Kite Base are back with a new video to promote their new album, Latent Whispers. Out now!
Miracle Waves (Remix) by Kite Base on VEVO.
The first time we talent-spotted Rein was about fifteen minutes after she put her first song on Soundcloud. The Swedish EBM artist has been a rocket ride since “There Is No Authority But Yourself” became our Track of the Day: nominations for Swedish awards keep flowing in; her songs are on mainstream radio and crushing the college circuit; and Dagens Nyheter’s Fredrik Strage thinks she’s the bomb.
He’s not wrong. There was a point when we were worried that there are only so many ways to make 16 beat step sequencing interesting, but Rein has put those concerns to rest. Freedoom (Playground), her new EP, takes a path that leads directly to the dancefloor. The opening track, “Missfit,” proves what we have been saying all along: the lady can sing! Yes, she can shout, scream and holler, but Rein has vocal chords as sweet as her lungs are steely. We were first given a glimpse in “Concrete Jungle,” but now the secret is out.
Don’t worry – Rein hasn’t gone all Tove Lo. Her instrumental compositions are blistering, as the industrial acid of “C.A.P.I.T.A.L.I.S.M.” and rolling bass of “Bruises” prove. Her vocals are solid, her politics are fierce, and Rein still packs a hell of a punch.
Keluar are part of Alison Lewis’ trail of amazing projects. Currently in hibernation, while Lewis focuses on her Zoe Zanias character, Keluar were captured in this video from 2015. Playing live in Leipzig, it is clear that Lewis and Sid Lamar know how to fuse dark wave and minimal electronica in ways that will spook your parents.
Page are Sweden’s original poptronica band. Founded when Eddie Bengtsson traded in his drum kit for a couple of monophonic synths, Page’s melodic signature has been a key feature of the Nordic electronic music scene for more than three decades. In that time, the line-up has sometimes changed, as have the commercial fortunes of the band, but the arrival of a new Page release is still a reason for excitement.
“Lägger Av” (Energy Rekords) doesn’t break the mould. Upbeat, Moog-driven, singalong pop is what a Page single should sound like. It’s music for parties, driving with the roof down and catching the eye of someone cute. The gloom of a Swedish winter cannot penetrate the harmonies and handclaps.
That’s a theme taken more literally in the virtual flip track, “Det Syns Ingen Snö.” A remake of an early Page favourite, this is a bouncy and punchy update from Bengtsson. First rolled out in a live setting in 2014, the “Music Lover’s Version” begs for remix treatment and release as a 12″ single. Marina Schiptjenko’s synth lines could eat most dance music for breakfast, while Bengtsson has transformed the song into an uplifting, romantic classic.
There are two other tracks on the release, including a version of “Sånt Som Inte Går” by Johan Baeckström and an industrial remix of “Spottar Långt” by Covenant’s Joakim Montelius. They apply very different treatments to the raw material, which makes for interesting listening. At this pace, the forthcoming Page album might be the first to invite its own remix companion.
DJs of the world, take note.
“My life is my art,” says Cosey Fanni Tutti. On the flip side, “My art is my life.”
When the two are so completely intertwined, it can be hard to distinguish them for analytical or critical purposes. Is it an invasion to look at pictures of Cosey unrobed in adult publications or an act of aesthetic appreciation? Was Cosey engaged in deception of the publishing sector when she posed akimbo with chains, or was she deluding herself by thinking that she was different from the girls in the next photo essays?
It doesn’t matter, really. In the end, her art is her art and her life is her life; and, whatever one might think about them, those choices were hers to make. Both art and life are vulnerable to judgement, when opened for examination, but the fellow-traveller of publicity is the audience’s complicity. No one makes you look, so don’t complain if you don’t like your reaction to what you see.
Cosey Fanni Tutti, the artist, was born into the age of the postcard, rather than fiber-optic broadband. Together with Genesis P-Orridge, with whom she was a part of the COUM art collective, she sought ways to subvert conventions and mores using the available technology of the 1970s. Initially, that meant skin, bodily fluids and the post; with time, it grew into electronic instruments. The development of the latter drew in the graphic artist Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Chris Carter, with whom she and P-Orridge formed the legendary Throbbing Gristle.
The musical history of Throbbing Gristle has been told and re-told by its participants, but Cosey’s Art, Sex, Music (Faber) reveals just how complex and emotionally charged the personal relationships between its members were. As the sole female member of the group, Cosey spent time in bed with each of her bandmates, separately or together (though, in Sleazy’s case, it must be said, in the interests of an anatomy lesson). This fueled tensions that eventually pulled the band apart: P-Orridge, who initially encouraged group escapades, grew to resent Cosey’s independence and used violence to show his feelings; while Cosey and Carter sought relief from P-Orridge’s tantrums in each other.
The story of P-Orridge’s emotional wrecking doesn’t end with the break-up of TG. Attempts to re-form and tour or record are consistently upset by P-Orridge, who transitions to an intermediate state between divo and diva. Solicitors are paid to write letters. Intellectual property rights are asserted. At one point, all of P-Orridge’s contributions to a Nico cover album are stripped out. In light of Cosey’s revelations about the singer’s controlling and bullying behaviour, none of this comes as a surprise, though followers of P-Orridge’s pseudo-cult, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, might struggle to accept it.
Art, Sex, Music isn’t a tell-all story. There is still more that could be said about Chris & Cosey as an artistic project, and it seems P-Orridge might have gotten off lightly. However, as a survey of a life in music and performance art, with excursions into the world of sex work, the book is accessible, well-structured and provides ample new information for fans and researchers to absorb. Written with dark humour, Art, Sex, Music illuminates the spaces other TG biographies can’t reach.
Prose Edda is based on a 13th century textbook of Icelandic poetry, but you won’t need a guide to Old Norse to appreciate it. FRKTL’s latest album is a set of electro-acoustic soundscapes, wrought from the materials of heaven and earth, so a pair of wide-frequency headphones will do just fine.
A project of the Anglo-Egyptian polymath, Sarah Badr, FRKTL has consistently impressed with tracks crafted from intricate rhythms and high doses of reverb. Prose Edda taps a Nordic vein, taking for inspiration stories of the Viking gods, and Badr extracts some truly glacial tones from her strings. There is fighting in heaven, though, and she introduces fabulously kinetic drums at the outset.
The entire project is exceptionally well executed; and, even if your knowledge of Thor comes from Marvel comics, it would not be hard to make sense of the material. It is theatrical, dynamic and possessing – just like the Northern landscape that bore the Norse creation myth. Hewn from granite and Atlantic mists, Prose Edda is a real accomplishment.
Wire were always sonic alchemists, turning rock’s basic materials into art-pop with distinctive properties. The band’s mercurial songcraft has transformed the resonance of guitar strings and the knock of wood against mylar into a million different textures since their 1977 debut.
Forty years later, Silver/Lead shows Wire emerging from the lab on the front foot, turning out the kind of material that the dream-pop set can only dream about. From the delightfully retro sleeve to the cleverer-than-a-chemist lyrics, Wire continue to hold their ground. Over their four decades as a combo, they haven’t blown with the trends of the times, nor have they been stopped by line-up changes, time apart and a near-fatal experiment with drum machines. The new album continues the pattern by drawing on the strands of psychedelia that were hinted at on last year’s Nocturnal Koreans mini-album and infusing them with a sense of groove.
If you start at the beginning, the album kicks off with “Playing Hard for the Fishes.” Bassist Graham Lewis takes vocal duties, stepping through a surreal poem while guitars swarm around him. “It’s hard to pretend,” he declaims, and that must be true given Wire’s consistent authenticity.
Jumping ahead, “Diamonds in Cups” was the obvious choice for a single release. It has a summer haze about it, as well as a rhythm that lifts it into the upper tiers of Wire’s pantheon. XTC, a band with which singer Colin Newman shares regional roots, also moved into a trippier place as they matured, and there is the warmth of a Salisbury Plain midsummer in the production of this track. Hippies Wire certainly are not, but they can expand minds even when they are moving feet.
On “This Time,” Lewis takes the microphone to tell us, “Some folks believe in magic.” There is strong evidence for that outlook, based on the quality of the material assembled here: from the propulsion of “Short Elevated Period” to the airiness of “Sleep on the Wing,” Wire are at their grooviest in years.
The scene outside of George Michael’s house in North London reflects the love felt for him by music fans. Hundreds of bouquets, messages and pictures have been left by visitors. Even the dust on his car, parked forlornly outside the residence, has been rubbed to leave messages. We took some pictures to share with fans.
Hélène du Thoury is best known for her work with Minuit Machine. Hante. (with the period) is her solo project, and it’s as dark, moody and sensual as you would expect. French is the natural language for minimal wave material, just as German is for EBM. In this brooding track, taken from the recent album, No Hard Feelings, du Thoury turns on the sonic smoke machines to their highest setting.
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