- Lambchop – ‘NIV’
The legends of 90’s hybrid country in some way lounge & jazz, Lambchop, from Nashville, Tennessee are about to release their new album on 4th of November via Merge Records. And this is ‘NIV‘ the second audio release of the new album ‘FLOTUS‘, following the 18-minute ‘The Hustle‘. In ‘NIV‘ we can listen to Kurt Wagner‘s fully electronically transformed vocals. Lampchop have accepted the evolution of music through time and are willing to experiment on new sounds and new genres anyhow, but they still never forget their successful aesthetics in their of own kind of music.
Eleftheria Gesou
- Ascetic: – ‘Utterings/The Clearing‘
The Australian darkwave/post punk expats trio, originally from Melbourne, couldn’t have had a more appropriate choice in making Berlin their spiritual and adopted home, a city of such creative energy that, as the title of their new sophomore album suggests, “everything is becoming”, nothing rests.
Their sound, forged around the long time friendship between guitarist Saxon Jörgensen and bassist/vocalist August Skipper (with the rhythmic help of Andrew Jigalin), has the typical 80’s gloomy dark post punk references (4AD, Joy Division) but with that experimental, electronic and industrial twist that connotes its own identity and peculiarity in the present musical scene.
An evidence of that is their remix for Sweden’s act Den Nya Borgen and the forthcoming remixes EP release for the fellow Berliner experimental noise industrial electronic label Instruments Of Discipline.
Their music, their lyrics are the expression of the endless, paranoic, painful, sometime ecstatic and beautiful, search of the individual human nature to go through and beyond the reality, to transcend the world as we usually know… Ascetic: art is so visceral and intense that, if you’ll give it a chance, it’ll get under your skin… music for the body.
Enjoy the Cronenberg-influenced video below, directed by the talented Johnny Welch, where the physical, the mental and the abstract levels of the human body dramatically pervading themselves.
Fabrizio Lusso
- Whispering Sons – ‘Performance’
Whispering Sons started their musical journey almost a year ago (‘Endless Party‘ a 6 track release, December 2015), making a very good impact in the genre’s fans. And it is post-punk, darkwave, in an acknowledged performing level. Earlier on October 10th they let out information about the new 7’’ release ‘Performance/Strange Identities‘ out on 25th November via Weyrd Son Records, together with the cover artwork and the homonym ‘Performance‘. I chose that tune for the week’s mixtape, because I like its cool freshness along with the anxious tempo and the darkwave approach as a whole.
Mike Dimitriou
- Baswoom & Stationer – ‘Suspensão‘
Stationer, formerly known as Celestial Sight team up with Baswoom for their brand new collaboration, ‘Depths‘. ‘Depths‘ is a chill and dreamy ambient glitch type project. The album strives to invoke a feeling of being lost in sonic waves surrounded by sounds coming from all directions. ‘Suspensão‘ is a laid back and slightly melancholic track which is heavy in piano and subtle atmosphere. Ride the sonic waves into a dreamland, of your own choosing.
Michael Barnett
- Syndrome – ‘Forever And A Day’
A minute of mesmerizing ascending atmospheric drone explosion that fades in minimal acoustic guitar chords and then this haunting, emotional and tormented voice, supported by apocalyptic droning loops, will capture your soul down the ardous and gloomy paths of the human soul…you’ll feel breathless, stunned, bewitched.
Syndrome is the solo moniker of Mathieu Vandekerckhove, guitarist of the Belgian post-metal outfit Amenra; his dark drone minimalistic folk sound has few elements in common with the metallic riffs of his band, but it’s not less powerful and intense.
When you’re feeling the world around you is falling apart, a sublime song like this is like a flash in the darkness and makes you believe there’s still hope for human race…Nevertheless it’s hard to find the right words about such a timeless beauty, just get lost in it.
“Are you afraid of your own darkness?”
Syndrome’s new second album ‘Forever And A Day’ is out now via the Begian indie label Consouling Sounds.
Fabrizio Lusso
Compiled by Eleftheria Gesou, Fabrizio Lusso, Mike Dimitriou & Michael Barnett