. Well, I don’t tend hide my influences. “Ascension” is a straight up ode to ICON OF COIL. I met them in 2001 while supporting them in Seattle during their tour with VNV NATION. That’s when I first met Sebastian who helped produce this album and Andy who I worked with a lot in COMBICHRIST. Mexico” is simply supposed to invoke the party vacation vibe in Puerto Vallarta (Mexico). That’s where I decided I was going to bring back GLIS again. Sebastian Komor had a heavy hand in the production of that track. My original demo was more DEPECHE MODE sounding. He made it a lot groovier.

SL: “Cut Away the Demons” and “Damaged” dive into oppressive industrial noise and powerful EBM. What inspired these tracks, and how do they fit into the overall narrative of the album?

G. “Cut Away the Demons” is supposed to be a track that could have been on the “Nemesis” album. Its lyrics and cadence are inspired by Jean-Luc De Meyer’s vocal contribution to that album. It’s about someone who’s overcome by the darkness of addiction and their resolve to conquer it. “Damaged” is a kind of protest track and a musical nod to late 90’s electro-industrial bands such as :WUMPSCUT: and LEATHER STRIP. Two bands I listened to a lot back in the late 90s.

SL: The album features a unique guest appearance by Jennifer Parkin of AYRIA on “Dream Chaser.” How did this collaboration come about, and what was it like working together again?

G. Jenn and I have always kept in touch throughout the years after I produced her first album. We had an amazing time touring together. We even brought her along when I was in COMBICHRIST. We’ve always tried to catch up when she came to town with AYRIA. Last time she was here (in Seattle) in October I told her I was making new music and she said she would love to collaborate again. It was like old times. A full circle moment as she contributed guest vocals on one of my first releases in 2003, which turned into the first AYRIA album soon after.

SL: Like you mentioned it, Sebastian Komor played a pivotal role in shaping the album’s sound. How did his involvement influence the final production, and what elements did he bring to the table?

S. Sebastian went above and beyond what I thought was going to happen when I gave him my original versions of the tracks. He created sounds that we’re begging to evolve from the music. He added a lot of beat elements as well as melodic harmonies. I can’t tell you how happy I am with his work on this album. He took a lot of my tracks and completely boosted their sound quality. He’s a great producer.

SL: “Gateway To Oblivion” tackles themes around the ascension of mankind and the challenges posed by technology. Can you elaborate on these themes and how they reflect both personal and societal struggles?

S. I mean we can all see it happening before us each day. This merging of technologies with everyday life. We’ve basically become part machine by always having smartphones with us everywhere we go. And with the recent emergence of A.I. we’re facing all new challenges and problems as musicians. We’re at the point where we can choose to embrace it all or find some reason to hold back. Will we soon have to validate the fact that we’re human? We seem to be at another turning point in our existence and that’s the overall theme of “Gateway to Oblivion.” It’s a theme commonly addressed on the Industrial music genre, but more than ever it seems these days. We’re moving close to big changes. Are they all for the greater good? We’ll take a dive in and see.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

www.side-line.com

The Greek dark electro / post-punk duo Midnight Poetry (John Spanos & Cleopatra Kaido) has just released its debut single, “Black Hole”. “Black Hole” is the first single (and video) taken from the band’s debut album, to be released later in 2024.

Midnight Poetry say this about “Black Hole”: “This song encapsulates the thoughts and emotions awakened in our memory after enduring a challenging situation from the past, which we relive in the present. This could stem from a separation, loss of a loved one, rejection, or other painful experiences. Such events are inescapable, compelling us to engage in a personal struggle to stay in control and avoid being consumed by the abyss that threatens our very being. The lyrics liken loneliness to a dead desert, where the soul, floating and dancing with a ghost, seeks to rediscover its essence.”

Watch the Official video for “Black Hole” below.

About Midnight Poetry

Midnight Poetry is the new project of Cleopatra Kaido and John Spanos offering a mix of dark, electronic compositions with elements of melodic post-punk and also industrial pop. Musically the duo is influenced by bands such as VNV Nation, Diary of Dreams, New Order, Clan of Xymox and so on.

Cleopatra Kaido has previously released two albums; “Artificial Galaxy” (2013) with the post-punk act Drama Queen, and “System Amomaly” (2020) with the dark electro act Meat Injection.

John Spanos has already released 5 albums and appeared in compilations from the goa/psychedelic trance scene, with Radical Distortion as well as his solo project as John Spanos offering a mix of ambient / chill out/ future garage.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Metropolis Records recording act VNV Nation continues its North American Tour in support of their album “Electric Sun”. The tour commences in Tampa, FL on March 29th and concludes in Las Vegas, NV on April 27th.

Fellow label artists Traitrs will be opening at all 22 shows. Traitrs made their Metropolis debut in 2023 with “Horses In The Abattoir / The Sick, Tired And Ill”, which was a reissued merger of the “Horses” album and an EP made available on vinyl and CD.

VNV Nation’s “Electric Sun”, was released on a very limited edition 2 LP clear vinyl edition along with a 16-page booklet digipack CD and on all digital and streaming platforms.

Vnv Nation tourdates with Traitrs

• Friday March 29, 2024 – Tampa, FL – The Orpheum
• Saturday March 30, 2024 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
• Sunday March 31, 2024 – Durham, SC – Motorco Music Hall
• Monday April 1, 2024 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore
• Wednesday April 3, 2024 – Philadelphia, PA – TLA
• Thursday April 4, 2024 – Boston, MA – Royale
• Saturday April 6, 2024 – New York, NY – Irving Plaza
• Sunday April 7, 2024 – Montreal, CA – La Tulipe
• Tuesday April 9, 2024 – Toronto, CA – The Danforth Music Hall
• Wednesday April 10, 2024 – Millvale, PA
• Friday April 12, 2024 – Cleveland, OH
• Saturday April 13, 2024 – Indianapolis, IN
• Sunday April 14, 2024 – Madison, WI
• Tuesday April 16, 2024 – Omaha, NE
• Thursday April 18, 2024 – Denver, CO
• Friday April 19, 2024 – Estes Park, CO
• Tuesday April 20, 2024 – Estes Park, CO
• Wednesday April 21, 2024 – Salt Lake City, UT
• Friday April 23, 2024 – Santa Cruz, CA
• Saturday April 24, 2024 – San Diego, CA
• Sunday April 25, 2024 – Santa Ana, CA
• Tuesday April 27, 2024 – Los Vegas, NV

For more on VNV Nation, see Porta Nigra Festival 2024: Front 242, VNV Nation, Kosheen, … on Side-Line.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

The Porta Nigra Festival 2024 is scheduled at the Stadsfeestzaal Aarschot on the 1st and 2nd of March. This event features quite a varied lineup of electronic and industrial music acts.

First Day – 1 March 2024: The festival begins with Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, The Juggernauts, and Mirexxx. An afterparty follows, hosted by DJ Borg, with DJ sets by The Black Widow between performances.

Second Day – 2 March 2024: The lineup includes VNV Nation, Kosheen, The Arch, and The Obscure, with an afterparty by DJ Wildhoney. The Black Widow provides music between the day’s performances.

Entrance to the afterparties is included with each festival ticket.

Tickets for the event are available for purchase, offering access to both days of performances.

For more on VNV Nation, see VNV Nation launches extra North American tour dates with Traitrs on Side-Line.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Photo by Bobby Talamine) Hot on the heels of the recent single “Let Go”, taken from the forthcoming album of the same name, KMFDM now release “Airhead”.

The accompanying video for “Airhead” has been made by 210 Media and is a sentimental joyride that takes us on a trip down memory lane through the eyes of a child and from a bygone era of American life.

“Let Go” is the band’s 23rd studio album and includes the core lineup of Sascha’“Käpt’n K’ Konietzko, Lucia Cifarelli, Andy Selway and Andee Blacksugar. Lyrically the album addresses the social, political, and cultural ills of a world in perpetual turmoil. “Never let them know your next move”, says Käpt’N K, explaining you “to let go of precept and pretense, to hold on tight, leave your worries behind, and get ready to rock!”

The release was mixed and mastered by Benjamin Lawrenz (VNV Nation, Deep Purple, Saga, Mono Inc., Lord of the Lost), at Chameleon Recording Studios in Hamburg and again holds Aidan ‘BRUTE’ Hughes’ distinctive cover artwork.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Photo by Bobby Talamine) KMFDM have a new single out via Metropolis Records, “Let Go”. “Let Go” is also the title track of the new KMFDM 11-track album which will be out on February 2nd on CD and vinyl, plus download and streaming.

“Let Go” is the band’s 23rd studio album and includes the core lineup of Sascha’“Käpt’n K’ Konietzko, Lucia Cifarelli, Andy Selway and Andee Blacksugar. Lyrically the album addresses the social, political, and cultural ills of a world in perpetual turmoil. “Never let them know your next move”, says Käpt’N K, explaining you “to let go of precept and pretense, to hold on tight, leave your worries behind, and get ready to rock!”

The release was mixed and mastered by Benjamin Lawrenz (VNV Nation, Deep Purple, Saga, Mono Inc., Lord of the Lost), at Chameleon Recording Studios in Hamburg and again holds Aidan ‘BRUTE’ Hughes’ distinctive cover artwork.

The new single is available now from all music platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. Following this, they embark on a month-long US tour, for which tickets are already available for pre-order.

Here’s the video for the new single. Read the review of ‘Let Go’.

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

Referring to the events that unfolded globally, 2023 has again been a bloody, terrible year. Music continues to be a true therapy for soothing pain and suffering, though it seems to have a diminishing impact on the ongoing horror. Therefore, I’m once again wrapping up the year with a personal selection of my very own ‘best of’ albums.

Throughout the year, over 700 productions were selected, and 450 reviews were conducted. Some productions were declined because the style of music didn’t fit, others weren’t reviewed for not being ‘good enough’, while a final portion of reviews will be postponed to early 2024. I am immensely grateful to all the labels, bands, and promoters for considering my work, and I look forward to collaborating again in 2024.

I extend my deepest gratitude and thanks to Rich Bova (NEIKKA RPM), who has been reading, correcting, and improving the reviews for many years. Without Rich, these reviews would not exist. I also want to thank Bernard Van Isacker, chief editor of Side-Line Music Magazine, for our ongoing, successful collaboration. Last but not least, I thank my lovely wife, Katja, for giving me the time and freedom to pursue my passion.

However…

Looking ahead to 2024, I’ve been scaling back my activities for a few years and plan to reduce them further. Having started with my first reviews and interviews back in 1991, I feel the end drawing near. My aim is to reach 2025, but nothing is certain. I’ve grown a bit tired and disillusioned with how things are evolving.

That’s why I want to express a big ‘F*** you’ to so-called ‘artists’ and label owners who fail to realize or appreciate the work I do in creating reviews and preparing interviews to spotlight them. Guys, I do this for free and in my free time! The attitude and lack of respect shown by some – fortunately a very few – is very, very sad. But, I’m afraid it reflects the world we live in. Behind a genius artist doesn’t always stand a great person. It’s odd realizing that the ‘biggest’ and long-established artists in this scene are often the most accessible.

Writing reviews remains highly subjective and a source of discussion. Remember, it’s always the reviewer’s perception. I assure you, I always strive to substantiate my reviews as best as possible. A review is subjective but must be honest!

Like every year, I’ve selected the best albums of the year 2023. This ‘TOP 25’ encompasses various styles like EBM, Dark-Electro, IDM, Synth-Pop, Ethereal, Dark-Ambient, Industrial, Ritual, Cinematic, Gothic, Post-Punk, Cold/Dark-Wave, Dark-Techno, and a few related genres. It’s always an exciting yet challenging task.

This ‘TOP 25’ is based on the promotional material I received, excluding compilations, ‘best of’ productions, EPs, and singles. So, here’s my ‘TOP 25’ from 2023, and don’t forget to share it with your friends…

Stéphane Froidcoeur (for Inferno Sound Diaries/Side-Line Reviews)

Top 25 albums of the year 2023

1. CERULEAN VEINS “Black” Cold Transmission Music
2. LIEBKNECHT “Fabrikat” Ant-Zen
3. FRONTIER GUARDS “Colony” Aliens Production
4. SOPOR AETERNUS & THE ENSEMBLE OF SHADOWS “Alone At Sam’s – An Evening With…” Apocalyptic Vision / Trisol
5. WAVESHARD “Waveshard” Corvus Records
6. THE EMPATH “Black Hole” Audiophob
7. VNV NATION “Electric Sun” Metropolis Records
8. EFF DST “Incarnate” Ant-Zen
9. ENZO KREFT “XL” Enzo Kreft
10. DELEYAMAN “The Sudbury Inn” TTO Records
11. GIRLS UNDER GLASS “Backdraft” Dependent Records
12. ALIEN VAMPIRES “Return Me To Hell” Alfa Matrix
13. SUN’S SPECTRUM “The Silence After The Fall” Cold Transmission Music
14. DANIEL MYER “Hingab” Sonic Groove
15. SHROUDS “Shrouds” Hands
16. DIARY OF DREAMS “Melancholin” Accession Records
17. MONO INC “Ravenblack” NoCut / SPV
18. ROME “Gates Of Europe” Trisol
19. OHNE NOMEN “The S-Witch” Cold Transmission Music
20. THE SEVEN WHORES OF THE APOCALYPSE “All Through The Waste” Scanner / Dark Dimensions
21. SPANKTHENUN “The Bunker Tapes Vol.3” SpankTheNun
22. BLACKCARBURNING “Watching Sleepers” COP International
23. GOD BODY DISCONNECT “The Weight Of Regression” Cryo Chamber
24. MILDREDA “Blue-Devilled” Dependent Records
25. PASCAL SAVY “Simulacra” Cyclic Law

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

Ronan Harris from VNV Nation was in his former life the very first webmaster of Side-Line. A little known fact, but it was Ronan who gave Side-Line a first online presence, albeit on a different url and not in the format that it is now. It showed his interest in technology, something that has stayed very alive within the VNV Nation master brain over the years. It had been a while since I had spoken with him, time goes quickly, but when I was asked if we were interested in a VNV Nation interview, it was a no-brainer that this was the right time to do it now, at a time when so many things are rapidly changing in the technology field.

I phoned Ronan at his hotel in the US, and talked about the current tour, his musical sidelines, the new VNV Nation album “Electric Sun” and of course how he looks at AI being (ab)used in the music industry.

A funny anecdote, a colleague once told me – referring to the tourist guide industry she worked in – that for her “Listening to Ronan is like using the high quality infoport audioguide instead of some cheap Chinese knock-off.” It took me a bit to understand what she actually said, this is lingo for her sector, not mine, but when I looked up the device I understood her reaction. Quality.

This is just a fraction of a very long talk, but it will give you an idea of the man behind VNV Nation, his skills and his long term vision on innovation and creativity.

SL: I see the moustache is staying there.

RH: Do you want it to go? I have people still coming up to me saying, like, you have a moustache now. What was the last photograph you saw of me? I mean, I must have had hair, because I’ve had this for 13 years now (laughs). It’s just my thing. I like your beard by the way, suits you well… I’m just looking at myself thinking Jesus, I look tired. I mean, we arrived here late last night, so I’m pretty much just out of bed, so you’ll have to excuse me.

SL: You look fine Ronan. Don’t worry. So I guess you are not in Hamburg but still in the US?

RH: Still in the US, we finished up the US, the first leg of the US tour, on Sunday. It’s 11:00 in the morning here and we finished that up and then we’ve got two shows in Mexico, starting this coming weekend. We’ve got a flight and right now we’ve got five days off. Everybody went home. I’ve got five days to work. I’m working with a producer here on some tracks for them. I work with a lot of different producers and different areas, and I do a lot of work under other names because I don’t want it to be connected with VNV. I also don’t want the music that I help people with to be judged, you know, by like people going, ohh what’s the VNV connection? It should be a piece of music in its own right. So I do everything from like orchestral arranging to ambient work to all kinds of crazy processing on the laptop. The laptop I’m using to talk to you now is the one I use in my studio. So I have a whole studio with me. Like tomorrow I’m gonna be working with a guy who does some kind of dark trance, but he’s like a a big name in his own genre and then I will also be working with someone on a synth wave remix. So lots of fun. I’m telling you man.

SL: I have know for a long time you are working with different people, commercial genres or what exactly?

RH: These are really successful artists. I mean, I’ve worked with two people recently who are legendary names. I won’t say who they are. In some cases it’s a real honor because I’m working with people who’ve been an inspiration for me. I don’t see me or what I do anymore as being part of any scene. And if you look at the audience at the concerts, it’s people from so many different backgrounds and so many different styles. They all get something out of it. That’s the people who like dance music. That’s the people who like the more electronic, melodic stuff because it reminds them of other bands. People are like kind of indie electronic, you know? There’s so many different people who get something out of it and listen to it and they hear what they are looking for in it.

SL: Being well-connected is a good thing I’d say.

RH: Correct. The connection of the people I work with is so broad. I mean, here’s really weird example. I’m connected with a lot of people who work for different bands. So when we were going on this tour, I had to ask the crew from Empire of the Sun if they could help me find a bus because there’s a shortage of everything in the United States at the moment. That was the big problem we had with the first shows of the tour. We had to postpone them because there were no buses. No drivers. All the lighting companies had all their main gear rented out. You know, it’s a huge country, so you’ve got to get the logistics of trying to get a light rig from one corner of the country if it’s the only place that has it, and then get it over to Tampa, FL or something. I mean this is the distance of going from, say, Helsinki to Malta. You know, for us in Europe it’s, yeah, the logistics are insane.

SL: Is it still a result from post COVID that everybody is touring or what?

RH: COVID changed so many things. I know a lot of drivers, a lot of people involved in equipment and, you know, all kinds of things to do with touring over the years. A lot of drivers couldn’t work during the the COVID era, they went off to do other jobs. They are happy because they are getting a permanent salary, getting benefits, they were getting things they never had before, so it was a game changer. A lot of people retired and said they were sick of this. They were sick of how they’re being treated and I think a lot of change is still coming, and I hear that from a lot of people I work with that they’re tired of how they were taken for granted in the past. You do this job, that’s it. And a lot more people, I guess are thinking about themselves and how to try to get the best for themselves. So when we started planning the tour in February, we started sending out emails to companies going, hey, we want this, we want this and what can you give us? And we were also trying to find budgets that fit what we’re going to do so we can make this work. And honestly, the first thing I noticed is that a lot of companies increased their prices 30 to 50%. I don’t want this to be a financial conversation, but hey.

SL: Touring the US as a European band which VNV Nation is, is not so simple anyhow.

RH: If you’re coming from Europe and you’re going to the United States to do a tour, you have to rent a bus, You’ve gotta get the crew because there is no way to do it in a van and there’s no way to pull a whole light rig behind you. And I want to put on a show. So I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ve been doing this for 23 years here, so I know all the aspects needed and this was really the most stressful and the toughest tour organization ever. But it worked out. Unfortunately there’s a lot of people who have become really flaky. Like they commit to you and then the last minute they pull out. You know, I’ve I’ve got another job and they don’t feel there’s anything wrong with that. There’s no commitment or loyalty in some people, so you see how it’s affected everybody. But also this, when you play concerts you realize a lot of people are still getting used to being at concerts again even though America has a COVID surge at the moment.

SL: Masks included?

RH: It’s not like the serious one we were all dealing with, you know, back in 2020. But when we played the West Coast, a lot of people were wearing masks and a lot of people won’t go out. A lot of people won’t go out like this was a really, really big thing. And we heard this from every band. We heard this from the crew who work for like urban culture meets dance meets everything kind of artists in America. There’s these two guys who have this project called Odessa, and we know a lot of the people involved with them, like the lighting engineer and some of the sound people. And then we were talking to metal bands. And they were saying that as well. It’s really crazy, like hearing from fans saying that they they’re afraid to go out. So I think we’re still in a phase where people are learning that it’s OK to go to concerts when they wear masks. It’s not. You know, anybody who reads and wants to spend some time being intelligent knows that. The mask is there to protect others, you know.

SL: Herd immunity is still not an established mentality.

RH: Masks are not a bulletproof vest. I mean, life goes on, the world goes on. And the other thing that we noticed on these shows was when we played the first show in Detroit, that’s where we had to start because that was the 1st place we could get every element we needed for the tour, is that everybody’s out on tour, like all the big bands. They’re all out on tour and taking up all the buses, all the drivers, what’s left and all of the resources. We were talking to lighting companies we’ve worked with for years and they were saying they’ve got nothing we were looking for. They just have some really old lights and I said, well give us something, we’ll put it together, you know. The Detroit show was fine, we talked to a lot of people after the show and everybody just seemed grateful.

SL: At least some joy…

RH: There’s a lot of negativity. It’s not just COVID, it’s the economy here and this perpetual political bullshit that they have to put up with every day. You know, we have a little taste of it in Europe. They’re living it like on levels I’ve never seen. It’s absolutely insane. So I feel for them. But every single concept we played was exactly the same. People were so appreciative that they got to go out and feel this live experience again. So it was quite an eye opening experience.

SL: Talking about working on different projects, did you never work on a musical?

RH: Uh, yeah, I did. Not a ‘musical’ like you’ll imagine. I worked on an arts project with somebody who combined a lot of different elements and wanted to make something really creative. I create the video elements in the background for some other projects too. I’ve had people who wanted video work done where they have a gigantic wall and they want elements playing that are part of that show that become a like scenes within the whole landscape. I’ve done that. I’ve done a lot of sound treatments and created backgrounds, sounds and elements for them, or even pieces of music. So musical? Yes but not the commercial Broadway, you know like “Full Metal Jacket, the musical” or something. These kinds of bullshit things that people put together.

I hate commercial projects. I’ll be honest with you. I mean, still to this day I can’t listen to commercial music, even if it could be a really nice song. There’s always a part of me that thinks this was created to be a hit for a big company that’s purely about shareholders and money. The artist will always be told what to do, in what way. I have a lot of friends who work in Hollywood and they have great artistic ambitions. And then they talk about how their work is then taken, changed by a long line of anonymous people. Or someone else gets credit for it. So I try to work with people who are doing underground things. There’s a lot of people who ask, can I use a piece of music for like for a video or something? And it’s not profit. I’m happy to support small creative people because that’s what I was, you know.

SL: But is that also the aim with the VNV Nation studio you have in Hamburg?

RH: I’ve used it a lot because I have the resources of all the equipment. If you want to talk technologically with two very, very experienced people in trying to recreate that on the system, I can bring it with me around the world, so. We’ve managed to set something up because I’m gonna do work. As I said, tomorrow and the day after I’m working with another guy where I can bring pretty much my studio with me, full audio interface, everything. I can have 10 microphones running, and I can produce, I have everything I need. That’s a real miracle. I’m telling you, man. But when I do a lot of my work, it’s basically when I’m back in Germany and I can do my demos and ideas on the laptop and then take them into the studio and flush them into something bigger.

SL: A couple of years back I was at the Mute event at the Roundhouse in London and during a session with Pole I told him that if you’re really working indie, then the really small bands have no budget for studios. And actually, you hear it, there’s a lot of subpar material being released.

RH: There are a lot of people who want to in a band. Yeah. This is something I noticed when I had to rent a studio space for myself. Now as far as the studio goes, if I’m going to finish an album or if I’m going to create an album, there’s a lot of equipment. It’s gotta go somewhere and it’s not going in my basements because I don’t have a basement. So I’m not gonna fill up a bedroom and annoy my neighbors with this. I have to work in a way that I can be there at four or five in the morning. What I found was when I rented a room in a studio, a commercial studio, and these guys were doing really amazing work, because they were not working with big name artists, but people who wanted music for a project. Really, very, very creative stuff.

But when I met some of the young bands, it’s suddenly clicked that there’s a lot of people who hear a band in this genre, or they go to a club and they say let’s be a band. That’s kind of an exciting fantasy, you know? They’ve got the logo. They’ve got the photos, they got the name of the band and they haven’t got a song yet. They have no idea and they get in there and it’s like we want to sound like this band and they tell a producer like as if you’re saying to someone please help me, I wanna sound like this. It just doesn’t work like that. So I find that a lot of people I meet want to be in a band. I made music. I was writing songs and I really wanted to take this to the next level. And when you say about subpar, I think one of the miracles is that we all have the technology to do whatever we want. With our laptops. With our computers. But that also means that 99.999% have never bothered to learn how any of these tools work. You know, one of the reasons why I did “Matter + Form” in 2005 with a producer, it was because I was gonna get to learn some stuff. By doing every album, I had to learn more about production.

SL: What about your older VNV Nation recordings, how do you look at those now?

RH: I can’t listen sometimes to my older stuff because it was recorded on a budget. I mean, you know, “Empires” and “Futureperfect” were recorded with almost no money. In a very basic studio. I made “Futureperfect” with just the computer. “Empires” or “Praise the Fallen” were recorded in basements with a simple console and the guy knew how it worked, but the quality that was possible with the equipment was, you know, it wasn’t fantastic. But yet today you can listen to let’s say bullshit like EDM, which is just commercial loop crap. Whatever. The production techniques which they use are not like a choice. You have to do it or no one’s gonna listen to it, so. In that sense, the tools are there. People can use them if they want to create something better.

But I’m hearing even within, as you say, like the scene, – I don’t even know what the scene is anymore because it seems to be more fragmented musically than ever – but people really are trying to apply the knowledge of other genres. And this is just basic studio knowledge. And one of the things I did during COVID was that I closed myself in, myself and my partner and I said, look, we’re gonna look after ourselves and our close ones and our loved ones. And we will use it as a time of learning. I listen to a lot of music I would never listen to. And I mean, it really expanded my knowledge of music. But I found all kinds of crazy shit online, and I loved it.

But I spent a lot of time learning better techniques and I wanted to do that because I’ve always had these sounds in my head or these unfinished ideas. Because for one reason or another, I have never felt that I reached it. I can listen to the track “Electric Sun” and think, how did I make this? It was an incredible experience and also during COVID building my own studio with other companies who could not coordinate times because nobody could schedule anything, they all said that their guys were on furlough. The Germans called it quits, and they said we don’t have enough people. So I’m sitting there with just these framework walls thinking what the fuck am I going to do? It was a really long process. But it was also very beneficial. At the time I had about 85 songs, because when you’re working on something else, you get the best ideas. It’s like a part of your brain wants to stay active to fill in for the boredom. I have a synthesizer on my phone and I’m just constantly recording myself playing all these melodies that I’m hearing. I also was using my laptop, even just to write a demo, using the physical keyboard on the laptop as musical keys. 4 songs on the album were originally recorded like that. I was just sitting there playing like OK, this key is this, this key is this. You strip away all of the big technology and you come right down to the sense of it. Is it a good song? Does it work?

SL: I recognized more developed orchestral arrangements this time, I guess the orchestral VNV Nation album left an influence?

RH: Yeah, you can’t hide it, let’s say. I’ve always had orchestral elements in the albums anyhow. There was a cinematic element to that album, a cinematic flavour. I wrote a lot of pieces for it, which never ended up on the album. There were about maybe 27 songs I picked for it. And the worst part is that you come down to a list of, say, 14 or 15 songs. And I said, let’s finish as many as we can, but you’ll always end up writing new tracks while you’re doing an album. I mean, “When is the Future?” happened out of nowhere. One night, I was bored in the studio and I was going through really old tracks and I found a track that I wrote in 2007. It’s just the bass progression and the vocal line. That’s all it is and I pulled it up and had some sounds on the keyboard and just started playing it because it stuck in my head. It was the right moment. You know when you hear it and you think, OK, it’s a simple chord progression, but it works. “All our sins” for instance is astonishingly orchestral. Even if you’re playing synthesizer sounds, you’re approaching them to create an orchestral feeling. So it was quite cinematic. Even the arpeggios and the way I was doing the arpeggios on “When it’s the Future?” are based on a piece of classical music I like.

I work with four different arrangers and they can actually tell there’s more an orchestral approach in my music than what they’re used to with other artists. With other albums it was the same. I mean with “Of Faith, Power and Glory” there were still huge amounts of orchestral elements in there. It’s what you assumed to be orchestral, because you can do a track like something more experimental and you’re still channelling something you heard from Stockhausen or Stravinsky and nobody understands that. Or you’re taking a little element of a composer no one’s heard of in the the average everyday world. But then that’s just one element of my influences.

But on “Electric Sun”, I wanted the opening to be like the opening to a film and I originally had a whole orchestration piece for the opening of the album that I just took out. “Electric Sun” does the job because in the end I want the album to tell a story from beginning to end. That’s what I was asking people to do, to listen to it from start to finish. It was the opening of a film for me, and the ending of the album was the finale, the last credits appearing on the screen. Everything in between is the elements of the story that I imagined. I felt this time round that in the studio I had all the things, all the tools I needed, the atmosphere. Also, a studio shuts out the outside world.

So it’s just you, the walls, synthesizers you bring in to used. I went crazy with analogue synthesizers I have. I’m kind of like an obsessive, I’ve been collecting synthesizers since I first got a chance to buy one. I still have two synthesizers that I owned in the 80s. I’ve had them repaired numerous times because they’ve been overused. Synthesizers are used on all the old albums. They’re still there on every album. There were always about four or five analogue synthesizers being used for most of the sounds on the album. So this time I really went crazy on it. I wanted this vibe. It’s really hard to explain to somebody when you use a plugin what the difference is. And the difference is that when you put all the elements together, you will hear this great kind of feeling. The opposite argument to that is that there are some amazing albums that have been recorded by bands – that we have a great sentimental attachment to – that used a four track.

SL: The one doesn’t exclude the other, right?

RH: Of course. And the thing is now with all this technology, you’re listening to copy paste bullshit. It’s like, look, do you have an idea? Focus on your idea, then build around that. Try to do the best you can because you’ll hear the idea through it. But if it’s just an ensemble of random sounds for 30 seconds of pleasure in a club to make everyone think, ohh, this is a bit ‘oonzee’, it’s not achieving much. It’s throw-away and that’s a kind of like a sad factor for the iPad generation who grew up playing with simple things at home and it was just push a button, make a sound and they didn’t learn more than that. I can’t say if I need the whole studio or not. One of my idols is a mixer called Andrew Scheps. His philosophy and his approach to mixing… I just love hearing him talk because he talks about so many aspects of of the audio world.

He’s an icon and he has mixed some of the biggest albums of all time and he says he’s in the box now, meaning he just uses a computer. And he has many videos where he talks about it because there will be people who just want that connection with the old world and they think it sounds better or whatever. And he said it doesn’t. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. If you know, how to use the tool so you can make it sound how you want. But if you need the tools, if you need the physical things, then if that’s what gets you the results, then that’s the right tool for you. My idea was, OK, do you have a mouse? You have one finger. That’s it. So you have all of this equipment and you’re gonna use one finger to write an album? Are you kidding me? That’s like the joke I always make, it’s like painting the hallway of a house, but doing it from outside the front door and you’re painting through the letterbox.

SL: We’ve become so normalized to this I guess…

RH: When you’re doing these big constructions and you’ve got all this software and all these plugins, you have to have better controllers and things like that. I was sitting with some of the synthesisers and just playing with controls and just creating, it got me places that I never have been. I forgot in a lot of ways what that felt like. Yeah, I mean, I’ve always seen synthesizers on the albums, but this time I had a lot of new gear because of building a new studio and I wanted to have this connection. I know the guys who work for Sequential Circuits, you know, in San Francisco. One of them was a guy who booked our first concert in San Francisco. We were talking about new synthesizers and he said ohh, we have a great new one. When I did for example, the album “Praise the Fallen” I used this old sequential synthesizer on every track. I mean, I had only had a few synthesizers, so I had to make them work for me on every single song.

So I got this new synthesizer, which is like the third generation of that thing. It’s the brand new one, wonderful, does everything. And I said to my partner, like, I’m just gonna plug it in and I’m just gonna listen to some of the sounds, get my headphones on. I’ll be in bed in 1/2 an hour. You know, that was 11:00 at night, 5:00 in the morning I went to bed. I just fell in love. There’s something that connects you with this technology. The sounds, the way you control things, the way you play with it. You can control everything and play with the sounds. It’s the person and a machine. So I programmed about three banks of sounds for the thing, and I’m just having the best fun. And that’s what became like a lot of the basis, a lot of the background to a lot of sounds on the album. This organic sound gave everything a kind of a 70s vibe. There are so many incredible electronic artists from the 70s. I went back and started listening to NEU! again. I love a lot of old krautrock. There’s so many eras that we forget about. They’re so relevant that you can listen to them today and think, why am I not listening to this?

SL: I know you’ve always been quite interested in everything that is new technologically, whether it is for social media or whatever. You’ve always been interested. Now, professionally I work a lot with AI.

RH: You know my old job, so you know that I’m heavily involved into all this new tech.

SL: That’s why I’m asking. What is commercially available now doesn’t impress me compared to what I’ve seen in laboratories where they experiment with AI as far as music goes. That really does impress me. So I wonder, would it ever come up into your mind first of all to create an AI generated album using the laboratory stuff? Do you see anything that you would use as a musician? And would you ever consider using it for vocals as well?

RH: Here’s my problem with with generated music right now, we’ll start using it like people used mp3.com. I’ll give you just that as a simple example. People loaded it with shit. There was no way to listen to most of it. We’re gonna have exactly the same problem with AI because it’s going to be companies trying to sell you tools that say ‘hey look make your own track’. And I work with a lot of producers, there’s guys in the building where my studio is, and they all wwork ith loops. It’s cut and paste. Someone else is making loops for them. They don’t know who, but they’re just using the same loops everyone else is using. I think that’s boring. One of two things will happen. There will either be a backlash where you’ll have people posting on their album ‘This was made by humans completely organically’.

The possibilities of laboratory AI where it can sing. Yeah, we use tools right now. We use Photoshop and we use tuning, we use like ways to compress the vocals and EQ. We’re using tools as it is. It’s where the line is. I don’t want fake. I mean if somebody can use it when they are a Picasso and where they describe to a computer this wonderful creativity, then you’re using it as a tool, then I’m OK with it. But if someone is basically learning a computer ‘just write me a hit song’ then you’re David Guetta, you know that that doesn’t interest me at all.

I’ve had people offering me so many AI tools or generators. I don’t need core generators. For instance, the band had so much problems even just practicing the track “Invictus” on the album, because they said it’s incredibly complicated. I’m working with people who are really, really good, very professional keyboarders. I think I could do a lot myself, but what I would like to be able to do is to say, can you save me a lot of the grunt work that I don’t want to do so I can just focus on the ideas. That’s where it is gonna matter. I want my own ideas to be the forefront. You and I both know that all technology will be used by people to make bullshit. When the Apple iPhone came out, do you know how many fart apps there were? You know that’s how humans use it. They are stupid, puerile, childish. It’s funny for about 5 seconds and then after that it’s done.

For more on VNV Nation, see Porta Nigra Festival 2024: Front 242, VNV Nation, Kosheen, … on Side-Line.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Electro-Pop, Body-Pop, Cinematic-Pop, Future-Pop.

Format: Digital, CD, 2 Vinyls.

Background/Info: Ronan Harris strikes back with a new opus of his sonic alter-ego VNV Nation. This is the first new full length in five years which has been introduced as a more intimate work. The album is available in different formats featuring a ‘box set deluxe edition’.

Content: VNV Nation remains faithful to his good-old influences which are still Electronic and Pop-driven. But it would be too easy and even fault to call it ‘Electro-Pop’ or ‘Future-Pop’. The basis remains recognizable but sounds and global production including the vocals have evolved and becoming more mature than ever before. The work is danceable featuring ‘heavier’ kicks but still has its part of emotion on the slower tracks. But all songs have been slowly built up until reaching a true elevating finale. 

+ + + : The album takes off with title track which according to me is fully representative for the entire work. It has been meticulously built up, a bit like a spider web while reaching an true apotheosis in the final part of the song. Harris excels in this constructions while he achieved the songs with delicate piano-like arrangements but also passages with orchestral arrangements and even transcendental parts. The songs are poignant and even more than that when you pay attention to the lyrical themes performed with passion. Everything sounds right and every note stands in the right place. I personally consider “The Game” as one of the best VNV Nation songs in history -maybe my favorite one, as it brings danceable vibes, intelligent sound treatments and passionate vocals together. “Wait” is another masterpiece; a bit darker and harder, driven by a solid bass line and getting dancefloors on fire. Another cool cut is “Artifice” featuring an irresistible scratching sound. I’ll also mention “Prophet” for great sound treatments as well. Ronan Harris hasn’t lost the magical touch which made VNV Nation a leading formation. Do also check out this VNV Nation interview.

– – – : I’m not that fond of “In The Temple” which sounds like an intermezzo while the last song “Under Sky” is not exactly the best one. But no reason to complain!

Conclusion: VNV Nation strikes back with a bang; a great and artistic composition which will find its way to dancefloors but still to moments of solitude and meditation.

Best songs: “The Game”, “Wait”, “Artifice”, “Prophet”, “Run”, “Electric Sun”, “Before The Rain”.

Rate: 9.

Artist & Label: www.vnvnation.com / www.facebook.com/VNVNation

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

About VNV Nation

VNV Nation is a British-Irish electronic music project led by singer, songwriter and producer Ronan Harris, who was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. Harris moved to London in 1989 and began composing under the name Nation before adopting the “Victory Not Vengeance” motto in 1994. The project’s debut, “Advance and Follow”, followed in 1995, and the band went on to coin the term “futurepop” with “Futureperfect” (2002), a style built on EBM foundations, anthemic choruses and trance and synthpop influences.

VNV Nation’s studio album chronology runs through “Empires” (1999), “Matter + Form” (2005), “Judgement” (2007), “Of Faith, Power and Glory” (2009), “Automatic” (2011), “Transnational” (2013) and “Noire” (2018, Anachron Records / Metropolis Records). “Electric Sun” followed as the band’s eleventh studio album, released on 28 April 2023 on Anachron Sounds and Metropolis Records, preceded by the singles “Before the Rain” and “Wait”.

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 Arne Beschorner) VNV Nation returns with the all new album “Electric Sun” on Metropolis Records for the American market. “Electric Sun” is out in a very limited edition 2 LP clear vinyl edition along with a 16 page booklet digipak compact disc as well as through all digital and streaming platforms.

For Ronan Harris it’s his first new material under the VNV Nation flag since 2018’s “Noire”.

VNV Nation’s own label also releases a deluxe limited boxset limited to 1500 copies with exclusive artwork, a double vinyl album, the cd album, a 12″ with two extended versions, a deluxe 44 page hardcover book with illustrations by the band’s long-term partners Rodolfo Reyes and Michal Karcz and a few other extras. Do also check out this VNV Nation interview.

You can see VNV Nation live at work at the following tour dates.

• 19 May 23 Es Barcelona Sala Apolo
• 20 May 23 Es Madrid Sala Mon
• 25 May 23 Uk Birmingham The Mill
• 26 May 23 Uk London Electric Ballroom
• 27 May 23 Uk Manchester Academy 2
• 28 May 23 Uk Glasgow Garage

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the list of all bands playing:

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

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

The Belgian dark idm ambient project Kilmarth has released an all new 5-track strong mini-album, “Better Days¨. Behind Kilmarth we find the Belgian musician Cedric Wattergniaux.

Small but important detail, Cedric used to write for Side-Line and with his project he is the 5th (ex)member of the Side-Line team who has released music next to Ronan Harris (VNV Nation), Benoit Blanchart (Aiboforcen), Seba Dolimont (Aiboforcen) and Stephane Froidcoeur (Nebula-H).

Cedric’s work is the kind of work you would link to productions released on labels such as Ad Noiseam, Tympanik Audio, Ant-Zen, Mindtrick Records and M-Tronic. Wattergniaux, who has been active in the dark music scene since the early 90’s, first as writer for various fanzines including our very own Side-Line magazine up until a few years ago, and now with Kilmarth, the project he debuted in July 2017 with the 3-track single “The End of Humanity”.

On his newest EP, out now on all digital platforms, we find (female) vocals for the very first time by the the Nigerian singer Blessing. Also included are two remixes from the IDM project, D-Fried.

You can download the release right below from Bandcamp. Read the review of ‘Better Days’.

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 via Nexilis on October 7th is the new 3CD set “Film, Funk & Fernsehen” by the German electropop act Welle:Erdball.

Coming as 3 seperate digipaks it is included in an inside an outer cardboards-slider holding over 2 hours of music and more than 30 tracks. The band explains the album title as follows: “The power of the media. And it is almost all-encompassing; with a theme that no longer stops at pandemics, gender and global thermonuclear war and is reflected in German lyrics, but also in songs in English, Russian and even Swedish.”

Also included are some cover versions such as David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” with female voices accompanied by Commodore C64 sounds. Also included is a complete radio play CD (in German) with several guest musicians such as Alexx Wesselsky (Eisbrecher), Ronan Harris (VNV Nation) and Steve Naghavi (And One).

Since it has been 40 years since the C64 was presented to the world (in January 1982), Welle:Erdball has also dedicated another complete CD recorded only with a C64. For those who wonder what a C64 actually is, the Commodore 64, also known as the C64 or the CBM 64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It is still being actively used in the demoscene, especially for music (its SID sound chip even being used in special sound cards for PCs, and the Elektron SidStation synthesizer).

Check out the video for “Das Atomboot (C64)”. A new video for “Drogenexzess im Musikexpress” will be released on September 9th.

The band has also announced a tour, the dates are available 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

(Photo by VNV Nation) For those who have been off the grid for the past few weeks, here’s an update from the VNV Nation front. The next VNV Nation studio album, “Electric sun”, will be released in early 2023. Writing and pre-production began in 2021 and the album will be completed over the coming months at the brand new VNV studio in Hamburg. Ronan Harris describes the material as “a symphony of melodies and beats, orchestrating its sound to a level that listeners to VNV Nation haven’t yet experienced.”

This will be the band’s 11th studio album and the follow-up to their previous studio album “Noire” which was released on 12 October 2018.

The Electric Sun Tour will begin in late February 2023.

The band’s regular photographer, Franz Schepers, already posted a brand new promotional picture which you can see below. Do also check out this VNV Nation interview.

New studio, new equipment and software

The band has also configured a brand new studio, upgrading its equipment and software. Some of the biggest inspirations for this album have come from this new equipment and software so Ronan says: “The day the Sequential Pro 3 arrived, I wanted to check it out quickly, while I had a half-hour to spare, but ended up creating sounds and writing melodies for 4 hours. The same thing happened when the Majella Implexus arrived. I’ve a lifelong love for many key analog synths but, playing with these resulted in some of the best synth-fun that i’ve had in years. That is, until the Novation Peak showed up. I got so lost playing it, I should’ve been reported missing.”

The VNV studio is now housed in a building with multiple studios, a workshop, storage for studio-equipment, a place to keep the live-gear between shows, and “a prime spot for the mandatory espresso machine and space to chill out between production sessions”, Ronan explains.

The location now houses 2 studios with the second studio (aka the “Tron room”) being for people to work in parallel on productions or mixing, recording additional vocals and live instruments, recording interviews and general videos.

Ronan explains more about the new studio and gear on the VNV Nation website. Read the review of ‘Electric Sun’.

Side-Line also covered VNV Nation’s ‘Before the Rain’.

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

“Dark Sanctuary: The Story Of The Church” will be a feature-length documentary about the historic Dallas goth club The Church. The documentary will explore the history and stories of one of the longest running goth clubs in the U.S..

Through interviews with music artists (including Paul Oakenfold, Bill Leeb, Aurelio Voltiare, and RubberDoll), local bands, and patrons, the film will tell the story of the transgressive community of misfits that formed in the nearly three decades of the legendary club’s existence.

The film will center on the club’s DJ in residence, Joe Virus, and follow his journey from aspiring musician to DJ’ing the main stage for over 20 years. The film will also narrate the events of 2019 and 2020 as a multimillion-dollar real estate company bought up the neighborhood, and the pandemic claimed the community’s beloved building at 2424 Swiss Avenue. Now, their home of nearly three decades stands on the brink of being lost forever.

They plan to seek more interviews with many of the world-famous artists who performed there over years such as cEvin Key, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Combichrist, Clan of Xymox, VNV Nation, Dita Von Teese, and many more. The additional plan is to explore many of the stories and personalities intertwined with The Church’s history including such Marylin Manson, The Cure, Trent Reznor, Joan Jett, and even Madonna.

In tandem with the story of The Church, the film will talk about the Friday and Saturday EDM nights known as The Lizard Lounge where legends of electronic music performed: Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Moby, Tiesto, The Prodigy and more.

To complete the documentary Dallas, Texas-based Spectrograph Films has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to fund their film. You can check out the Indiegogo campaign right here.

Music by cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy

cEvin Key of Skinny Puppy will co-compose the title music track along with resident DJ of The Church, Joe Virus. Artist Ashley Thorpe known for the Shudder Exclusive film Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched will do illustrations and animations as well as design the movie poster.

The goal is to collect $70,000 in funds. The perks for the backers include DVD’s, signed posters, 45 rpm records, and even actual ceiling tiles from 2424 Swiss Ave.

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

US based electropop / noire futurepop artist David Chamberlin strikes back with the 3rd full length album by Entrzelle. The release is available now from Bandcamp and on CD via the Alfa Matrix webstore, and of course from all other digital music services.

David explains the concept: “The songs deal with subjects ranging from personal conflict to social commentary, from loss to euphoria. This is an album about hope and perseverance, letting go and moving on. Writing these songs has helped me in my own life, and I hope that listening to them can help someone else too.”

The experimentation on this album has been kept to a minimum, instead focusing on songwriting and production. The tone is darker and the songs are more direct. Expect a mix of upbeat electro sequences and addictive noisy synth pop melodies.

Next to the 12 new songs you also get 4 bonus remixes by label companions in the likes of Psy’Aviah, Reichsfeind, Elektrostaub and DJ Simon Carter. Advised for fans of Rotersand, Covenant, Seabound, Imperative Reaction, Aesthetic Perfection, VNV Nation, Etc.

Check out all the new tracks below plus the album teaser.

Here’s the videoteaser. Read the review of ‘Dust On A Razorblade’.

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-Pop, Future-Pop.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Two years after the debut album “This Is Me” ScentAir Records has released the second album by Norwegian artist Kim Lunner.

Content: The style and influences haven’t really changed. Kim Lunner remains driven by good-old Electro-Pop standards while there also is an explicit Future-Pop element reminding me of bands like VNV Nation and Ruined Conflict. I also noticed a very few cuts which are darker and harder featuring solid EBM bass lines.

+ + + : If you already liked the debut album you’re going to like “From Dusk To Dawn” as well. This is a diversified production mixing harder and softer cuts together. I’m more into the ‘harder’ cuts for the cool bass lines like featured at “The Reason”, the darker approach running through “Time To Run” and “Holding Hands” which is my absolute favorite one.

– – – : The sweeter side of this work can’t convince me. It sounds more average like and without surprises.

Conclusion: A fully enjoyable and varied Electro-Pop production.

Best songs: “Holding Hands”, “The Reason”, “Time To Run”.

Rate: 7.

Artist: www.facebook.com/kim.lunner

Label: www.scent-air.com / www.facebook.com/ScentairRecords

About Kim Lunner

Kim Lunner was born in Norway in 1977 and has been active in music since 2011. A drummer by training, he builds his own drum beats and works with slow tempos and synth patterns, with lyrics drawn from loss, longing, love, frustration and anger. He started singing on his own tracks in 2020.

His debut album “This Is Me” was released on May 20, 2020 by the Russian synth label ScentAir Records, which also issued “From Dusk To Dawn” in 2022. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Lunner moved to the Danish label Town And Towers Records in 2022.

In 2023 he joined the Norwegian future pop band Supercraft and co-founded the project State of Anguish with Egil Thoms Hansen. By 2025 he had released more than 25 singles, four EPs and five albums, among them the single “With You” and the album “Midnight Sky”, both on Town And Towers 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

After two strong albums, Frankfurt-based Timo Revna aka Reichsfeind joined the Alfa Matrix label releasing the single “Persona” as a teaser for a forthcoming new album called “Darken” which is out today.

The new Reichsfeind album is called “Darken” and features 12 tracks of electro / techno pop which will please fans of bands like Covenant, VNV Nation, De/Vision, Mesh, Icon Of Coil, etc. with a stress on great melodies, fat beats and cold and strict vocals.

The new album is out as a download via Bandcamp and on CD (available here).

Check out the tracks from this excellent release! Read the review of ‘Darken’.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

www.side-line.com

The 2022 edition of the Sinner’s Day Summer Festival will take place from 24th until 26th June 2022 at the Maria-Hendrika Park in Oostende, Belgium. About 28 new wave, EBM, industrial, post-punk, synth-pop and eighties bands are featured on 2 stages.

This year the line-up includes: Front 242, IAMX, The Mission, Nitzer Ebb, Diary Of Dreams, VNV Nation, Public Image Limited, Aesthetic Perfection, Dive, Merciful Nuns, Nosferatu, Stabbing Westward, The Danse Society, The Stranglers, Aroma Di Amore, Trans-X, Torul, Ultra Sunn, Saint Agnes, Boytronic, Test Department, Tyske Ludder and more!

There is also The Batcave, the dance-area where you can party while DJ’s spin their finest tracks. A camping area is available if you want to stay next to the festival area at night!

Tickets can be ordered here

Photo: picture alliance/dpa, Alexander Prautzsch

After a two years break, due to Covid-19, the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2022 (29th edition) will take place from 3rd-6th June in the Agra-Halle and surrounded area of Leipzig, Germany.

WGT focuses especially on the gothic, (steam)punk, new wave, electro, EBM, industrial and medieval music and (sub)culture. It is a total-concept world festival including concerts, renaissance fairs, viking and pagan markets, exhibitions, CD/DVD and film premieres, lectures, artist signing events, fetish events, and (late-night) parties.

Approximately 200 artists are on the list, spread over more than 50 locations and the festival has about 20.000 visitors. As usual a lot of names out of the dark scene will play WGT: Lacrimosa, IAMX, Clan of Xymox, Combichrist, Rabia Sorda, Corvus Corax, VNV Nation, Orange Sector, Tanzwut, Xotox, Eisfabrik, Unzucht, Nachtblut, NNHMN, Linea Aspera, Minuit Machine, Dark, Fïx8:Sëd8, Letzte Instanz, Nosferatu, …

Tickets for WGT soon can be ordered here (entrance tickets purchased in the years 2020 or 2021 remain valid for the WGT 2022).

Patrick Knoch set up Elektrostaub in 2007. Elektrostaub  can be defined as Electro/Future-Pop and is a solo-project with guest singers. After the first official album “Birthday And Death” released in 2017 on Echozone, the German project joined hands together with Alfa-Matrix. The new album “Reliance” features guest singers Patrik Hansson (Vanguard, Uncreated), Henrik Iversen (Namnambulu), !DISTAIN, René Anke (Logic & Olivia), Stefan Netschio (Beborn Beton), Jan Dieckmann (Norderney), Alex Rush (Unity One), Claudia Uhle (X-Perience), Damasius Venys (Mondträume, Mental Exile), Alex Nórdika (Nórdika) and Darrin Huss (Psyche). The work is a diversified, danceable and ambitious piece. I asked a few questions to Patrick Knoch.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Patrick, tell us a bit more about your music background and how did you come to set up Elektrostaub? 

Patrick: I received musical education in my childhood at a Yamaha music school, mainly on the electronic organ and keyboards. In the early 2000s I founded a band and later decided to start a solo project to better implement my own ideas and ideas.

Q: Elektrostaub is clearly driven and inspired by different forms of Electronic music, but ‘Pop’ definitely appears to be the main source of inspiration.  What are your examples and references in music and how would you analyze your own composition? 

Patrick: I’ve always been a fan of Electronic music and I liked the music of Depeche Mode, Camouflage, Erasure to name a few. Later, Silke Bischoff, Vnv Nation, Solar Fake, for example. So it was relatively obvious that I should try to make music in this direction myself.

Are you looking for powerful beats, flying, melodic and dreamy surfaces as well as modern sounds and catchy Electro-Pop songs? Then you’ve come to the right place with Elektrostaub. Due to the large number of singers involved, the styles of the respective bands also flow into the project and increase the spectrum of versatility.

Q: You mentioned the large number of singers so why do you prefer working with guest singers instead of a real band singer? And what’s your connection with the guys of !Distain? 

Patrick: In the beginning, the main idea was to do remixes and write instrumentals. Later on the idea came up that I could have guest singers set it to music. 

On this album all lyrics come exclusively from the guest singers. I think it’s important that my guests can get involved in the project themselves.

I have known Manfred and Alex from !Distain since the beginning of Elektrostaub and they have become very good friends of mine. Producing songs together is similar to do house music with your family… lol.

Q: How did the writing- and production process of “Reliance” happened? And how did the collaboration with the different singers happened?  

Patrick: First I write the arrangements and instrumentals. When that happens I think carefully about which singer could sing the song best. In most cases I choose artists whose music I also like and whether I personally like the voices or would simply go very well with the song.

When the process is finished I write to the respective artist and ask if they are interested.

After receiving the vocal tracks, I embedded them into the arrangements and then created the final mixes.

Q: There’s an impressive evolution in sound and production from your debut album “Birthday And Death” (2017) towards “Reliance”. How do you look back at your debut work and the transition to “Reliance”? 

Patrick: Thanks so much. I would think it’s just a constant development and advancement. Perhaps the experience gained plays a role. I don’t really like to look back, I love to look forward 😉

Q: How do you expect Elektrostaub evolving and what are the further plans regarding aspects like live shows, remixes, singles and clips? 

Patrick: I will start work on the third album soon. I will write several arrangements and instrumentals again and then proceed as always. I still have some remixes to do in the near future. I’ve been doing a few lately and they’ll all be out soon. Live shows are not planned or very feasible due to the fact that I don’t have a permanent singer.

In which direction will Elektrostaub evolve? I can’t say that today. I’ll just try to develop myself musically and hope to take the next steps.

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-Pop, Future-Pop.  

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Four years after the debut-album “Birthday And Death” released on Echozone, Patrick Knoch unleashes his second full length featuring an impressive list of guest singers. “Reliance” was preceded by two singles/EP’s, which especially in Germany became pretty successful.

Content: Patrick Knock had some good company with Patrik Hansson (Vanguard, Uncreated), Henrik Iversen (Namnambulu), !Distain duo, René Anke (Logic & Olivia), Stefan Netschio (Beborn Beton), Jan Dieckmann (Norderney), Alex Rush (Unity One), Claudia Uhle (X-Perience), Damasius Venys (Mondträume, Mental Exile), Alex Nórdika (Nórdika) and Darrin Huss (Psyche). Sound-wise Elektrostaub brings a perfect mix of electro-Pop driven and somewhat harder Future-Pop inspired songs. The different singers inject some extra diversity to the work.

The album features previously released singles “Wake Up” and “We Are Dreamers”. There’s only one single song featuring female vocals. !Distain –being good-old friends of Patrick Knock, contributed to 3 songs, one of them featuring French sung lyrics.

+ + + : First of all we have to salute the contribution of some real great and talented singers like Darren Huss, Henrik Iversen and Stefan Netschio, but also brilliant singers from the ‘latest’  generation like Damasius Venys, Patrik Hansson and Claudia Uhle. The single female vocalist injects a heavenly touch to the album. Several songs sound like they were conceived to make people dance and get happy. I also enjoyed the somewhat harder Future-Pop driven cuts and I especially recommend “Futurism” featuring Norderney, which will appeal to VNV Nation fans. “We Are Dreamers” featuring Patrik Hansson remains a great piece of music for its boosting Electro-Pop. There’s also a cool ‘female’ version featuring Claudia Uhle who’s definitely a great singer. Last, but not least I also recommend listening to “Dust” featuring Damasius Venys who’s according to me one of the most charismatic and sexy voices of the scene.

– – – : I expected a bit more from the songs featuring !Distain –an established Electro-Pop formation I’ve always liked. It’s also a pity there’s only one single female singer featured.

Conclusion: Elektrostaub has achieved an ambitious, but accomplished album, which sounds like the perfect crossover between Electro- and Future-Pop.

Best songs: “Futurism feat. Norderney”, “We Are Dreamers featuring Patrik Vanguard”, “We Are Dreamers featuring Claudia Uhle”, “Dust featuring Damasius Venys”, “Save Me featuring René Anke”, “Loneliness featuring !Distain”.

Rate: 8.

Artist: www.elektrostaub.de / www.facebook.com/Elektrostaub

Label: www.alfa-matrix.com / www.facebook.com/Alfa.Matrix Read the news on ‘Reliance’.

About Elektrostaub

Elektrostaub is the synthpop and future-pop project of German musician Patrick Knoch. Discogs lists “Where In This World” in 2014 as the earliest entry, followed by the singles “Unforgotten” and “Also Without You” on Echozone in 2017, the debut album “Birthday And Death” the same year, and the single “Funeral Of Love” in 2018.

Knoch signed to Alfa Matrix in December 2020. The label released the EP “We Are Dreamers”, recorded with Patrik Hansson of Vanguard, in 2021.

“Reliance” was released by Alfa Matrix on 19 November 2021 in digital and CD formats. The fourteen tracks are “Continuation (prolog)”, “We Are Dreamers” with Patrik Hansson, “Wake Up” with Henrik Iversen, “Loneliness” with !Distain, “Save Me” with René Anke, “Mantis” with Stefan Netschio, “Futurism” with Norderney, “The Answer” with Alex Rush, “We Are Dreamers” with Claudia Uhle, “Dust” with Damasius Venys, “Psychological” with Nórdika, “The Light Disappears” with Psyche, “Politicians” with !Distain and “The Day She Died” with !Distain.

Side-Line published a Click Interview with Elektrostaub in December 2021. Alfa Matrix went on to release the EP “Mantis” in 2023, the EP “Falling” in 2025 and the third album “Humility” in 2026.

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: Future-Pop, Electro-Pop.

Format: Digital, 2CD.

Background/Info: Twenty years ago Assemblage 23 released the successful opus “Failure”. Today this legendary album by Tom Shear got a new mix and mastering plus an extra disc featuring remixes.

Content: “Failure” has to be considered as an album that was originally released in the early years of Future-Pop. I know Tom Shear doesn’t care that much attention about the label of his music, but he was often linked with VNV Nation, Neuroticfish and co. With some recoil this album was a hard-banging Pop format, a kind of evil Electro-Pop sound infused with Industrial components, but still melodic and ultra danceable.

The second disc features exactly the same tracklist, but all of the tracks have been remixed in chronological order by DTSR, Interface, Antiscion, Mari Kattman, Rotersand, Clan Of Xymox, The Gentry, Suicide Commando, patrick codenys and Assemblage 23.

+ + + : “Failure” remains a ‘great’ piece of music. The original magic of songs like “Naked”, “House On Fire”, “Disappoint”, “Divide” and “Awake” hasn’t really changed. It’s even a wonder to see how songs of twenty years old still have this effect. It simply reveals the talent and genius of Tom Shear who’s not only a great musician, but also an artist who is writing intelligent and touching lyrics. I think a band like Assemblage 23 brought us a different kind of Electro-Pop, miles away from the established standards and Depeche Mode-clones. “Failure” can be easily seen as a true reference in this genre.

Among the remixes there’re not only great names, but also a very diversified number of artists. It’s also cool to see Tom’s wife (cf. Mari Kattman) remixing one of the songs. My personal favorite is the most unknown project from the list; UK project Antiscion boosting “House On Fire”. Tom Shear did also a great job remixing “King Of Insects”, which sounds definitely better than the original version.

– – – : I’m not sure this remixed and remastered edition will have a similar effect and impact than 20 years ago, but it’s a homage to a great artist and an essential work in his career.

Conclusion: “Failure” has been brought back to life and it still sounds up to date!

Best songs: “House On Fire”, “Naked”, “Disappoint”, “Awake” + “House On Fire – Antiscion Remix”, “King Of Insects – Assemblage 23 Remix”.

Rate: 8½.

Artist: www.assemblage23.com / www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100044546464584

Label: www.accession-records.de / www.facebook.com/accessionrecords

About Assemblage 23

Assemblage 23 is the electronic project of Tom Shear, who began writing under the name in 1988 in Exton, Pennsylvania. The project mixes futurepop, electro-industrial, synth-pop and EBM. Early demos and compilation tracks were later gathered on “Early, Rare, and Unreleased 1988-1998”, and the debut album “Contempt” appeared in 1999 on the Canadian label Gashed!.

“Failure” followed in 2001 and opened a long partnership with Metropolis Records in North America and Accession Records in Europe. “Defiance” came in 2002 and “Storm” in 2004, followed by “Meta” in 2007, “Compass” in 2009 and “Bruise” in 2012. “Endure” was released on 28 August 2016 and “Mourn” on 11 September 2020.

Shear also records as Nerve Filter and Surveillance, and since 2017 as Helix with vocalist Mari Kattman. Side-Line reported in August 2021 that Assemblage 23 sees ‘Failure’ released as a 20th anniversary edition on 2LP and 2CD. The next full-length, “Null” on Metropolis Records, arrived on 7 November 2025.

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

Australian synth band Tycho Brahe have maintained a very busy creative schedule throughout the pandemic.

Co-founder Ken Evans says: “When Covid shut down live music in March 2020, it meant that my programming work for Peter Hook and The Light came to a temporary halt. So Georgina (Emery, co-founder) and I had the opportunity to focus on Tycho Brahe’s sixth album, which is now about 80% done, with about 15 additional remixes and edits of various songs from that album also completed for associated single/EP releases.”

There band is currently putting together a release schedule for that new album which will take them through 2022. At the same time, they’ve been working on a soundtrack for a short dance film by Australian choreographer and film maker Claire Marshall. It will be a seven track EP of music from and inspired by her film, “Love Song”. The soundtrack will be released, coinciding with the film premiere.

Fuck Off 2020 (and 2021)

In March already the band released new mixes of the song “Dreams of Dying” since it turned 25 years old. They also released a song at the end of 2020, their ode to the pandemic, called “Fuck Off 2020”, written in the shower and then recorded in a booze fueled frenzy over a couple of days. And as expected, the story doesn’t end there. Ken: “We’re considering a follow up at the end of this year since 2021 hasn’t been much better.”

Tycho Brahe also has a seven track EP, “The Rob Mitchell Remixes”, scheduled for release across all major digital platforms on November 4th, that’s tomorrow. Says Evans: “These are all remixes of songs from our debut album ‘Cassiopeia’, which was released way back in 2000.”

About Tycho Brahe

The Australian synth band Tycho Brahe was founded in Brisbane in 1993 by Ken Evans and Georgina Emery. Veterans of the Australian live music scene, Tycho now occasionally gig around their home city of Brisbane and beyond, either as a duo or augmented by additional personnel.

Between shows they retire to Tycho Central, a bunker full of vintage synthesisers, drum machines and science fiction memorabilia.

Tycho have had numerous releases, traded remixes with a number of bands, appeared on compilations the world over, and shared the stage with acts such as The Human League, VNV Nation, John Foxx, Covenant, Pseudo Echo, and Real Life. Ken Evans is also associated with Peter Hook & The Light as their programmer, making occasional onstage cameos with them in Australia, Canada, and at The Sydney Opera House.

More info at

• http://www.tycho.com.au
• https://www.facebook.com/tychobraheband
• https://tychobrahe1.bandcamp.com/

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

Premiering now on Side-Line is The Rain Within’s “Forward in Reverse”, a track which is influenced by the horror films Andy Deane loved as a kid: “It is driven by repetitious, haunting melodies that call back spiritually to themes from the films of Argento, Fulci, and Carpenter. Lyrically, it’s about trying to mend your heart and move forward before the weight of the world kills you.”

“Forward in Reverse” is taken off The Rain Within’s new album “Horrorshow” due out October 5th on Negative Gain.

The Rain Within’s sound is influenced by various bands, from the cold synthesizers of John Carpenter and Vangelis to the catchy pop structures of The Psychedelic Furs and Depeche Mode. Add to that of course well placed dance beats.

Here’s the new single, you can also stream / download it here.

About The Rain Within

After 2 self-released EPs, The Rain Within met up with Negative Gain Productions at a performance in LA on their first US tour. A first full-length album, “Dark Drive”, was released followed by “Atomic Eyes” which landed The Rain Within a slot on a nationwide tour with VNV Nation.

“Horrorshow” is the latest release for The Rain Within and is said to be their most aggressive and ambitious work to date.

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: Dark-Electro, Industrial-Rave.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Never change a winning team! The duo Stahlnebel – Black Selket strikes back with their seventh album to date.

Content: The Germans didn’t really change their sound formula; this is a powerful and fully club-driven approach mixing hard pumping kicks, dark atmospheres and carrying Trance-orientated leads. The vocals are more like growls, but you’ll also notice spoken samplings –featuring famous words of Winston Churchill.

+ + + : I can’t say that the sound of this band has really changed and/or evolved over the years. But the main strength of Stahlnebel & Black Selket is that they’ve a very recognizable sound and I really like artists with their own sound DNA. The album reveals some great songs, “Never Surrender” (featuring samplings of Churchill) being for sure one of the biggest potential dancefloor killers. But I also have to mention “God And The Devil” and the pretty surprising cover of VNV Nation’s “Control”.

– – – : The main strength of a band always often becomes its weakness… The sound formula remains exactly the same-old one so in the end “The Darkest Hour” has something predictable.

Conclusion: Stahlnebel & Black Selket don’t really care about innovation and eventually new sonic paths to discover; they move on composing great dance floor stuff for dark souls!

Best songs: “Never Surrender”, “God And The Devil”,  “Control”, “Schmerz”, “Help”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.facebook.com/stahlnebel.blackselket

Label: www.advoxya-records.com / www.facebook.com/pages/Advoxya-Records/265765706059

About Stahlnebel & Black Selket

Stahlnebel & Black Selket is a dark-electro collaboration between Ralph Neuhaus (Stahlnebel, Germany) and Sander Kapper (Black Selket, the Netherlands), who met through Myspace in early 2008 for a remix contest; Kapper produces the music, Neuhaus writes and sings the lyrics and Branko Kohl handles live instruments on stage. After the CD-R album “Unexpected” (2009, Stahlblack Productions) and the “Lifeless EP” the duo moved to Advoxya Records for “Memories” (2010), “Blood And Passion” (2011), “Bloody Rain EP” (2011), “More Noise” and the 7″ “Noise” (2012), “Contemporary Transformation” (2013), “We Break The Silence” (2014) and the EP Betrug (2015), reviewed on Side-Line in March 2016.

The double CD Questions followed in 2016 through Stahlblack Productions and DSBP, then the tenth-anniversary compilation “Timeless, Indestructible Resistant To Therapy…” (2017) and “Time Between Passion & Despair” (2019). The duo also remixed acts including Menschdefekt and nTTx.

“The Darkest Hour” was released by Advoxya Records on 26 April 2021 on CD, in a silver super-carton jacket, and as a download. The eleven tracks are “Lost Our Way”, “Schmerz”, “The Darkest Hour”, “God And The Devil”, “Kids Revolution”, “Never Surrender”, “Help”, “Control”, “Not Guilty”, “Blessed” and “Alone”. Sander Kapper composed and produced the music and designed the sleeve, Ralph Neuhaus wrote the lyrics, the album was mastered at StahlBlack Productions, Fernando made the artwork and Falk Rentsch took the photograph; “Control” was written by Ronan Harris. Kapper spoke about the album in the ‘Click Interview’ with Stahlnebel & Black Selket: ‘This Pandemic Gave Us An Extra Boost’ in September 2021.

The limited double LP “We Never Surrender” (2022) and the EP “Depersonalize – Dementia” (2023) followed on Advoxya, while Kapper released the Black Selket solo albums “Mortal Life” (2020) and “Unleash The Beast” (2024). “The Darkest Hour” is the duo’s seventh album.

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

(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) Lot’s of Apoptygma Berzerk fans are rejoicing today – it’s the release day of the ‘You and Me against the World’ re-issue. The 2005 album had the band introducing a more indie-rock style of music and broke the band to new audiences, especially in Germany with four hit singles and the album climbing to #18 on the official charts.

Now it’s re-issued in two vinyl versions and on CD, and of course we had to know what Stephan Groth had to say about this and what else he’s up to these days!

S-L: How has the sale been so far of the various versions?

STP: I am not that much into the details regarding sales, but from what I hear things are going great. I`m told that the red limited edition vinyl is almost sold out… not that surprising since so many people are collecting rare vinyl these days. 

Personally, I prefer classic black and clear/transparent vinyls, but from a collectors point of view the red limited edition is a better investment, and of course, it also looks extremely nice. Sound quality wise transparent and black is supposed to be the best.

S-L: What’s the response from the fans on this re-issue?

STP: Well, I only just got the vinyls myself two days ago, and most people have not seen or listened to the record yet, so it is a bit early for any feedback. But I heard from a few record stores that people are excited and that many have pre-ordered the album and are looking forward to release day.

So it seems many people including myself are excited to finally get ‘You And Me Against The World’ on vinyl, it is long overdue. The CD has been out of print for a while, so I am happy to have it back in stock. We remastered all the tracks, and they sound really good. We also added as many bonus tracks as the CD can hold.

Both the new CD and the vinyl versions of Y.A.M.A.T.W. got a nice upgrade sonically, but also visually. Halvor Bodin re-designed the cover, and gave it a new updated look that fit today`s APOP-vibe and it is a perfect match. In the booklet we used photos by Sebastian Ludvigsen that were not in the original cover, but from the same photo sessions that we did back in 2005. So the cover looks and feels very much the same as the original, but with a modern and updated touch to it. 

S-L: More re-issues planned? Or new music first?

STP: We are almost done with a 3rd ‘B-Sides & Rarities’ compilation. This will be released on digital platforms only, just like the previous two, ‘Faceless Fear’ and ‘Disarm’.

I am also working on stuff in the studio, and as it looks right now there will be a new EP, a follow-up to ‘Nein Danke!’ but that could change, it might turn into a whole album, not sure yet…

Also, if you’re interested in APOP-related re-issues, the debut-album from Cronos Titan, ‘Brides Of Christ’, is also being released on vinyl for the very first time now with a beautifully redesigned sleeve, also by Halvor Bodin. My brother Jonas, who plays synth in APOP, just released the debut album with his project, Piston Damp, which is a superb synthpop album.

We’re also planning to get ‘Harmonizer’, ‘Welcome To Earth’ and ‘7’ out on vinyl again as they’ve been out of print for a long time now. But the pressing plants are jammed up at the moment, and with a six month waiting period to have an album out on vinyl things will take time. Still, we’re continually working on both reissues and new material simultaneously. 

S-L: Other things on the calendar now that the corona restrictions are being lifted?

STP: Hopefully things will get back to normal soon, so we can go play live again. We have three shows planned for next year, shows that have been postponed several times already due to the corona situation.
Those are: Subkultfestivalen, Sweden. Månefestivalen, Fredrikstad, Norway and VNV NATION 30, Gelsenkirchen, Germany. 
The 2022 dates for Subkultfestivalen and VNV 30 are already posted, but we’re still waiting for Månefestivalen to confirm their date(s) for 2022. Other than that, we won’t be booking any new gigs until we know 100% for sure that the gigs are doable, so we’re basically just “waiting things out” until things are more stable. 

The album can be ordered in various markets

• Europe > Lo-Fi Merchandise or POPoNAUT
• USA/Canada/South-America > The Electric Fox
• Norway > Retro Vinyl

Jan Ronald Stange

Sometimes – when I’m not cooking, biking, listening to music or attending concerts, I write stuff for Side-Line.com. Mostly about Norwegian bands, but it’s been some Swedish, English, American, Danish, German and others too… 😉

www.facebook.com/jrstange

Genre/Influences: Electro-Pop, Experimental, Ethereal-Pop.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: Karin My Andersson is a Swedish female artist who did some vocals in different bands like Twice A Man, Coph Nia, Carbon Based Lifeforms, Fake Moss ao. She’s also involved with Gasleben & Electric Friends and now unleashed her official debut-album. I can’t speak about a real solo-work as multiple guests (musicians and vocalists) contributed to the writing and production of the work. The songs are based on poems of Karin My.

Content: “Silence Amygdala” sounds like an invitation to explore an imaginary world. It’s an evasive sonic trip revealing the fragile and emotive voice of the artist. On some of the songs she reminds me of the wafting sensation created by Enya. The basis of the songs have been composed by Electronics, but still featuring guitar, acoustic guitar, cello, flute ao. One of the most surprising cuts is the cover version of VNV Nation’s “Homeward”, which has been transposed into an acoustic guitar ballad.

+ + + : This album has something graceful. The artist didn’t spare any effort to achieve a mature production. Karin My’s poems have been masterly transposed into music and it’s the entire production, which has a poetic smell. The use of real instruments for sure partly creates this artistic sensation. The songs have something elevating creating the illusion of a feather driven through the wind. This work has something delicate and enlightening. “Winter Tree” and “Time To Go” both are beautiful songs.

– – – : The second part of the album is less convincing by the exception of the last (title)song. The VNV Nation cover version is an original one, but not totally fitting with the rest of the album.

Conclusion: This work feels like sunshine after the storm; a true relief, which sounds sweet and frail.

Best songs: “Winter Tree”, “Time To Go”, “Letter”, “Silence Amygdala”.

Rate: (7).

Artist: www.karinmy.net

Label: www.explorata.net / www.facebook.com/adinexplorata Read the news on ‘Silence Amygdala’.

About Karin My

Karin My is a Swedish vocalist who has contributed to Twice a Man, Coph Nia, Carbon Based Lifeforms and Fake Moss, and is also involved with Gasleben & Electric friends, according to Discogs.

“Silence Amygdala”, released on Ad Inexplorata in 2021, was her official debut album, built from her own poems and featuring multiple guest musicians and vocalists. It included a cover version of VNV Nation‘ “Homeward”, reworked as an acoustic guitar ballad.

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

Stefan Herwig once started Kugelblitz Records and moved on with Off Beat. He set up Dependent Records in 1998. The label got an instant success thanks to famous bands like  VNV Nation, Covenant, Mesh, Velvet, Acid Christ And Suicide Commando. Dependent became a great home for intelligent Electronic artists. Other ‘big’ names like Pride And Fall, Seabound, Mind.In.A.Box, Rotersand, Click Click, Front Line Assembly, Decoded Feedback, Fïx8:Sëd8 ao joined in.

(Stéphane Froidcoeur / Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Was there a kind of ‘philosophy’ when you set up your label and did it evolve over the years? How would you define your label activities today?

Stefan: Yes, absolutely, there was a ‘label philosophy’ and it did evolve over the years quite a bit, it did actually evolve 3 times and it continues to evolve right now. When we founded Dependent we only had the plan to sign with 5 artists (hence the hand as a logo, originally) and work very intensively with those artists. We signed the artists for short-term deals, brought some of them to quite a big status and then found out that they used the first option to hop out of deals and sign with Major label companies for bigger advances. That was disappointing. Also, some artists developed a real problematic persona, when they became successful, and we struggled to deal with that as well.

So, as hard as it sounds: we had to ‘ditch’ the idealistic approach. On top of that came the industry crisis in the early 2000s, which made life as a record label very difficult. Well, to put it short: we learned a lot since then.

Q: I can imagine you must have specific and explicit criteria to sign an artist/band. Can you give us more details about this aspect and how important is it for you to know the person(s) hiding behind the ‘artist(s)’?

Stefan: Well, we are always looking for good vocals and a decisive artistic vision at first. The project has got to ‘make sense’ to us, not only the music, but everything. Sometimes we receive good demos, but they are all over the board stylistically, and then we will struggle to market this kind of stuff properly. But then again: GOOD VOCALS are one of our prime conditions. And yes, the dealings with the artists have to be smooth. If you dislike artists from the get-go, it will end up being a difficult collaboration, so if artists appear ‘difficult’ during the first talks, we will think twice.

Q: You are already active for numerous years now so you must have seen a lot of things changing and evolving; think about social media, streaming platforms, Youtube channels… but also economic crisis etc. What are the pros and cons of these changes/evolutions and in, which way did you had to adapt/change your strategy and activities?

Stefan: Well, all the promotion strategies, the timings, the ideas behind it, the distribution channels, etc… have changed -drastically. The music industry from 20, from 10 or even from just 5 years ago has little in common with what we do now. Be available on very channel, digital and physical. The one thing that has not changed is that we are being committed to great artists and releases in the long run.

Dependent has an own fanbase from people that have recognized this, this makes us very proud. But we also stick to physical release, vinyls and special editions. It is a better form to release music.

Q: The ongoing pandemic has affected all artistic life and activities so what’s the true impact on your label activities and do you think it will also affect your long term objectives?

Stefan: Well, people stay more at home, so they also listen to more music. They buy a better stereo, buy albums on vinyl, etc. Also the shortfall of festivals means that some people have more money in their budget to spend on recorded music. It is kind of ironic, but the shortfall of concerts gives the labels and the recording artists a little boost. Obviously for everybody who is in the live performance and booking business, this situation is entirely catastrophic, and I sincerely hope that it will evolve soon.

Q: Do you think media (magazines, online platforms etc…) still have an impact and a role to play today? What’s your relationship with ‘journalists’ and how important is their work?

Stefan: Well, it’s been a tough place for music magazines, especially printed ones for years now, and we have seen many big print magazines go under, that is no secret. I do have a soft spot for good journalism & good reviews that bring good music recommendations to the people. But I see that for instance streaming recommendation algorithms have become so good, that the air gets even thinner for music magazines. I hope the magazines and print people will evolve and survive. One step would be to curate own playlists on Spotify, to keep the magazine identity and recommendation function alive. But also better reviews would be helpful; some reviews are being too optimistic and not critical enough.

Q: What do you consider as your biggest accomplishment(s)? Do you have specific goals/dreams you want to achieve and how do you prepare and see the future of the label(s)? And what are your biggest regret(s)?

Stefan: Well, we have had our fair share of chart successes, and this is nice (and keeps us afloat, obviously), but the real accomplishment is to ‘develop’ artists to enable them to have a successful career and have a good input on the music scene, instead of watering it down. I think some labels are in the process of watering down the scenes’ identity instead of strengthening it. Artist development is STILL the goal, after all, we still love Electronic music. The moment from when you get a REALLY good demo is almost like the moment you fall in love with someone: your hair starts to stand up, the heartbeat is rising, you have this big smile on your face. It is amazing that music can do this to us still.

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

Metropolis Records was set up in 1994 by Dave Heckman. In no time the American label became a truly reference when it comes to Electronic and Industrial music. The label licensed –and still does, European productions, but also signed new artists. Among the Metropolis roster you’ll find bands as VNV Nation, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, Wumpsuct, Project Pitchfork, Juno Reactor, Assemblage 23, The Birthday Massacre, KMFDM, Numb, Haujobb, Leather Strip, Apoptygma Berzerk, Velvet Acid Christ, God Module, Covenant, Informatik and many, many more

(Stéphane Froidcoeur / Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Was there a kind of ‘philosophy’ when you set up your label and did it evolve over the years? How would you define your label activities today?

Dave: No philosophy per se. It was just something I wanted to do for a living, so I needed to go about things in a very professional manner and always stay focused on that goal.

I am going to presume you mean label activities as compared to my activities at the label, although I will go into both.

The first step is to find the talent and that has always been my job. I am the owner and the A&R guy. Then, of course, a deal needs to be worked out and again that has always been my job too.

After a deal is done, we have to assemble the assets for the release such as artwork, photos, masters, videos, and publishing information. This is all needed to setup the releases with our worldwide distributors and to manufacture the albums themselves.

Then comes promotion. Retail, club, radio, video, press, touring, social media, etc. A lot of this is done internally, but sometimes we hire outside companies, particularly for video, radio, press, and booking tours.

Finally, the royalty statements need to be processed and payments made. A tedious and important part of the business.

So, believe it or not, as much as the industry has changed, the setup and promotion is really quite similar to what it was years ago. The revenue just comes from different sources.

Q: I can imagine you must have specific and explicit criteria to sign an artist/band. Can you give us more details about this aspect and how important is it for you to know the person(s) hiding behind the ‘artist(s)’?

Dave: Not really. In general, I sign bands I like and there is no particular sound I am looking for. I cannot really tell you why I liked Numb or Project Pitchfork, I just did. When it comes to art, whether music, film, or paintings I cannot tell you why I like what I do. In some way it has to move me.

That said, I do have a tendency to like or lean towards things dark, edgy, and innovative. Some of the bands that I was interested in were never signed, because we could not come to an agreement. Sometimes the bands had higher expectations than I did and the advance they wanted was too large or we had different ideas on promotional aspects of a campaign.

Metropolis has released over 1200 albums with over 200 different artists, so I did not get to meet and know everyone. In the beginning I just licensed from a few European labels like Zoth Ommog, KK Records and Hyperium. So, my relationships were with my licensing partners. However, as things progressed and we brought the bands over to tour and I went overseas to festivals and conferences and finally met these artists, my relationships with them developed. Always liked to travel and visit the artists where they lived and liked hanging out with them during and after shows. As we got to know each other better it just made everything smoother.

Q: You are already active for numerous years now so you must have seen a lot of things changing and evolving; think about social media, streaming platforms, Youtube channels… but also economic crisis etc. What are the pros and cons of these changes/evolutions and in, which way did you had to adapt/change your strategy and activities?

Dave: The biggest change was the death of retail record stores. That was how I started consuming music as a 10 year old kid. I mean I just did not go there to buy music, but to discover it. The cool stores played cool music and I also would just go through the record bins to find something new that caught my eye. Retail was still a force in music in the 90’s, but went really downhill after 2002 or so. As I mentioned above, retail promotion was important, but now it is almost gone.

So, of course digital comes along and I knew tons of artists and labels that were vehemently opposed to the format. Don’t get me wrong I thought 128 bit rate MP3 played on a computer sucked compared to a Compact Disc on a good stereo system. However, that is the way people wanted to consume, so we sold digital downloads.

At present, hardly anyone buys downloads and streaming revenue is going through the roof. Of course, I have artists complaining about this. More arguments / discussions with artists about streaming than any other industry issue, but it has saved the industry not destroyed it. Illegal downloads and CD burning where the real culprits.

Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Prime, Deezer, Pandora are great platforms. However, YouTube sucks. They pay a fraction of what everyone else does, but people are complaining about Spotify instead of them. That I do not understand.

The bottom line is to adapt fast to a changing industry.

The benefit of the digital world is the massive savings on manufacturing, storage, and shipping, which of course is also good for the environment.

As far as the economic downturn, we go through these all the time and readjust.

Q: The ongoing pandemic has affected all artistic life and activities so what’s the true impact on your label activities and do you think it will also affect your long term objectives?

Dave: The pandemic has hurt the industry considerably. We had a dozen tours lined up for last spring including Lords Of Acid, Clan Of Xymox, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly, The Birthday Massacre, and many more. All cancelled and the bands lost money to varying degrees. However, the recorded music industry saw their revenue grow since almost everything is digital or online even including physical sales. In the long run and this intermediate period, nothing will change much, people will go back to their old habits for the most part.

Q: Do you think media (magazines, online platforms etc…) still have an impact and a role to play today? What’s your relationship with ‘journalists’ and how important is their work?

Dave: Yes, that medium is still important. All promotional activity counts. You have to spread the word around wherever you can. However, I really cannot comment on my relationship with the journalists as I never really had one. I am talking about me, not the label. Publicity and press is one of the few things I have always delegated to someone else.

Q: What do you consider as your biggest accomplishment(s)? Do you have specific goals/dreams you want to achieve and how do you prepare and see the future of the label(s)? And what are your biggest regret(s)?

Dave: Even though I eventually worked with some big names in the industry what I liked most was taking bands that were once small and introduce them to the scene, promoting them and then selling reasonable amounts of records for them. Covenant, Haujobb, Velvet Acid Christ, Wumpscut, Combichrist, Apoptygma Berzerk, And One, Assemblage 23 were all selling just a couple thousand copies and eventually sold 20,000 to 50,000 albums in North America alone. These are good numbers for alternative music. VNV Nation sold even much more than that. Just to put it in perspective only one in a hundred artists sold over 10,000 copies back then no matter what the genre.

I have met my goals. As I mentioned I wanted to do this for a living and I did. Also, Metropolis has a good brand name and I got to meet a lot of great artists who are now my friends. I wish I could have pushed the boundaries more and could have done more outside the Goth / Industrial genre. However, that did not work out that well except with the a few bands like Mindless Self Indulgence and Electric Six.

I am content with the label’s accomplishments. The label is 27 years old and I was well into my thirties when I started in the music business. So, we will continue to do what we do and improve where we can, remembering that adopting to change is important.

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

Back in 1991 I started writing my first reviews for Side-Line magazine. I would have never thought to go on writing reviews and making interviews non-stop for 30 years. So 2021 is a special year to me, a kind of ‘celebration year’. I got the idea to celebrate this special event by interviewing people from the scene who all have a special meaning to me. I met Johan Van Roy even before I wrote my first review. He was busy composing music under the SUICIDE COMMANDO moniker. I liked the dark and tormented atmosphere of his early demos, which were reminding me of THE KLINIK. I got the chance singing on one of his early songs and we even set up together a music project. SUICIDE COMMANDO became one of the absolute leading formations from the Dark-Electro scene, playing as headliner at big festivals, selling thousands of albums and having an impressive word-wide fan base. Beyond the successful career hides an humble person. No star attitude, but an accessible and kind man who simply remains himself.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Thirty five years ago now you started experimenting with Electronic music while setting up SUICIDE COMMANDO. What incited you back in 1986 to experiment with electro sounds and noises? How did that happened and what equipment did you use?

Johan: I grew up in the early 80s with the in that time booming New-Wave scene, listening to bands like THE CURE, SISTERS OF MERCY, but also more Electronic sounding bands like DEPECHE MODE or FAD GADGET … It was because of these bands that my love for Electronic music started. Not much later I discovered bands like THE NEON JUDGEMENT, FRONT 242 and THE KLINIK (in those days these bands even got airplay on national radio stations like BRT…).

These bands had such a big impact on me that I also wanted to start making Electronic music. And so I bought my first keyboard back in summer 1986, the now legendary Roland SH101, not much later added with 2 drum machines, the Boss DR110 Dr. Rhythm and the Boss DR220E.

Very limited gear, but in those days very expensive equipment, so it wasn’t that obvious to buy more equipment. For example samplers were extremely expensive and even with a sampler you only could record a few seconds of sound…

Q: People maybe don’t realize it took you years and a lot of patience plus perseverance to get some recognition. I get the impression you couldn’t maybe directly break through because of a lack of equipment. As you said, electronic equipment was very expensive and there weren’t the same facilities as today. How do you look back at this period regarding equipment, the multiple cassettes you released, the first compilation features etc?

Johan: It obviously were totally different times, not just only because of the cost and the lack of equipment, as I already mentioned before. But there also wasn’t any social media, so that means it took way longer to get your music spread around. Everything still had to be done by post, so things took much longer then nowadays.
Today’s possibilities are unlimited, but nonetheless I don’t regret I had to start this way. It gave you much more freedom and time to work on music. You also had to be way more innovative and inventive to create and write music. Today almost everything is already canned, get yourself a PC and some music software and in one day you can write yourself a complete album …

Many bands had to start like I did, writing music with very limited gear and releasing it on tape… bands like FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY, NITZER EBB… all started this way.
It also gave me time to improve and create my own style, something I do lack in today’s music scene.
So I definitely look back at it with pleasure.

Q: You became involved with LESCURE 13, which in a way -and right in the beginning became more recognized than SUICIDE COMMANDO. I was even sure LESCURE 13 would even become the Belgian ‘next big thing’, but it finally didn’t happen that way. How comes and what do you keep in mind from the LESCURE 13 experience?

Johan:I don’t think that SUICIDE COMMANDO was less recognized, but it was much harder to get the same recognition if you don’t do live shows, and I think that was the main reason why LESCURE 13 got picked up faster. Initially I never really planned on doing live shows with SUICIDE COMMANDO, but as our first live show with LESCURE 13 at the legendary Side-Line festival at ‘VK’ in Brussels became such a success, it convinced me to start doing live shows with SUICIDE COMMANDO as well. So in a way Side-Line is to blame for that 🙂

It was fun doing LESCURE 13 with Stefan Bens (STIN SCATZOR), but since SUICIDE COMMANDO got more and more successful in the years after, I got less and less time to focus on LESCURE 13, so on the long run the combination became too difficult and stressful for me. I’ll never forget our very first live show with LESCURE 13 in Brussels.

Q: I got the privilege to start another project with you, which was TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME. How do you look back at this experience and a few other side-projects like DB.F and KOMBAT UNIT?

Johan:I enjoyed doing them all, but just like with LESCURE 13, time became the biggest problem. The combination of doing music with SUICIDE COMMANDO + work + family just became too time consuming and stressful.

But like I said, I enjoyed doing all these side projects. As SUICIDE COMMANDO was my solo-project I enjoyed working together with others from time to time, even though it requires a different approach.

With LESCURE 13 we still do some live shows now and then, and also KOMBAT UNIT with Jan (NOISUF-X, X-FUSION) never really stopped, but it’s all just a matter of time.

Doing TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME was fun too, but in the end you have to make choices and set priorities, but I look back at it with lots of pleasure.

Q: The split-album/compilation “Induktion, Varianz Und Deren Folgen” released by Stefan Herwig on his early label Kugelblitz in 1993 made things change! Suddenly more people were discovering SUICIDE COMMANDO! How important was this compilation in the career and development of SUICIDE COMMANDO? And how important was Stefan Herwig who finally brought you to join his Off Beat label?

Johan: Oh, for sure this was a career changer and I’m sure that without Stefan Herwig, SUICIDE COMMANDO never would have become as big as today. I already knew Stefan Herwig for a few years after he discovered SUICIDE COMMANDO through my tapes released on the German ZNS tapes label, so when Stefan started his own label with Kugelblitz Records he soon invited me to join on his “Induktion, Varianz Und Deren Folgen” split-CD.

Not much later Stefan started working for the rising Off Beat label and so he was able to get me in there as well… and the rest is history I guess.

I’m aware I was pretty lucky, being at the right place at the right time I guess… so yes, without Stefan my career would have looked totally different I guess.

Q: SUICIDE COMMANDO was often compared to THE KLINIK, which has been one of your main sources of inspiration. What has been the real impact of THE KLINIK and eventually other bands –and maybe music genres, in the development and evolution of SUICIDE COMMANDO till today?

Johan:Well, no need to deny that bands like KLINIK or yet FRONT 242 (and others like THE NEON JUDGEMENT, FAD GADGET, SKINNY PUPPY, NITZER EBB…) had a major impact on me and my music throughout the years. They not only were a major source of inspiration, these bands also were THE main reason why I started doing ‘Electronic’ music in the first place. My older brother was playing guitar so my first steps into the music scene were as a bass player, but when I discovered bands like KLINIK, FRONT 242… a whole new world opened before my eyes (and ears).
Still in 2021 a band like KLINIK remains probably my biggest influence.

Q: You last year celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the “Mindstrip”-album. This production probably became the most successful one in the band’s history, but how do you look back at this album and did it make specific things/aspects changing?

Johan: Not sure if it was my most successful album, but it sure had the biggest impact on my career. We already gained some recognition with the huge success of “See You In Hell” and to a lesser extent “Desire” and “Better Off Dead”, but the release of the “Mindstrip”-album and the “Hellraiser”-single taken from this album certainly brought us to the top of the scene. Again I think Stefan Herwig had a big part in this success as he just started his own division with Dependent Records, gathering bands like COVENANT or VNV NATION… I think SUICIDE COMMANDO certainly benefitted from their success as well.

On top of that I think “Mindstrip” filled a gap between the at that time trending Future- and Synth-Pop acts and the more harder side of the Electro scene which was at a decline at that moment, and therefore “Mindstrip” marked an important milestone in the entire scene. All of a sudden bands started to copy SUICIDE COMMANDO and harsh electro was born. In the next years many bands would jump onto the harsh ‘Electro/Endzeit’ train.

So it not only marked the start of a new subgenre in the Electro scene, it also changed the expectations of the media and the crowd.

My follow up album “Axis Of Evil” was 8 weeks at the top of the at that time highly acclaimed German Alternative Charts (DAC).

Q: You’re organizing an interesting annual ‘SUICIDE COMMANDO poll’ where the fans can choose their favorite songs. In which way is it representative for your personal favorites and what are your favorite songs? And do you’ve some songs, which remained underrated?

Johan: It’s a good representation of what the fans consider the best SUICIDE COMMANDO songs, but that’s about all. It surely doesn’t reflect my personal favorites, even though a few of my personal faves are also in the top 10 of this list.

I’ve always enjoyed doing the more slower and atmospheric songs. A few of them like “God Is In The Rain” or “The Devil” also gained club success, but personal favorites like “Euthanasia” (1998), “Body Count proceed” (2000), “Until We Die” (2010), “Severed Head” (2010), “Repent Or Perish” (2013)… remained under the radar.

Q: SUICIDE COMMANDO became the absolute leading formation from the Dark-Electro scene! I can imagine it’s a deserved recognition for hard work, but what does this ‘status’ really mean to you? What has been the impact of this success on the person hiding behind the artist? In which way did it change your life?

Johan: I don’t think it had that much impact on me personally. I always remained (probably too) humble and down to earth. Of course I’m flattered by this recognition, but compared to some others in this scene, I always kept both feet on the ground. And let’s face it, compared with the mainstream Beyoncé’s and Madonna’s of this world we’re just tiny little dwarfs…lol

Q: Do you know how much SUICIDE COMMANDO-albums have been sold today? What have been the best-sellers?

Johan: With the rise of digital downloads and sales I have no idea anymore of actual physical sales. The market completely changed in the last 2 decades. Physical sales of CD’s completely collapsed and the digital market is so diverse that it’s hard to give any concrete numbers.

On platforms like Spotify… people don’t listen to complete albums anymore, they just pick their favorite songs. Not even sure if complete albums still will be released in 10 years from now…

So it’s hard to compare, I know an album like “Mindstrip” sold over 25.000 physical copies, but it never even reached the official album charts, while my latest 2 albums even made it to a position in the top 20 of the official German album charts, even though their physical sales are way less than the original “Mindstrip”-album for example, simply because digital sales totally took over the market.

Q: Is it possible for an underground artist to earn a living with music? How important is money when you’re a renowned artist?

Johan: Yes, (in non-Covid times!) I think it’s possible for the bigger acts in the underground scene, if you do it properly, which means doing regular live touring + releasing music on a regular base.

But it takes a lot of work, time and devotion. I’m still one of the lucky few who can live from music, but since I have a responsibility towards my wife and kid, I deliberately choose to keep doing a half time job to remain financially safe.

Q: SUICIDE COMMANDO is also a live band with a solid reputation. How important is it for you to play live shows and feel the interaction with the fans?

Johan: I find it very important and I realize it even more at times like these today with the pandemic. I do miss this interaction with the fans and the crowd. It gives so much satisfaction and energy to be on stage and interact with your fans.

Q: Torben Schmidt and Mario Vaerewijck are your long-time live mates. How does it happen when you guys are on tour and what makes the chemistry between you all (and the entire crew)?

Johan: I think we all enjoy it very much to be on the road, in a way it’s also our escape from boring daily work ‘eat-sleep’ routine. A big advantage also is that we’re not a conventional band, I mean, basically SUICIDE COMMANDO is just me doing all the music, so Torben and Mario only join in on stage, so we don’t have to sleep with each other (which does happen sometimes being on tour haha…).

Usually it’s all very easy going when we’re on the road and that keeps things pleasant.

Q: You played at numerous festivals and in very different countries all over the world. Do you see noticeable differences between countries and continents and are there some specific places/venues you would ever like to play?

Johan: There certainly are differences. Not specifically because of the crowd, although we do notice a difference between playing in countries where people hardly ever get to see live bands from other continents (like Mexico or Brazil…) or countries where you can watch the same band every 2 weeks (like Germany …).

The gratitude is  bigger in countries where you don’t get to play every month or year. I do notice more differences on the technical level. Clubs and venues usually are much better equipped in Europe then across the ocean. It’s a much bigger challenge to do shows in the US for example, but what counts in the end is the response from the crowd. I can be more satisfied playing in front of 100 people in a dirty basement with a crappy sound system then playing in front of 5000 people, as long as the people had fun I’m happy.

Q: What has been your biggest satisfaction and deception so far?

Johan: I’m overall happy that I could make my biggest passion a big part of my job and life. Music has always been my passion, so I feel privileged that I could make my music my (part time) job and life. I feel privileged that I can share my music and my passion with my fans, that’s probably my biggest satisfaction.

My biggest deception? Hard to say, maybe the fact that it also takes a lot of sacrifices to combine all these things (my daily part time job + music + family + …), it already got me into a severe burn-out few years ago, my knee is fucked up after the accident on stage in the US, my ears are fucked up because of the often too loud music on stages …

Q: A lot of things have changed/evolved since you set up SUICIDE COMMANDO in 1985! What’s your perception about it all and how did you see the scene and entire music business evolving throughout the years?

Johan: Oh for sure many things have changed throughout the years, it’s really been a technological revolution… The technological possibilities became endless, maybe not all for the best though.

We’re living in an ever faster society and that’s even reflected in our music. In 1985 a song had to be 120 bpm maximum, today we’re living at a speed of 135 bpm or more… lol

The rise of the digital media totally killed the CD and vinyl market, but also brought new possibilities, so I also try to see the positive effects of it.
Social media became the new normal and brought music & bands closer to their fans, but also gave us a shallow and resentful society.

So it all has it’s pro and cons… and there’s no way back.

Q: Do you sometimes imagine the end of SUICIDE COMMANDO and are there other things in life you would like to accomplish?

Johan: I don’t think SUICIDE COMMANDO will ever stop. I tried to split several times, but it’s so hard being a one man project…lol. No seriously, I can’t imagine my life without music, so I probably will continue writing music till I drop dead. 

Q: What might we expect from SUICIDE COMMANDO for the next few months?

Johan: I’m currently working on a new album, but I don’t want to rush things, so no idea when it will be finished.

I certainly do hope we can start doing live shows again sometime this Summer, so I’m really looking forward to that.
And there might be some more surprises coming up, but wait and see…

Side-Line also covered Suicide Commando’s ‘Trick or treat’.

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

Back in the good old days, Side-Line online had a weekly newsletter that was sent to over 40.000 people. And when we say back in the good old days, we mean 1999. That’s 22 years ago. Time flies… When in 2004 our provider back then stopped, we were unable to continue the service as we found no new provider able to send that newsletter on a weekly basis at a reasonable price.

22 years later Audioglobe’s Sebastian Koch suddenly mentioned that good old newsletter during a quick chat back and forth. He missed that newsletter where he could find some relevant info on the scene. His comment triggered us to look for a good partner in order to relaunch that very service and at the same time also look for a better solution for our daily newsletter which currently services a rather large readership of thousands of people worldwide. We say a ‘better solution’ because let’s be honest, what Feedburner offers currently is extremely poor when it comes to usability, options, etc.. And that for a Google owned company, you would think they’d do a better job, but no.

On a side-note, we ditched Google’s Adsense a few years ago as well, because they started intervening in the content of our site. Although they claim never to intervene in what publishers publish, we were regularly asked to take down articles of Apoptygma Berserk, Front 242, VNV Nation, Rammstein, Acylum, … because they didn’t like the content or images. Censorship at its best, and when we were asked to censor an article on Kant Kino, we called it quits and removed Adsense from our pages, enough was enough.

Now, back to the newsletters solution.

New design and the relaunch of the weekly newsletter as well

With our new partner we are now able to offer you a very slick design, a Facebook follower even called it ‘chic’. We offer you a preview of the new newsletter below (here split up in 3 segments so you see how the whole newsletter looks like).

As you can see the new look is very much in line with our website: simple, clear, clean… and no ads.

The biggest change will however be the relaunch of our weekly newsletter. You can subscribe to either the daily or the weekly newsletter OR you can sign up for both if you want to.

You can sign up below.

You will also have noticed if you visited our website in the past few days that there is a ‘slide in’ sign up form which appears after you have passed 50% of a page, also this one. It features the German EBM band Rector Scanner who was so kind to allow us to use this specific promo picture.

Over time other bands will be invited to offer a picture as well. So look out for some nice cameos.

Good to know, for those who don’t want to subscribe, it won’t be popping up all the time, only every 2 weeks if you didn’t sign up. We might adjust this depending on the feedback we get.

What happens with my old subscription?

Good question. First of all, the older weekly newsletter subscribers will get an email to resubscribe. All 40.000+ emails from our very first weekly newsletter have been checked for their validity and so far a bit more than 24.000 are still valid. If you were part of that newsletter, and your email is still valid, you will receive an email to sign up again in the next week.

As for the daily newsletter, we are currently also testing if the Feedburner emails are still active, something Feedburner never managed properly. Actually, Google never bothered to check it and kept all emails active, even the ones that bounced. This is actually a pure disgrace, but since we are leaving the Google platform for good, let’s look to the bright future ahead instead.

If the test this Monday evening, that’s today, goes well, the daily newsletter subscribers from Feedburner will be transferred automatically to the new service. But if we encounter too many bounces in the testmail that goes out, we will send out an email to the current subscribers here as well to sign up for the new daily newsletter so that we don’t run the risk to get flagged for spam due to too many bounces.

Note that all new signups will again be double opt-in, this to avoid spam and to avoid bounces.

The future is bright, the future is away from Facebook

As said before, we have no reason to believe that Facebook will be getting friendlier for indie (music) publishers. So we continue to work on own channels to get the news out just like we have been doing over the past 22 years.

A few weeks ago we already officially launched the web push notification service which has been rapidly adopted by our readers, and now we launch our newest newsletters in a rebooted version and will continue to develop other platforms such as our Telegram channel to make sure that readers get the news they want.

Our priority will be given to work on the platforms where we really are sure that people get correctly informed without having a sh*t load of ads to wade through so to speak.

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

Back in 1991 I started writing my first reviews for Side-Line magazine. I would have never thought to go on writing reviews and making interviews non-stop for 30 years. So 2021 is a special year to me, a kind of ‘celebration year’. I got the idea to celebrate this special event by interviewing people from the scene who all have a special meaning to me. The first interview I made in this series is with Séba Dolimont. He was Side-Line chief-redactor till the end of 2007. He’s now running Alfa Matrix for 20 years and got also involved as singer with AIBOFORCEN and [IN]TERNAL. But above all we’re best friends. We no longer need music to meet and speak about a lot of things although this interview is only about music…

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries; Stéphane Froidcoeur)

Q: We met more than thirty (!) years ago now. Back in time you were busy with Side-Line, which was a kind of ‘fanzine’. How do you look back at these ‘early’ years and what was your motivation to get involved with a magazine?

Séba: Time flies doesn’t it?! Well, the crazy idea of doing our own ‘zine’ was thrown on the table by my friend David Noiret back in the days, one of these nights at university when we were having fun, listening to music, having some drinks and reinventing the world… But the next day when we met again at school, the idea was stuck on our respective minds. Side-Line was born! With the aim to have a true fanzine devoted to dark underground music cos the only mag we had then in Belgium was getting more & more mainstream… We wanted to defend and promote the music from the side-line. We were then carried away by the unexpected positive response on our first issues.

A bunch of friends rapidly joined the team including my all-time friend & partner in crime Benoit Blanchart, Lol Chevaux from France… and YOU!

Q: Side-Line finally became one of the most renowned- and leading Electro/Industrial/Gothic magazines from the scene. What made it that special and maybe different from others?

Séba: Looking back at it, I think our true devotion to the scene and the quite wide musical culture of the editorial staff made the difference. We were also lucky to be one of the few first mags written in English (and this way accessible to a much wider audience) while at that time this scene was mostly covered by German mags. Once we had the opportunity of getting published on professional glossy format (by a German label (Celtic Circle Prod) and later by Claus Müller of Orkus!) magazine before becoming fully independent, powered by the unique design touch of Didier Delhez and with the challenging concept of having a CD attached to the magazine, we instantly got the massive support from all record labels, bands and the fans!

By then we had also started embracing the internet, many many years before everyone, thanks to the initiative of Ronan Harris (VNV NATION) and later the arrival of the one and only one Bernard Van Isacker who came and reinforced the digital and commercial strategy of the magazine, but also enlarged our journalistic approach thanks to his many connections with bigger bands and major labels. We were on orbit!

Q: You finally left Side-Line in 2007 because of some health troubles, but still to focalize on Alfa Matrix. As a label owner, what’s your perception of media/magazines today? What’s their impact and importance for a label?

Séba: This is still one of the most difficult decisions that I made in my ‘music’ life. But when as a father of 2 young boys you are stuck by a virus that abruptly attacks your heart and almost kills you, the long days and nights you spend at hospital allow you questioning your priorities in life. To find a more appropriate balance between family, your main job and your music passion, there was just one too much in the equation. I felt I still had much more to learn and experience for the label rather than for a magazine. I could also inject more flexibility in the label planning than for the magazine which had a strict release date planning and always imposed us long sleepless nights before the closure of each issue.

Since then I have unfortunately seen so many scene magazines falling apart one after the other because of a general disinterest from readers and a lack of support from labels and other potential advertisers. The difficulty of being active on a shrinking underground scene, in a fast evolving world where social media’s and internet sites rapidly challenge the relevance of your articles or the freshness of your news bits. And too many invested way too late in a combined complementary offer mixing on-line and print, or just did not. I am still very admirable and respectful though for the job and activities run by the few surviving print mags like Sonic Seducer or yet Orkus!. Their longevity is exemplary. Today as a label you need to mix various medias to reach your audience cos more than ever, the consumer today is king and decides his/her own information modes. Tough tough… but congrats to all journalists still investing time and energy in defending and supporting our beloved dark music scene. Without people like you Stef, who would we be?

Q: You set up Alfa Matrix while you still remained involved as chief editor of Side-Line. That sounds rather incestuous, don’t you think? How do you look back at it? 

Séba: I hear you. It’s a point we discussed at creation of the label actually. I rapidly decided to be only publisher of the magazine and stopped my editorial activities. I focused only on the coordination and business side of the job, selling adverts, etc. And we always gave journalistic freedom to our editorial staff: no censorship, even for advertised releases… But our experience with the magazine and its related website was also one of the leverages that were there to put Alfa Matrix on orbit. We knew exactly the impact that Side-Line could have to help us launching new talents and new releases… So yes, you can describe it as incestuous, but in all magazines you can see clear financing by specific record labels and you see many band members or even label staff in editorial staff of several magazines. I see it more as expertise sharing. And if the connections and affinities help, this is what business is all about isn’t it?

My past work at Side-Line definitely helped me signing many artists to the label cos I had built a strong contact or friendship with them through the years…

Q: Alfa Matrix this year celebrates its 20^th anniversary. What does that mean and how did you see things and the scene evolving over the years?

Séba: Honestly, I would have never thought that 2 decades later, we would still be up & running, and especially with such an impressive repertoire and diversified constellation of artists around us. It’s been an amazing adventure. With lots of exceptional moments. Lots of ups and downs also of course. Several bankruptcies from big distributors which each time put our finances at risk. Also a radically changing and constantly evolving music market on which you need to challenge yourself continuously to remain relevant and future proof. 

If I were telling you that the future is bright and beautiful I would be lying to you. It’s obvious that there is no way back at this point. The dark underground scene keeps shrinking and losing ground. The several economic crisis, without mentioning the current pandemic and the changing music consumption habits all have heavy impact on sales potential. So I expect the physical format to be more and more limited and eventually get replaced by streaming. This is it! But with the right knowledge, it’s always possible to adapt your business model and move ahead. If you don’t try to anticipate the future, then it will get you.

Q: Physical sales are going backwards for years now. What do you expect during the next years and what will be the impact on the scene?

Séba: Bigger bands will still have some limited physical releases. Smaller newcomers will be available on streaming platforms. Once streaming gets generalized, the notion of albums will vanish and get replaced by one-song releases, getting published the next day they get recorded and mastered. Time to market will get zeroed and release radars will feed us proactively…   and here again the underground world will loose more & more visibility against the algorithms. So yes, when  people do not react timely and invest more in supporting younger acts, this will smother our indie art slowly but surely. But at Alfa Matrix, as long as we will have the energy to do all this, we’ will be there for you and for our artists.

Q: FRONT 242, this year celebrating their 40^th anniversary, has been for sure your biggest signing; like a serious accomplishment for an underground label! How did you convince them to join the ‘matrix’ and how is it working with such a legendary formation?

Séba: The arrival of this cult Belgian band to the Matrix was indeed an amazing boost in our ascension in our very first months of existence. Years of friendships and mutual respect brought us together and it’s been a very great, fruitful and inspiring collaboration with them in all simplicity. Things flow and are obvious. We now released their ’91 live albums and managed selling out before release date, with over 50% of the pressings sold in direct by ourselves via our own webstore thanks to our amazing staunch fanbase. This is something we are very proud of. 

The official collaboration started with the MALE OR FEMALE trilogy. Patrick and Daniel asked me back then helping them finding the right label for this new project cos they had been very deceived by labels from their past experiences. Back then Alfa Matrix was a tiny label with 5 bands, so I did not even consider making them an offer. I rapidly brought them a handful of contractual offers. And then they asked us why there was no offer from Alfa Matrix cos trust was very important for them! The rest is history. Respect to them and thank for the eternal trust.

Now when you say it’s our biggest signing, they are indeed a true legend. But it does not mean we don’t have other artists selling more than FRONT 242 actually! You could be surprised sometimes of the potential of our eclectic roster of artists…

Q: Some artists and their ego… you for sure know what I’m talking about! How do you manage this situation as label owner?

Séba: Well… it’s a tough one indeed. Now of course to be an artist and have an own creative concept, having an ego and a very own vision helps and makes you more pertinent. The main problem is when artists with a strong ego don’t have both feet on the ground and have no realistic grasp or knowledge of the market’s reality.  Then things can turn wrong cos they can have unrealistic expectations. Sometimes also the ego is so strong that they turn into control freaks and prove not to be able to efficiently collaborate. We have been there a few times…

Being myself artists manager, through the years I started putting more and more attention to the persons themselves and not only the music. I need that click, that trustful gut feeling that tells me ‘yes we can’… Before signing anyone we take the time to talk, explain who we are, how we work. This way I try building a collaboration on solid grounds.  Cos we really believe in long term collaborations in our label management concept. And when you check the longevity of the collaboration we have with a large majority of our way I wish I could do, I’m proud of the many friendships we built thanks to music…

Q: You’ve been an ‘artist’ yourself as you also were the singer of AIBOFORCEN and [IN]TERNAL. What did you keep in mind from both bands and why did you finally quit?

Séba: Yes indeed. It’s funny cos we actually started the label to self-release our 3^rd album of AIBOFORCEN. We had several nice offers from big German labels but were so much deceived by our previous record deals that we made the decision to launch Alfa Matrix. But in the end through times the label activities prevented me from being in studio and at the end, the decision became obvious. I’m so happy Benoit continues injecting life into the project. I still of course help him from distance, making connections for new collaborations, giving him tips from demos he shares with me, etc.  He’s currently working on his next album and what I heard so far is once again amazing! But here again, it was a deliberate choice, keeping the balance between family, my time demanding job and my music passion. 

While [IN]TERNAL was more of a one-shot project with friends without constraints. We were all free at the right place at the same right moment, all wanting to do something new outside our respective main projects. I am still very proud of that album we released on Zoth Ommog back in the days…

Q: Thanks to music, you and I became very close friends. Any specific souvenir or anecdote you want to share?

Séba: So many memories that it’s too hard to pick a specific one. But chronologically, I will surely mention receiving your ‘Deranged Psyche’-compilation tapes on which I was each time discovering new bands… I had found my master ;-)! Bringing you massive orders of CD’s from my travels to Germany. Our exceptional adventures on the road driving from one festival to the other across Europe with some special souvenirs of preparing you the craziest sandwishes I could up to sleeping on soccer fields… Memorable after party nights with our Spanish DJ friends of Girona. The first days of FUZE BOX MACHINE up to NEBULA-H. Without mentioning the amazing editorial moments within the Side-Line teams and nowadays your honest, neutral and objective support to our Alfa Matrix label. But above all the unique friendship we both constructed that is today above all this music adventure and even makes that we can meet and talk hours long without even talking ‘music’…

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

Solar Fake are back with the new single “Pretty Life”, an appetizer for the band’s new album which will be released next year. “Probably “This Pretty Life” is not the typical Solar Fake song, but on the other hand I am not even sure if there is something like a typical Solar Fake song.“, comments singer Sven Friedrich.

“This Pretty Life” is released as a hand-numbered club single limited on 777 units and is now available worldwide as a MaxiCD (Limited Edition) or digital.

Check out the new video “This Pretty Life” right below.

About Solar Fake

Solar Fake is the electro-act of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Sven Friedrich, also known for his other projects Zeraphine and Dreadful Shadows. The first songs were written in 2006, and in 2007 Sven formed Solar Fake, asking Frank to join as live keyboardist.

In 2008, they released their debut album “Broken Grid” on the label Synthetic Symphony / SPV. Several concerts and festival performances followed and in 2009, the band supported VNV Nation on their “Of Faith, Power and Glory“ tour through Germany and Europe.

The band is currently signed to Out Of Line.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Electro-pop.

Format: Digital, CD, Vinyl.

Background/Info: Tom Shear is back on track unleashing the new Assemblage 23 album after a hiatus of four years. It seems the work has been released after a bad period of depression. The work is also available as a double CD and –Vinyl featuring remixes by other artists.

Content: Tom Shear has been always linked with Future-Pop music and even if this influence got a bit lost on the previous releases, he together with VNV Nation and Neuroticfish probably belong to the ‘Godfathers’ in the genre. But I can’t say “Mourn” sounds Future-Pop-like, Tom Shear taking his fans by surprise composing a more intimate and sometimes very emotional work. This is pure Electro-Pop with a dark edge on top. Some passages are reminding me of Depeche Mode, but other parts reveal some minimalism like a new path that has to be explored. 

+ + + : There’s no better way taking off with a strong song and that’s precisely how sounds “Epiphany”. It’s a well-crafted and extremely emotional song carried by a catchy chorus. I can’t say Tom Shear has reinvented Assemblage 23 sound, but “Mourn” sounds like one of his darkest, most intimate and personal albums to date. But I also like the diversity of the tracklist. From the harder and dark sounding “Anxiety” to the minimal-driven “Confession” to the pure melancholic “Welcome, Apocalypse” this work appears to be the right exorcism to chase personal demons. Assemblage 23 also remains a project inspired by great melody lines. Last, but not least I also have to say a word about the production of the vocals. A singer’s timbre of voice is also in constant evolution and has been produced in perfect harmony with the music content.

– – – : “Mourn” is maybe not the album that will feature the greatest Assemblage 23 hits although there are many cool songs featured.

Conclusion: Assemblage 23 is striking back with his probably his most personal work to date. I’m not saying it’s the best album in Tom Shear’s wide discography, but definitely the most authentic one.

Best songs: “Epiphany”, “Welcome, Apocalypse”, “Confession”, “Factory”, “Tragedy”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.assemblage23.com / www.facebook.com/Official-Assemblage-23-138651156153800

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

About Assemblage 23

Assemblage 23 is a US electronic project founded in 1988 by Tom Shear in Exton, Pennsylvania. The project mixes futurepop, electro-industrial, synth-pop, and EBM. Early releases appeared through Gashed! Records before a long-term partnership with Metropolis Records in North America and Accession Records in Europe.

Shear built the project as a one-person studio act, circulating demos through the 1990s that were later collected on “Early, Rare, and Unreleased 1988-1998”. The debut album “Contempt” arrived in 1999 on the Canadian label Gashed!. “Failure” (2001) began the long relationship with Metropolis and Accession, followed by “Defiance” (2002), “Storm” (2004), and “Meta” (2007).

Shear also records as Nerve Filter and Surveillance. “Mourn” appeared on Metropolis Records on September 11, 2020, following “Meta” (2007), also released as a double CD and vinyl edition featuring remixes from other 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

Angels and Agony are a Dutch future pop band consisting of vocalist Reinier Kahle, guitarist Erik Wierenga, DJ Marco van Belle on synthesizer and backing vocals and Fried Bruggink as sound engineer and drummer. The band formed in 1995 and produced two EPs before its first full album, “Eternity” (2001) which was produced by VNV Nation’s Ronan Harris adding his trademark sauce. They would release 3 more albums.

This makes that Angels & Agony are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year and to celebrate this the band had scheduled several shows at places they have been playing earlier during the career of the band. But then came Covid-19.

Reinier & Marco: “Due to Covid-19, we did not get the chance to do this so we want to give you a little present: a friend of ours made a special lyric video clip of “Forever” with exclusive Angels & Agony photos from the past. We hope you’ll enjoy it!”

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

Set up in 1986 by Jean-Christophe d’Arnell, Pascal Andréa and Chloé St Liphard, Collection d’Arnell-Andréa rapidly became one of the gothic proud from France. Pascal Andréa left the band pretty fast, but the band kept his name in the band. Thirty years after the band’s debut album “Un Automne À Loroy”, Collection d’Arnell-Andrea stroke back with their first new opus in nine years while they also left the French ethereal label Prikosnovénie to join Trisol. Early this year they released the graceful work “Another Winter” while they ended the year with an electronic reworked version of the album entitled “A Recrafted Winter”. I talked about it all with Jean-Christophe d’Arnell.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You this year released your first new album since “Vernes-Monde” (2010). You however remained active, performing from time to time, but what brought you back to the studio writing new songs and record “Another Winter”? How did you experience this long break in between two albums?

Jean-Christophe: Indeed, this period may seem quite long from a discographic point of view; however we did not remain totally inactive: a few concerts (Brussels, Leipzig, Paris, Madrid…), the release of the vinyl reissue of “Villers-aux-Vents” (Meidosem Records) and finally, during this period, I also made some arrangements on a title by Louisa John-Krol and wrote a song in collaboration with Franz (bassist of Collection of D’Arnell-Andrea) for the compilation “This Makes Me… Fifty” of the Brazilian label Wave Records. In fact I started to work on new songs shortly after the release of our last album “Vernes-Monde” released in early 2011. And then, consider the time required for writing, recording and mixing (distributed discontinuously over more than 2 years!). Once the mixing was done, we still took a little more time to design the artwork and to consider a label change. If Trisol quickly appeared, the finalization of the contract and the recovery of rights with Prikosnovenie still have taken a few weeks.

“Another Winter” was first the title of a song, and to be completely precise, one of the very first, written in the period following the death of my father, during the winter of 2016. At this time I did not really imagine that my grief would be my only source of inspiration. So in a more or less conscious and explicit way, this theme of mourning has imposed itself to the point of constituting a kind of concept-album, a cathartic disc in a way. On the other hand, I really liked the idea of the possible double reading that this title offers: we can consider “Another Winter” in the sense of an ‘other’ winter (different, singular, since marked by the death of a loved one), but also as an invitation to approach the future, to move towards an ‘other’ winter, a ‘new’ winter. The eternal paradox between dark and light…

Q: “Another Winter” is your debut album on Trisol, which is for sure one of the leading labels from this scene. But you’ll be for sure always linked to Prikosnovénie on, which you released 4 studio albums plus a live one and a ‘best of’. What do you keep in mind from the ‘Prikosnovénie years’, which was a label with a truly spirit and a kind of ‘ethereal family’? Are you still in touch with Fred Chaplin and Sabine Adéalide?

Jean-Christophe: If we chose to thank Frédéric, Sabine and Arno (Prikosnovénie) in the booklet of our album “Another Winter”, it is because we are really aware of the work they have accomplished and the quality of relationship that we had with them. I do not forget that it is with “Tristesse Des Mânes” that we started this collaboration, which saw the re-edition (digipack) of our back catalogue, the release of 4 studio albums and one live (but no ‘ best of’: “CollAge” was licensed by Las Call at this time!). Regardless of the human qualities of the Prikos team, it seemed to me that it was time to shake up our habits and try the adventure with a bigger label and perhaps also better identified on the ‘dark’ scene to which we obviously belong! Moreover, Frédéric (Prikos) perfectly understood this desire for change and rather facilitated the transfer of rights. He really is a good person.

Q: I should say “Another Winter” is an album in the purest vein of Collection D’Arnell-Andréa; a mix of different influences carried by this eternal melancholic atmosphere recovering the entire tracklist. The main evolution is maybe that there’re a lot more songs sung in English than on previous albums. What kind of album did you want to accomplish and how did you finally come to sing more in English than before (maybe because of a new label)?

Jean-Christophe: I have always (even from our first EP “Autumn’s Breath For Anton’s Death” 1988) more or less mixed English and French for writing the texts. Half of the titles are in English on the album “Exposition” and “The Bower Of Despair” entirely written in English! In fact the main evolution is perhaps more due to the very process of creation, quite different compared to previous albums.

To make this album, I wanted to modify the usual process. The first work constraint was to no longer use my old drum machines and my old DX21 (already present since our first maxi in 1988!). So I composed from a new synth, and used different drum kits from the previous ones, which explains the evolution and enrichment of the tones and the structures of the songs. Once these models made, Chloé begins to create song parts (on which I will rely to the syllable to write the texts in a second time) then it is the bass which intervenes (find an interesting place among the bass -synthetic lines already written), and the electric guitar. Then the idea was that the strings (viola & cello) do not intervene systematically on all the titles, therefore, Xavier (cello) and Thibault (viola) have, at my request, made a selection of the songs that inspired them the most. Likewise Carine offered to temporarily leave her DX7 aside and only use the piano on all the tracks on this album.

So, to summarize, I compose the bases of all the pieces (rhythms, structures) with already a lot of arrangements, especially since the current technological means allow more flexibility, then, each musician brings his ideas, writes his melodic lines and also sometimes causes changes in structure or approach to the piece. In short, if all these small changes have allowed our sound to evolve, they also required us a little more time than usual for the realization. The recording started in summer 2016, with all the synths and rhythms, then in 2017 it was the turn of the guitars, the strings and the piano, the voices and the mix, which between the different plays, spread over several months .We are still working with Pierre-Emmanuel Mériaud, for recording and mixing (+ additional programming), and here again a lot can evolve according to his proposals and his inspiration. We can really speak of a collective achievement.

Q: I’ve always experienced your sound and lyrics as a graceful, artistic creation; music and poetry are the essence of your work! You’ve been always inspired by the beauty of ‘old’ French language, which is clearly reflected in your work. Tell us a bit more about this passion for ‘classicism’ and eventually references in the production of “Another Winter”?

Jean-Christophe: Actually I would define myself as a great nostalgic, which does not exclude ‘a little’ of melancholy too… Indeed, the distance imposed by the past transcends emotions has always been a source of inspiration for my poems I remain passionate about the period between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, whether it be in the artistic or even architectural fields. I like old objects, old houses: the past really feeds my present, and as my present will soon belong to the past … I am filled!

The other main source of inspiration for this album remains Nature. The evocation of water is a strong link between the different songs, but it is more a question of rivers and ponds than of the ocean. These rivers (Les Mauves) and this river (The Loire) have always been part of my environment and that of my father; they represent a kind of link, between generations, between peoples and between the different periods of our own existence. This ‘water of memory’ which remains alive, when in winter everything seems silent or buried in the snow, also appeared to me as a landmark, a constant in this writing exercise which promised to be more introspective. In previous records there has always been talk of the relationship of Man to Nature (Nature as a refuge or as the tomb of humanity), but the expression of my deep feelings took a much more allegorical and autumnal form. With “Another Winter”, the writing became more intimate and more direct as well, as if this sleeping Nature incited me for the first time to reveal myself more, to share emotions, feelings. And doesn’t this vegetative rest look like a kind of a coma, or death? Regarding the more ‘contemporary’ and musical influences, there is always a fairly wide range of music ranging from NIN to Beach House, VNV Nation or Arvo Pärt!

Q: You’ve just released “A Recrafted Winter” on, which you reworked all songs from “Another Winter” into explicit electronic versions. What incited you to ‘revisit’ the original songs? How did the writing of the songs happened? What have been the main challenges and difficulties in the release of this ‘sister-album’?

Jean-Christophe: In fact the idea for this album is entirely up to our sound engineer Piers Volta. This is a spontaneous initiative on his part; his bias was to really focus on the most electronic parts of everything we had recorded for “Another Winter” (lines of synths, rhythms), but while maintaining the original voices and preserving the original structures of the songs. Of course he also added a lot of things and felt absolutely free for a real re-appropriation of the tracks.

He started by reworking 5 tracks and then he made us listen to his work. Chloe and I were initially surprised, but quickly seduced by the new sound textures and the general atmosphere that flowed from it. I had the impression to listen to songs both totally new and so familiar at the same time… a strange feeling indeed!

“A Recrafted Winter” induces emotions, feelings really different because the general musical colour is obviously brighter, more ‘positive’. A kind of electro, touching but still, a little ‘dark’ anyway: totally ‘collectionism’ actually!

Piers Volta’s exterior look and superb reinterpretation of our songs is a perfect continuation of our album “Another Winter”. A kind of rebirth or awakening of Nature after a long and painful winter…

Q: Collection D’Arnell-Andrea is now active for more than 30 years! What do you consider as the main facts and maybe the most important songs and albums all over your career? And how do you see the band and your musical activities evolving in times the music industry/business has seriously changed?

Jean-Christophe: We really haven’t seen the time go by since our very beginnings in 1986. What I find incredible is being able to continue making albums, as we wish, while retaining total control over the artistic part, the same way as for our first EP “Autumn’s Breath For Anton’s Death”. We have experienced ‘from the inside’ the various technological evolutions linked to the recording of music and its distribution, but ultimately, whatever the media, the problems linked to creation (writing, composition) are always really the same and remain the most exciting part of a band’s career.

I also think that it is first of all a great human adventure; whether it are the musicians who are part of the band and all the people we met for music: the ‘faithful’ who follow us and carry us for a long time, journalists, sound engineers, graphic designers, the printers and the various labels with which we have come a long way…

And if I only had to keep a few albums, my choice would go to:

-“Un Automne À Loroy” (the first album which in a certain way foreshadows the ‘style’ of Collection d’Arnell-Andrea: the mixture of acoustic, electric and electronic instruments, the alternation of male and female voices, the importance of texts (poems) and the particular attention paid to the artwork.

-“Villers-aux-Vents”: a certain form of ‘electric’ evolution thanks to guitars and collaboration, for the first time with an external producer Gilles Martin.

-“Tristesse des Mânes”: neo-classical, totally acoustic album with compositions and rereading of certain titles in a ‘chamber orchestra’ configuration. And a way to underline a kind of filiation with certain composers of the 19th century that we love so much: Fauré, Duparc etc…

-“The Bower Of Despair”: the darkest part of CDAA!

And necessarily, the most recent and really one of my favorites:

-“Another Winter”

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

(Interview / photo by Eldrina Mich) While the charity download compilation “Face The Beat: Session 5” is still reigning the charts on Bandcamp, we decided it was time again to speak with Bernard Van Isacker, the brain behind this compilation. He is also Side-Line’s chief editor and resides with his family (and 2 cats) in Ypres, a small town nearby the French border in what’s called the Westhoek or Maritime Flanders. During the First World War, Ypres (or “Wipers” as it was commonly known by the British troops) was the centre of the Battles of Ypres between German and Allied forces, nowadays it’s a bit calmer.

I meet Bernard on a cold Friday evening at The Times, a small pub on the border of the Ypres market square.

SL: The previous interview was in June of 2015 when the 2nd volume of “Face The Beat” had just been released. It’s like yesterday!

B: Time flies very fast indeed. Good to see you are still looking great (laughs)!

SL: The compilation has been doing quite well since its launch, it went straight to the number 1 spots on Bandcamp in the alternative, industrial and goth charts.

B: Yeps, and it even was the 2nd most downloaded release on Bandcamp the day of its release, so yes, quite spectacular. It’s not really a surprise though, all of the volumes kept on being downloaded ever since the project started and I kept getting questions when the new volume would be released. But most importantly, I think we have a very strong list of tracks on this volume.

Next to that, the power of Bandcamp has become very clear here. The moment the new volume was launched Bandcamp’s notification system sent out a huge blast to a massive amount of people informing them and as a result you saw the release climbing very fast in the charts.

SL: I don’t know of any other scene compilation which has succeeded charting that fast and so high on Bandcamp?

B: Me neither (smiles). I have already been asked by a lot of people from inside the music industry how this is possible with a compilation that doesn’t feature the biggest names from this scene like Front 242, VNV Nation, etc.. But it’s especially the fact they can discover new and less wellknown bands that makes people wanting to get hold of it. Speaking of which, I especially want to thank Raphael Beck (darkTunes), Andy Skyqode (Skyqode) and Seba Dolimont (Alfa Matrix) who have been good allies in the past few years – and again this time – in getting the series up and running. They have valued the series since day 1 and I really appreciate that.

SL: Was the start so difficult?

B: When I started with this series a few years ago, in 2011 that is, not many labels believed in the concept, some did like the ones I mentioned earlier. The hesitation was mainly because I decided to feature a lot of smaller and starting bands. For me that was THE reason to do it that way because this is actually the core idea behind Side-Line since day one: being an indie magazine that is a platform for bands to get noticed, unknown and known, starters and established acts. Since the start of the series, the influx of submissions for the compilation never stopped, a lot of bands want to be on it and especially those who stand behind the charity causes that we support.

SL: It took you a while to come up with this 5th volume, I think I have seen some preliminary cover artwork some 2 years ago already?

B: Yes (smiles). It would initially have been released in early 2018, but something came up in mid-2017 that jeopardized the whole project. Let’s say that some mainstream label thought they could just harass us in taking over the concept. It kept on causing problems till mid-2018. I won’t say more about this, suffices to say, we won, they lost (smiles). The first cover artwork you refer too (Editor’s note: you can see it below) was made in November 2017 during a stay in France, at Le Mont Saint-Michel, together with my wife and newborn son Magnus.

SL: The cover artwork produced at that occasion had ‘the final side-line’ as subline? What was the meaning of that?

B: Back then I was really doubting if I would go on with the magazine or not. So that artwork would have been my final word on the matter.

Sorry I didn’t inform the rest of the team, but it was really on my mind to pull the plug. It isn’t all that unlogical, it takes lots of time to keep this doing and with a new baby in the family, I wasn’t sure to be able to handle this all. My other ‘companion de route’, Stef, also has had his fair share of not so pleasant news, so the toxic mix was there and it played around for a while…

I think we all have those difficult moments when there’s too much going on. Plus, and that’s on a personal level, often you don’t really get any ‘thank you’ back for all of the work that you do, and I’m not only talking about Side-Line or so. When you do a lot of (mostly unpaid) work for very little return on several levels, it starts nagging.

Then in February 2018 I was in Oslo with my wife and I visited Jan Ronald Stange, our local correspondent there. We have gotten along really well since meeting I think in 2010 and when I’m in the Nordics I always try to pay him a visit. And believe it or not, his enthusiasm is kinda infectious (laughs). My wife also noticed that, and said something like: “It’s time you get the same enthusiasm like Jan in your work again”. That made me thinking… Anyhow, here we are (smiles).

As a result I binned the first cover artwork idea and went for a completely new approach. But it was only last month after visiting Maastricht in The Netherlands together with my oldest son Sebastian that I found the perfect artwork idea. I saw this great bronze lion face on a big door, watched it closely, took a picture and in the hotel I started playing with some ideas. I sent those to Simon Helm from Cold War Night Life to ask his opinion and we picked the final one.

SL: Why Simon?

B: Long story cut really short. I knew Simon was behind Cold War Night Life, and one thing led to another and I got to meet him a few months ago when he was in Brussels. Jean-Marc Lederman told me he was a decent guy so the more reason to meet up. We ended up talking for hours in a small restaurant, the Arcadi in case you wonder, about all kind of things. And Simon got to learn to eat Stoemp with saussage, a typical dish from Brussels (laughs)! Cool intelligent guy he is with a clear view on a lot of things. I like straightforward people and he for sure is one. On top we kinda share the same humor, something really important. Simon also has been writing some stuff for Side-Line since then. I trust him and value his feedback, hence why I asked for his feedback.

SL: In the press release for this compilation it’s noted that the release is by far the darkest you ever compiled. I tend to agree with this. Personally, it reminded me of “040 Hamburg Strikes Back!”, the compilation released by the defunct label Hypnobeat in 1992.

B: I love that compilation! For me it was the first time I got to hear from Fortification 55, the band formed by Björn Petersen and Jan Kruse. They made some great albums back in the days. Thanks for the compliment, it was really that feeling that I had when going through the selection here!

SL: I noticed you also had a megamix prepared to promote this release, how did that come about?

B: I actually hadn’t prepared this at all. It was pure coïncidence. Shane Aungst, who made the megamix, contacted me a few days after the release was out saying he had picked 20 something tracks of the compilation to create a megamix. It turned out to be one that was 1 hour, 33 minutes and 21 seconds in length featuring 23 tracks and the quality was excellent! After mailing back and forth I created a cover for the megamix and Shane edited the megamix into 2 because Bandcamp was unable to feature the full length in one cut. Perhaps they should increase the 600 MB limit when you want to release a megamix (smiles).

It’s a nice extra on which Shane has been working for hours. We plan an interview with him in the next days actually.

SL: Something else. You informed us a few weeks ago that Side-Line had opened a channel on the mobile app Telegram?

B: Yes, that’s correct. The reason behind this is that Facebook is more and more becoming a no-go for indie news discovery. I for instance use Twitter a lot more for my news digestion, because Facebook really is rubbish at getting decent news in my feed even though I follow some really good sources. At Side-Line we could easily write clickbait articles that would get spread a lot. But that’s not what I want, and on top the team really wants to continue bringing news about smaller bands. But that’s not what Facebook wants, so it deliberately doesn’t push those newsitems to our readers since the ‘engagement’ is lower.

Facebook is really becoming a graveyard as far as non-commercial news is concerned. Unless you pay and even then. I don’t expect Facebook to get any better, on the contrary, it will get worse, because the shareholders will want more and more. Facebook can only deliver this by squeezing more and more money out of our pocket. And with their Libra project becoming a nightmare, you can be sure we the publishers all will have to pay for it (laughs)!

You know, Facebook has censored a ton of our articles because they didn’t like the artwork used by the band’s featured. Rammstein, Apoptygma Berzerk, Siva Six, Alien Vampires, Combichrist, articles from all of these bands and many more were simply censored and banned from the network … pretty frustrating.

SL: So Telegram is the way to go?

B: Yes. The service offers you the possibility to send out newsupdates to an unlimited number of people in one go without it being stopped, hidden away or censored even. I prefer this kind of news updates where I chose what I want to get.

People can join us on Telegram via this link https://t.me/sidelinemag (install the app as well, on desktop or mobile) and they will get our news first before it gets posted on Facebook. The good thing is that the channel is ad free. You just get our news and you can leave a like or dislike, and that’s where the comparison with Facebook ends. I’m personally also using Telegram a lot more to connect with people instead of Whatsapp. If you haven’t got an account yet, make sure to sign up!

SL: What’s coming up next?

B: As far as Side-Line is concerned I’m working on a few projects, but it’s too early to announce anything yet.

SL: Last question, what keeps you busy besides Side-Line?

B: Ha, a lot of things, too many things really. Besides my daytime job as a social media marketeer and CRM responsible at the Belgian branch of a multinational, and running 2 small holiday houses, I’m still heavily involved in Alfa Matrix, Bob De Moor, collecting original drawings by comic masters and a lot of local ‘policy work’, the latter is often draining a lot of my patience (laughs). I also have started running to stay fit. Every 2 days I try to do my 5 kilometers, early in the morning before having a breakfast at the local Panos, which opens at around 5.30 AM. It’s a perfect way to start the day with fresh energy I must say.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

www.side-line.com

In 2000 the Belgian industrial act Suicide Commando released “Mindstrip”, the project’s fourth album. That album held the track “Hellraiser (Psychopath 01-Version)” which became an instant classic. Hellelectro was born.

“Hellraiser 2019” is now being released a a limited Picture Vinyl including an also brandnew version of “Mindstripper”, the original version of “Hellraiser” and the non-album track “Kevorkian” (from the “Comatose Delusion” single). You can order the vinyl right here.

Note that the 2000 version of the single held the original version (“Hellraiser (Psychopath 01-Version)”) next to a VNV Nation remix of the title track, “Fragment Of Torture” and “Hellraiser (Psychopath 02-Version)”.

The tracklist for the limited Picture Vinyl Read the review of ‘Hellraiser’.

• Hellraiser (Post Mortem – 2019)
• Mindstripper (Re-Stripped – 2019)
• Hellraiser (Psychopath 01 Version – 2000)
• Kevorkian (Original Version – 2000)

Side-Line also covered Suicide Commando’s ‘Dein herz, meine gier / Bunkerb!tch’.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

The 4th edition of the W-Festival will take place from 15th until 18th August 2019 in Waregem Expo, Belgium. About 70 new wave, EBM, industrial, post-punk, synth-pop and eighties bands are featured on 3 stages.

This year the line-up includes: The Stranglers, Echo & The Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Nitzer Ebb, And One, VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk, Peter Hook & The Light, Blutengel, New Model Army, She Wants Revenge, Lebanon Hanover, Portion Control, Tyske Ludder, Mesh, Whispering Sons, Kaelan Mikla, Collection d’Arnell-Andréa, DaGeist, Pink Turns Blue, Red Zebra, Siglo XX, Merciful Nuns, Then Comes Silence, The Human League, Jimmy Somerville, Lene Lovich band, Blaine L. Reininger plays Tuxedomoon, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, Tony Hadley, Schmutz, Allez Allez and more!

On the camping area are a lot of special availabilities like B and Bee, Luxury Lodge and WaveTents. Other extra’s on the festival are silent disco, outdoor quiet zone, wellness, merchandise and more!

Tickets and VIP-tickets can be ordered here.

On 10th and 11th August 2019 the annual M’era-Luna festival takes place in the area of Hildesheim-Drispenstedt, Germany. M’era Luna exists since 2000 and is one of the biggest Gothic festivals in the European scene. Gothic, new wave, electro, EBM, industrial and medieval bands are featured on 2 stages.

The last years the festival was every time sold out and had about 25.000 visitors. This year some of the confirmed artists are: Fields Of The Nephilim, VNV Nation, Lacrimosa, OOMPH!, Deathstars, DIE KRUPPS, Within Temptation, ASP, Subway To Sally, Combichrist, Diary Of Dreams, Corvus Corax, Suicide Commando, Agonoize, Funker Vogt, Mono Inc., DE/VISION, Empathy Test, Joachim Witt, Spetsnaz, [:SITD:], Zeromancer, Melotron, …

DJ’s at the afterparties are: Der Schulz (Unzucht), Bruno Kramm (Das Ich), Chris L. (Funker Vogt and Agonoize), Andy Krüger (Melotron), Ronan Harris (VNV Nation), Mike Kanetzky (Matrix Bochum).

Besides watching concerts you can also visit markets, artist signing events, gothic fashion shows, readings by Axel Hildebrand, Markus Heitz and Christian von Aster. The Gothic Garden, an oasis of calm right in front of the festival infield, offers demanding festival-goers comfort, space and conveniences to make your stay more exclusive, pleasant and more relaxing. At the M’era Luna Academy you can follow special workshops which will be announced soon on the official renewed website.

The interactive M’era Luna app can be downloaded here and tickets can be ordered here.

Out on July 12th 2019 via AFM Records on coloured double vinyl and digipak CD (available here on Amazon) is the Theatre Of Tragedy album “Remixed”. The Greek dark electro act Siva Six was invited to remix the track “Forever is the World”.

Siva Six joins a lit of other reputable artists such as Das Ich, VNV Nation, Icon Of Coil, Funker Vogt who revived those hit tracks in their own interpretation.

Here’s what the band says about the project: “We in Theatre of Tragedy have always been interested in a variated range of musical styles ranging from electronic music, through rock and to more extreme metal. This has been a huge part in creating the sound of the band over the years. Since the foundation of the band we have had a fascination for other people’s interpretation of our music. How others perceive our sound and compositions.”

It was in 2010, when Theatre Of Tragedy announced their break-up and drew a line under their impressive career. This year, the Norwegian artists return with a compilation of different remixes of their biggest successes.

Fans will definitely want to order the below double vinyl.

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

Opera Multi Steel can be considered as truly ‘veterans’ from this scene. Set up in 1983 by the French trio Franck Lopez, his brother Patrick L. Robin and Catherine M. Marie the band started releasing their music on the good-old cassette format. Later on they released vinyls and CD’s while today you can find their work at digital platforms. Their band feels like a safety home where they can accomplish their very own music style and their taste and passion for literature, poetry, paintings ao artistic formats. They last year released their newest album “Au Fief Des Rémanences” on Meidosem Records. It also was an opportunity to speak about Franck Lopez and Patrick Lopez Robin about the past and the present.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Opera Multi Steel started in the early 80s. Even today the 80s remain a real reference for artists and music lovers. What did this decade evoke to you and how did you see yourself as band and musicians evolving throughout the years?

Franck L: The 80s will remain for us the decade that saw us setting up this band. After the 70s, dominated by symphonic- and progressive rock that gave birth to virtuoso musicians, the arrival of punk and his sudden death combined with the democratization of the drum machines and synths injected a new breath to rock and pop. This fact uninhibited many people who could, without being expert in their instrument, engage themselves in music and composition. We were part of this generation. Thanks to the latitude from that time our musical and literary imagination could emerge at the surface without any censorship or a specific, increased musical knowledge. The emergence of new creative artists initiating new styles, still present today, was a great stimulant for us. After all, if they could do it, why don’t we?

Electro-pop, synth-pop, cold-wave, new-wave and so on come from this decade; this era was not monolithic stylistically speaking. The fact that we are still here today, besides that creating is vital for us, is the proof that the styles initiated in the 80s were constantly rediscovered in the following decades and that the audience managed how to renew itself. Therefore many groups born very recently can claim this aesthetic, that’s the proof of a flagrant vivacity. Over the years, Opera Multi Steel has evolved together with the influence of emerging musics without losing the singularity that draws in the sound of some vintage instruments; a way of making songs undoubtedly very eighties-like mixed with everything we have been able to digest over the years and throughout our human respective experiences, which are not without any influence on our lyrics and compositions.

Q: Opera Multi Steel went through several breaks, the members got involved in different side projects, but in the end you’re still alive and kicking. What has been the impact of it all on your music and the newest album “Au Fief Des Rémanences”?

Franck L: We indeed have been involved in various projects outside Opera Multi Steel, but we have always returned to the original band despite some judgments that we never considered final. Some projects have even been run concurrently with Opera Multi Steel. In fact, it is the O Quam Tristi project that mobilized us most during the 2000s because we still made four albums under this name and all Opera Multi Syeel members without exception were part of this heavenly medieval electro act under various pseudo names.

Apart from that I also sang in the Franco-Brazilian electro pop band 3 Cold Men with which I recorded three albums. These two projects were the most engrossing ones but, together or separately we have collaborated or still collaborate in many other formations (Collection d’Arnell Andréa, Thy Violent Vanities, Seven Sobs Of A Sorrowful Soul, Tiramist …) These experiences outside Opera Multi Steel are for us the opportunity to deepen styles that we only touch on with our heterogeneous group. These different experiences came to feed the evolution of the group, but without altering its deep roots. That said, the mix of electric- and acoustic instruments was already present in the beginning of the band as well as our love for folk- or ancient music (Middle Ages, Renaissance). We can also find them all in our last album. “Au Fief des Rémanences” includes very pop songs, very dancing ones, some others more oriented towards introspection, some darker ones, some cold-wave like, others more folk… We are ‘multiple and various’, the band’s music is the reflection of this diversity without any form of restraint. What binds the pieces between them is the treatment and use of particular instruments that we have never really abandoned over the years and albums (Elex keyboard, Casio VL1, bass pedals, recorders etc …) and the very special lyrics that Patrick writes in his so special style.

Q: The title of the album is quite intriguing and dark, but what’s the deeper meaning of the title and the lyrical themes running through the album?

Patrick L. Robin: At the beginning of this Century, only a few days went by without the media echoing technological innovations of all kinds. Occultism and witchcraft are two particularly affected areas, often wrongly.

To restore the balance and cope with the noises that run, we needed to reclassify all this and relativize the phenomenon or rather those unexplained phenomena with sounds that move and thus with chants that speak in a fief protecting these metaphysical values which come and go, go back and come back like past like recurring membership and which still are perceptible from Before to Now and from Today to Tomorrow (Remnants). Hence the title of this album.

Once open those different doors of the Below, we have compiled eight ones that correspond affectively to our metaphysical concerns towards the Hereafter. Each one of this title composes a part of the album: “Les Litanies”, somber stubbornness that, by a trance or beliefs effects, can lead to the inner revolution and perhaps to the madness of adoration in a “Chapelle Sixteen” or various small churches that are often the subject of “Représailles” from the biggest ones.

Fortunately for us, no need to bury ourselves in caves where to scratch the walls. We can, thanks to the artistic genius of the great painters, contemplate and then illuminate to surpass ourselves and finally pour into the wonder where we can find “Solutions De Félicité” in the absence of anything else.

Affect is a way of relaying our visions with the help of “L’ Emotionnel” which rises in arrows among various societies with all the upheaval that it may cause, rightly or wrongly (unreasonably elsewhere), leading us unknowingly towards our last home where to be chastised (“Le Châtiment Ultime”). Thus, redirected to an imaginary and morbid purgatory, we will be able to get out of it or not, especially if we manage to avoid the Fatal Judgment, “Le Coup De Grâce”. We could, then re-illuminated, stay on our guard in a stronghold under a high spiritual supervision.

Q: I always have seen Opera Multi Steel as a ‘total artistic concept’; it’s much more than only the passion and love for music and lyrics, but there always have been references to painters, sculptors, poets etc…. What means this artistic exposure to you and more especially the ‘artistic freedom’? And do you think artistic freedom has some limits?

Franck L: The group is not only for us a way to expel our fantasies, our neuroses and psychoses more or less well digested. We do not miss to use it for that through our texts in particular!

But Opera Multi Steel is also the big patchwork of everything we are passionate about in our everyday life outside of music. The covers and jackets of our discs reflect our inclinations for symbolist-, mystical- or Sulpician painting, among others; our songs are dotted with references in the form of sound effects that evoke near or far artists or eras of which we are nostalgic, but also events or situations that only make sense for us and that ends up as a kind of sound memory album with which we try to share our universe which can sometimes seem hermetic to many people.

The different labels that have trusted us have always left us free of our artistic choices. Effectively artistic freedom has its limits which are those of cutting us off from an audience that could not understand the meaning of our texts, who could sometimes find our songs too different from each other by their style or who think that we do not enough obey to the precise dogmas of certain musical movements or who could be allergic to our iconoclastic imagery. It is true that by embracing here and there all genres that please us we end up either with a non-style, or with a too marked style that could cut us off from a wider audience. But the main thing is to make us happy, to have fun and to give with each of our albums some good time to all those who apprehend our music as a ‘total artistic concept’, to use your expression, or simply as a ‘quite’ normal band providing more or less pop songs or more or less dark tracks… Music has never been our way of getting rich, it is our way of feeling alive. This is probably the main reason why Opera Multi Steel has survived the years.

Q: “Au Fief Des Rémanences” appears to me as one of your most ‘electronic’ works to date although still featuring the use of ‘authentic’ instruments. What did you try to accomplish sound-wise and where do you place this album in the band’s discography?

Franck L: I do not know if this album is really the most electronic one. It depends from the point of view. We have always used ‘authentic’ electronic instruments (TR 606, TR 808 mainly) to realize our rhythm tracks, our synths being also electronic in some kind of way… Now we use a lot more sampled sounds, but we remain faithful to the instruments that we used at the beginning of the group even if we do not use them as physical units. Perhaps it is easier to judge this situation for someone outside the band. One thing is for sure, we are huge fans of ‘electro-pop’ music even if it not always an explicit way in our sound.

Covenant or VNV Nation both are part of our flagship groups although they’re not from our generation and their music is much punchier than ours. The fact that we always use acoustic instruments (guitars, recorders among others …) tempers our electro inclinations, but perhaps we will slightly move to something more ‘radical’ in our future works. Who knows?

Q: I already evoked the ‘darkness’ running through your composition, but it often feels that authentic it rather appears to be ‘torment’ and ‘despair’, but still a kind of ‘therapy’ to exorcize internal demons. What does music and especially this band really stands for?

Patrick L. Robin: It is an “Initiatory journey in the land of Music and Magic” (Norma Bowl in Paranormal Sciences Institute Review 1983). This is indeed what makes me think your question contains already  the answers that I will briefly raise and summarize, in spite of all  false ideas of what we think or would like to convey … The “Curious”, the “Worrying”, the “Irrealist” are often found inside our lyrics.

‘Darkness’ and ‘Despair’ are indeed recurring and allow us to adhere to the walls of a well which we would like to reach the bottom, to raise the head, to raise the eyes towards the Sky, to help us to redirect our existence and why not the listener’s ones who would gain by this introspection a kind of mind therapy and to wake up then as transformed. We would not speak of true exorcism, but rather of dispossession of loose ideas, commonplaces and standards that only clutter the eyes and ears of the non-blind and the non-deaf that we are, insensitive to the point of not wanting to read between the lines and unable to change our point of view when it’ s still time! Alas, this well is without bottom and we find ourselves  facing the “Appearances Of The Inaudible”, “The Remanences Of The Invisible” because they goes hand in hand. This self-proclamation remains the best solution, final or terminal for a new life, a new ‘elsewhere’ towards infinity and beyond!!!

But all of this remains fundamentally ver-ti-gi-nous!

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

Set up in 2011 by Xavier Morales, Ruined Conflict got rapidly signed to Infacted Recordings. The electro/future-pop style directly reminded to VNV Nation, but aside of any further comparison, Ruined Conflict also revealed great composition skills. Early 2019 saw Ruined Conflict releasing its fifth full length album entitled “Valediction”. The work remains faithful to the band’s usual sound formula, but also appears to be the most intimate and definitely most accomplished album of Xavier Morales to date. I’ve been in touch with Xavier who revealed some surprising details about this work.  

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: The story of Ruined Conflict started in 2011 and now, early 2019, you’ve released your fifth full length album. What have been according to you the main changes, evolutions and accomplishments over these years and the different releases?

Xavier: The music development has always been to push myself to a higher limit on each album no matter the outcome, whether good or bad. As a composer my goals have always been to reflect on my thoughts whether in Politics, Religion or Humanity. I try my hardest to write honestly and create the music to follow the message.

I think the music has come a long way especially in production. From the first album “ARMOR” the music and lyrics in my opinion where armature and production could of been throughout more during the final stages, but that album along with “Revolutionary Mayhem” had a lot of soul and stuck out to get attention from labels. The new album was supposed to be my last work in this scene and I planned on moving on and quitting at a going through a difficult time. I knew I had much to say and wanted to make my peace before leaving, but I had no idea the outcome would of been overwhelmingly positive.

I never held any regret on my work, but felt reaching above the level I remained in during the past years that it would seem unlikely to reach the top or success. See I became this product and lost my way trying to become someone I was not. The new album helped me realize being myself and reaching back to my roots gave me a chance to overcome the emptiness I had gained and the people around me given me a new look on what it means to be a musician and the point of why I became a musician in the first place. Ruined Conflict will continue on and I plan on developing further from where the “Valediction” album left off.

Q: Your new album “Valediction” has been preceded by the EP’s “Farewell” and “Sequencer”. I experienced “Sequencer” as your ‘hardest’ EP ever on, which you also experienced with other influences. Tell us a bit more about it?

Xavier: I use mainly Modular Synthesizers to create sound and sequences in the new music. Growing up I was a huge fan of Kraftwerk and admired everything they did. They are the reason I became such a big fan of electronic music. I wanted to add more of that classic sound in the music. The album “Triumphant” was the beginning of the analog sounds that would lead way to all the new music that we have done since then. “Sequencer” was created with a Emw Modular synth that I had accidentally patched the settings and ended up patching the LFO to a sample and hold and with the sequencer applied it made that sound that you hear in the beginning. After that the ideas basically just came along to how I would make the EP “Sequencer” onto the making of the album “Valediction”.

Q: Over now to “Valediction”. What means this fifth opus to you? What have been the main ideas you would like to accomplish (lyrical- and song wise), and what have been the main challenges of this work?

Xavier: “Valediction” is probably the most well throughout album I have made lyrically and musically. The writing of this album allowed me to release everything that was on my mind, from my path of lies to how criticism hit me hard to the point I wanted nothing to do with music or the project anymore. Once you step into the mentality that it was all about to be over you start to feel the weight lifted as you move on. This was extremely challenging for me since at the time I thought this was going to be it and I was simply going to walk away after it was over.

Emotionally this was difficult, once the song “Goodbye” was written it was that moment I just felt numb and just cold. I didn’t really know how to feel, just that I had finished and it was time to shut the studio down. I have received a second wind as our label, friends and fans reached out to this idea of leaving. I never really thought about how people would be affected or how it would affect me if I would of simply walked away. I talk a lot about achieving personal goals and never holding back on anything in our music. I felt like I needed to listen to my own lyrics and not just settle with failure or who I had become

Q: I know for a lot of artists writing and recording an album always is a very busy and stressful job so holding the album in your hands must feel like a relief. What’s your personal experience about it and can you briefly resume the different stages and difficulties you’d to gone through?

Xavier: Writing an album for any musician is challenging and a long process. I normally begin with writing lyrics and then singing the melody in my head and thinking of what sounds I would need to create to fit the lyrics. Many have different ways of creating music this is just how I create it.

The mood of the music is the second thing that is challenging when creating any album. We all want it to perfect even though a lot of time the music can swing into something else, at that point is when making the album gets frustrating and I start the changing process. The album the music varies in different styles of music, but somehow I feel that I all still sat well during the last stages.

I think most musician can tell you the worst part is not really making the tracks, but mixing and mastering to make the album whole and sit well from beginning to end. I have adapted well after years of developing the proper skills for mixing and mastering but even then it still become a challenge.

Q: You last year got featured at the “Funeral Of Love”-EP by German artist Elektrostaub. How do you look back at this experience and is it something you maybe would like to accomplish for Ruined Conflict?

Xavier: I work with as many musicians as I can whether well-known or local to me it is very enjoyable to do any separate project outside of my own. I have a large number of remixes and features, but this “Funeral Of Love” was different of my ordinary work, which is why I enjoyed it. Plus a lot of bands were involved and that to me is the most important thing there is. The more musicians that work together the more the scene grows and excitement happens. Eventually I would like to do something similar with Ruined Conflict and I think that time will come.

Q: I noticed most critics always link your music and  your timbre of voice to VNV Nation. Ronan Harris is a real reference to get compared with, but at the other side it also must be a bit boring for you, right? What’s your real feeling about it and where do you place Ruined Conflict when it comes to music genre and other bands sharing similar influences?

Xavier: At first I didn’t really care or mind it since I was new and I knew criticism comes with the territory of music. After a while it just seem like no matter what I did the name just remained like a cloud over my head. I guess now more and more people realize this is just how I sound and know I’m not trying to sound or imitate anyone. I think as long as I remain Ruined Conflict we will always be linked to VNV Nation. I mean it could be worst I could of been compared to NickelBack. Ronan is a highly respected figure in this scene, and I am sure he knows I am my own person and I will always be myself no matter what gets said about me. This is just part of the job being in the music industry.

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: Future-pop, body-pop.

Background/Info: “Valediction” is the fourth official full length album for Xavier Morales and his Ruined Conflict project. Set up in 2011, the American project became a recognized name active in the wider fields of future/electro-pop music. 

Content: After the astonishing “Sequencer”-EP I was wondering about the content of this opus. The song “Sequencer” remains the absolute highlight while the other cuts bring us back to Ruined Conflict’s signature sound. This music moves on there where previous albums stopped. It remains a post-future-pop style, which once again might remind you of VNV Nation –but that’s rather a reference, mixing more danceable- and softer, melancholic cuts. The vocals are exactly in the same line; now a bit more passionate and enraged and then more sensitive and emotional.

+ + + : The EP was a surprising exposure of the artist’s ‘darker’ side, but “Valediction” brings us back to the familiar sound of Ruined Conflict. It’s a well-crafted composition, mixing danceable pieces together with sensitive tracks. I prefer the danceable tracks although I noticed a few cool ‘emotional’ cuts.

– – – : The comparison with VNV Nation –especially for the timbre of voice, comes back again. Some will say it’s genius while other will say they are hearing a copyist. I think Ruined Conflict has enough talent to create a more personal sound and that’s something he has proven with the “Sequencer”-EP.

Conclusion: Ruined Conflict remains faithful to his successful sound formula so “Valediction” will ravish all electro- and future-pop lovers. 

Best songs: “Sequencer”, “Colony”, “Fellow Craft”, “Cast In Stone”, “Amaranthine”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: www.ruinedconflict.com / www.facebook.com/RuinedConflict

Label: www.infacted–recordings.de / www.facebook.com/pages/Infacted–Recordings/124099254321690

About Ruined Conflict

Ruined Conflict is the alternative electronic and Future-Pop project of American artist Xavier Morales, set up in 2011, with a debut album, “A.R.M.O.R.”, in 2013.

“Valediction” is Ruined Conflict’s fourth official full-length album, preceded by the appetizer EP “Sequencer” earlier in 2019. Morales went on to release the mini-albums “God & Sinners Part 1” and “God & Sinners Part 2” in 2021 and 2022, featuring guest vocals from Fredrik Croona, and the EP “The Experiment” in 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: Future-pop, electro-pop.

Background/Info: Solitary Experiments is a band I’m keeping an eye on since their very early years. The German formation became a recognized band dealing with electro/body-pop. “Future Tense” is their newest studio album, which was released 3 years after “Heavenly Symphony”.

Content: “Future Tense” is an interesting album title for featuring songs and a sound, which clearly bring us back to the past… This work isn’t retro-like, but seems to shout hard and loud that ‘future-pop’ is alive more than ever before. The album reveals a succession of great and carrying future-pop pieces, which will clearly appeal for the fans of VNV Nation and co. Sometimes a bit more dreamy-like, but mainly danceable, “Future Tense” is a noticeable album in its genre.

The second disc features remixes by ES23, Mental Discipline, Empirion, Binary Park, Freunde Der Technik, Mono Inc,  People Theatre, Rob Dust, L’Âme Immortelle, Beborn Beton, Paul Parra, Hartung & Schleinitz and Uniik.

+ + + : You immediately will notice the maturity of this band. They’ve accomplished a major album, which –even if doesn’t bring anything new, maybe is one of their best productions in history. It’s a melodic and danceable piece of work, but still a work filled with sensibility and emotions. There are several songs illustrating the talent of the band. I for sure can refer to the already know “Crash & Burn” (featuring female vocals by Tea F? Thimé from Ashbury Heights), but also “Brace Yourself!”, “Shelter”, “I Am”, the harder sounding “Double Dealer” and my personal favorite one “Every Time”.

Among the remixes I especially recommend the harder and darker sounding remix of “Double Dealer” by Empirion, but I also noticed cool contributions from Mental Discipline, Rob Dust, People Theatre, Paul Parra and a surprising acoustic remix by Mono Inc.

– – – : I don’t see real minor points although Solitary Experiments became a little bit predictable in their composition while a few songs are moving on the ‘commercial’ edge of dance music.

Conclusion: Solitary Experiments have already released great and noticeable productions, but I consider “Future Tense” as one of their best in history. Future-pop is alive and this album clearly symbolizes this fact.

Best songs: “Every Time”, “Brace Yourself!”, “Shelter”, “I Am”, “Crash & Burn”, “Double Dealer”  + “Double dealer – Empirion Remix”.

Rate: (8½).

Artist: www.solitaryexperiments.de / www.facebook.com/solitaryexperiments

Label: www.outofline.de  / www.facebook.com/outoflinelabel

About Solitary Experiments

Solitary Experiments is a German band formed in 1994 around singer Dennis Schober, releasing its debut material on Maschinewelt Records before signing to Out Of Line for the 2003 album “Advance Into Unknown”. The band’s sound evolved from early EBM influences toward the future-pop and electro-pop style of later albums including “Cause & Effect” (2004), “Immortal” and “The Beauty Lies…” (both 2009), and “Phenomena” and “Trial And Error” (both 2013). “Future Tense”, reviewed here, arrived as a double-CD in 2018 alongside the single “Crash & Burn”, three years after “Heavenly Symphony”. Solitary Experiments marked its 25th anniversary in 2019 and returned in 2022 with the album “Transcendent”, preceded by the single “Wonderland”.

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