Various - Reflections Of The Southern Moon

Werkstatt Recordings: 2016

For these holidays, I've returned to the wintery Canadian hinterlands from whence I was once lived. Have family thereabouts, see, but regular work obligations generally don't afford me enough time to take such an expedition into the British Columbian mountains for Xmas shenanigans. Not this year though, time and circumstance affording me enough of a window to make the trek into the snow-cast Okanagan domain for a little family cheer. And though it's been a decade since my last winter sojourn to these high terrains, being back reminds me why I escaped my former exile – it's friggin' cold out here! The first winter I spent in this region many years ago was also my first experience with frostbite, and now, when I stepped outside for a morning stroll, regretting that I forgot my long john's, the whiskers on my face instantly frosting over, it all comes rushing back. I know my West Coast pampered lifestyle has pussified my adaptability to such radical changes in climate, but geez'it, Canadian hinterlands, you needn't remind me of that so viciously!

Thus, what better setting I've set upon myself to review a collection of dark/cold/gothic wave music from Werkstatt Recordings. Titled Reflections Of The Southern Moon, it's a sampler of artists the Greek label has on their roster, some with them since their earliest days. In fact, the duo Resistance Of Independent Music accounted for the bulk of Werkstatt's initial output. They would expand from those gothy sounds into more synth-pop/EBM territory as Paradox Obscur, while also doing solo work as Kriistal Ann and Toxic Razor (who'd also release material as Beatbox Machinery).

Between them, they account for six of the fourteen tracks on this compilation, but seeing as how their material's been integral to Werkstatt's early success, it's seems appropriate they get the lion's share. And hey, provides me with a nice bluffer's guide, as I know very little about the underground side of contemporary darkwave musicians. Oh, you know there's a huge, robust scene of this stuff burbling and churning in the dark recesses of clubland.

So Resistance Of Independent Music do the coldwave thing, Paradox Obscur do the slinky EBM thing, and Kriistal Ann does her operatic synth-pop thing, but what of the rest in this collection? Obsidian Radioactive opts to show two faces of his muse (both under gasmasks), The Fall Of Mankind a simple synth-string instrumental, Gasmasks And Titanium Scaffolds a bruising industrial outing. Dawnrazor, meanwhile, sounds like the sort of coldwave written in hopes of getting noticed by sempei vampires. I mean, even beyond the melodramatic vocals, you also get titles like Rulers Of This World and The Uncountable Callings Of Gothic Crowns. Geometry Combat's more fun, getting in on that EBM action, but still just as overwrought as darkwave can get. Finally, Metal Disco reminds us it's alright to move your electric body to this music if the tunes are funky enough. Well, as funky as music whiter than the pale moonlight can get.

KMFDM - Nihil

Wax Trax! Records/Metropolis: 1995/2007

About time I started up a KMFDM collection. They were only the first industrial band that caught my attention because Mortal Kombat obviously, but also all those eye-popping CDs with brutalist comic-art covers didn't hurt either. Truthfully, I was intimidated by the artwork, not quite ready for their aggressive, thrashy take on discotech rawk. That Juke Joint Jezebel jam though, always got my jimmies jostlin', and you can imagine my fanboyism upon discovering they used footage from the Patlabor movie for the music vid. I figured I'd get to their output eventually, but industrial remains rather fringe where my tastes are concerned, something I hope to rectify over time. Have to start somewhere though, and while Nine Inch Nails, Fear Factory, and Front Line Assembly have provided a taste, it's about time I give Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid their due.

And as Nihil is the album that has Juke Joint Jezebel on it, it's only natural that I'd pick this one up first. No, wait, that's not it. I got Nihil because, as their most commercially successful album, it's clearly The Only KMFDM Album You're Supposed To Have, Even If You're Not A KMFDM Fan. Haha, no, it's a good reason, but that's not it either. I got this first because of a totally unrelated situation that will be made clear incredibly soon.

Thing that's always struck me as crazy with this band is how American they sound. Maybe their earlier work was more Teutonic (I haven't heard any of it), but much of the stuff I've come across always had this 'buttrock' vibe to it, like they were fully committed to American gutter riffs, gospel glory, and cyberpunk sleaze. This may have been in part to their moving to the States, the industrial scene a different beast here compared to Europe. Opening track Ultra (also made popular by anime) is a propulsive beast, with shouty lyrics and abrasive guitars that'll get all the longhairs whipping their heads about. Flesh, Trust, and Search & Destroy go even thrashier, the sort of tunes that makes me hype to just attack something, like a punching bag or my dishes.

KMFDM haven't forgotten their EBM roots though, tracks like Beast, Revolution, and Brute getting down to thumping, jack-boot rhythms as cyberpunk samples and electronics play out – probably could have made handy soundtrack fodder if Juke Joint Jezebel hadn't hogged all the glory. They even find time to slow things down to a grinding chug with Terror (that hook!), and... is that a ballad with Disobedience? Well, about as mellow as they'll allow, vicious sonic attacks still bridging the mellow parts.

Given their history, it's remarkable KMFDM hit upon such a success eight albums deep, though they'd been building plenty of good-will for most of the '90s too. Maybe it was the added input of former band member Raymond Watts to the mix, or maybe just feeling inspired by the West Coast scenery they relocated to, but whatever the case, Nihil remains peak KMFDM.

Vortex - Moloch

Cyclic Law: 2016

It's difficult wading through these bleak, murky dark ambient shores, many upon many labels having sprung up this past decade offering grim, morbid, desolate sound-spaces for our troubled times. Like, I doubt the '50s had as much depressive music to offer (lots of weird 'art' noises though). Still, I've name-dropped Cyclic Law a few times, the Montreal/Berlin label having shared some talent with Cryo Chamber, most notably Kammarheit (Cities Last Broadcast) and Apócrýphos. Where's the fun in digging into another label for familiar musicians though? Nay, let's unearth some new cats! There, that album with the neat cityscape cover art. Ooh, a lovely photo booklet is included. Gotta' love those juxtaposed pictures of Manhattan decadence and decay.

Vortex (26) is the side-project of Marcus Stiglegger, who first made his mark in musicdom with :Golgatha:. Lord Discogs lists the group as “German apocalyptic and ritual folkband”, an apt descriptor for a lot of dark ambient. They had some minor success, even releasing a couple albums on Cold Meat Industry, but have been quiet most of this decade. Seems Vortex has taken Mr. Stiglegger's attention now, Moloch his fifth album under the project.

The concept of this album is simple enough: Marcus strolled through the Burroughs, and found himself inspired by what he saw, especially the neighbourhoods everyone so vividly remembers from '70s sleaze masterpieces. He had a sense that the City itself was a deity demanding soul-crushing sacrifice to exist within its realm, perverting your humanity just to make ends meet in an unforgiving clime'. Having lived in a City for a while now, I know the feeling - Vancouver's a cruel mistress sometimes, who'll chew you up and spit you out into the harbour if you don't know what you're doing.

As a dark ambient album, Moloch hits most of the standard points for a concept such as this. Rounding up about a half-dozen keyboardists, electric guitarists, and his own additional treatments (percussion, voices, ...flute?), Mr. Stiglegger coerces an industrial score for wandering a twisted vista. Opener City Of Steel sets the tone with abrasive drones before emerging with a gritty, orchestral dirge filled with distortion, as though marching through dead, urban squalor. Towers Of Glass breathes menacing drones while gentle synth tones offer a tranquil respite from the horrors surrounding you, but even these are eventually subsumed by the ever-present murk.

Most tracks play out in similar fashion – drones painting inhospitable pictures of urban existence, but Skyline stands in stark contrast to everything else. Even if the opening piano is unsettling, it's still more melodic than most of Moloch's been. It soon fades though, an omnipresent drone lulling you into a strange comfort of being, before a vicious guitar squall erupts, like a feral beast from the shadows - yet even that eventually takes on a comforting familiarity. Not those harsh, clanking noises at the end though, bursting forth out of nowhere, knocking even the beast back to its shadows. There's always a bigger tower in the City.

Atrium Carceri - Kapnobatai

Cold Meat Industry/Cryo Chamber: 2005/2017

So Simon Heath reissued a bunch of his early Atrium Carceri albums on CD, which is nice, as those initial Cold Meat Industry runs are well out of print at this point. It kinda' feels like the project's come full circle now with Cryo Chamber, the label first set up, among other things, to offer digital downloads of those albums. Then it grew to include new projects, other artists, creative challenges, and a little extra swag on the side too. I suppose it was inevitable that Simon would rescue his original works for another run of CDs, waiting for a time such that their Cold Meat rights expired following that label's closure. As such, only his first three have been physically resurrected on Cryo Chamber, Cellblock, Seishinbyouin, and Kapnobatai. I've a feeling Reliquiae's gonna' take a little longer.

Heath's Atrium albums on Cold Meat were heralded because they blended older, industrial dark ambient aesthetics while suggesting a larger canvas than creepy weird music for its own sake. Such is the case with Kapnobatai, an album I picked up because I just gotta' find out what's the deal with that bizarre cover art. What is that, a mask? A demon head? An alien skull? The title itself offers no real clue, as it refers to cloud-dwelling, meditating shamans of Scythian descent, typically by way of burning cannabis flowers. The liner notes relay the inner monologue of an embittered individual as he surveys a land he and his ilk once ruled, only to have been overthrown by lesser sorts, now mocking him as they pass by. Pretty sure that was the whole point of crucifixions. Still no closer to discover what the deal with that cover image is though.

The opening tracks of Enclosed World/Liberation and Behind The Curtain Of Life definitely does bring me back to the early days of Delerium, with choir pads, unsettling synth sounds, and disembodied dialog samples. (yes, Delerium is about my only firm frame of reference when it comes to old school dark ambient) Impaled Butterfly takes things a step further, offering up copious amounts of anime dialog. I keep thinking it's from Cowboy Bepop, just because there's a brief harmonica tone among the sci-fi sound effects, marching rhythms and distorted pads. It probably isn't though, just because I'm fairly certain Kapnobatai isn't supposed to be a sci-fi album. Definitely plenty of industrial body-horror goings-on in later tracks though (Synaptic Transmission, Monolith Of Dreams, Stained Pipes, Thermographic Components, The Corrupter).

While there's elements of the 'cinematic drone' Heath would implement with greater frequency in later albums, Kapnobatai is still mostly playing by Cold Meat Industry's O.G. industrial rules. Which is fine if you prefer your dark ambient claustrophobic, dehumanizing, and horrific. Cryo Chamber showed me there was another way, one that could get introspective and strangely calming in the face of a bleak world (also, grand narratives!). Yeah, the label was hardly the first to do this, but it at least opened the door for yours truly.

Fear Factory - Obsolete

Roadrunner Records: 1998

How does one follow an album that creates an entirely new form of metal in the process - a unique genre cross-breeding with industrial while never losing sight of its thrash roots, and that few would or could replicate for years to come? By getting super-artistic, naturally, settling for nothing less than a high concept ‘rock opera’ opus, exploring ideas and expanding themes only touched upon in Demanufacture. Fear Factory would fully commit to an LP narrative, with a distinct Three-Act story, all the while pushing their songwriting abilities beyond the full-throttle intensity that marked their prior work – so many different time-signatures, mang! It would be bold, it would be unprecedented, it would challenge metal in daring, new- wait, are those record scratches in Edgecrusher? Oh no, it’s too soon to hop on the nu-metal bandwagon!

Obsolete (or ºBSΩLE†e, if you’re ace with your character map) was ambitious for a third recording effort, one that could have flopped had Fear Factory overreached their ability. Instead, the album would go on to be their best selling record, though clearly feeding off the positive buzz Demanufacture and touring generated (also, that cover of Gary Numan’s Cars, which obviously fit nowhere here). Things were definitely looking toppers for Fear Factory then, but a series of unfortunate incidents following Obsolete’s release put a serious grind on the band’s future prospects. Those are musings for another time though, if I ever review any of their albums between this and Genexus (not very likely).

The setting for Obsolete should be familiar to anyone clued into the band’s dystopian outlook, laying the future-shock stage plainly with opener Shock. Follow-up Edgecrusher gives us our protagonist – or antagonist if you’re cheering for the machine overlords – and aforementioned wiki-wikis aside, is a solid bit of groove-mosh. Stomp-thrasher Smasher/Devourer introduces us to the Edgecrusher’s foe, a police mech run amok (“you’re a loose cannon, Literal Walking Cannon!”), while Securitron (Police State 2000) gives us the ruling overseers keeping the rabble in check. All par for the course in this sort of tale.

The middle portion of the album gets into the society in revolt, ol’ Edgecrusher helping stoke the fires for freedom against humanity’s oppression from the robotic ruling class. This being Fear Factory, the titular cut doesn’t mince words in letting the silly homo sapien populus know their place in this strange forbidding world. Having original robot-fetish singer Gary Numan provide a digitized bit of opening dialog certainly helps sell that notion (hey, you already got him featuring in that Cars cover). Ol’ Edgecrusher seeks salvation of a sort in Resurrection, where the band’s propensity for grand theatrics soar high, ending the album on an uplifting, hopeful outlook for this ruined society.

No, wait, there’s one more track, Timelessness, a mournful dirge complete with backing orchestra (thanks, Rhys Fulber!). Seems our salvation was for naught, Edgecrusher captured and carted off to jail after all. Machinery always wins out in Fear Factory’s world. Resistance is futile.

Cities Last Broadcast - The Humming Tapes

Cryo Chamber: 2016

And finally I get to that oldest of dark ambient schools, the post-industrial class. Actually, calling it ‘post’ isn’t entirely accurate, this stuff developing almost concurrently with the warped sound experiments of early industrial. Once dark ambient started finding different ways of exploring the macabre side of drone though, its shared approach to the craft with traditional ambient dragged it out of the industrial scene into its own thing. Now you’ve got so many different styles of dark ambient, you’d almost need a Music Guide detailing it all; or not, this particular scene not as anal retentive about sub-genre purity as so many other electronic music scenes. For sure one could, if anything to help unsuspecting explorers differentiate from ‘space soul-crush’ from ‘urban decay doomcore’ from ‘Hell Dimension sadstep’ from ‘rainbow-sparkle drone’ (it’s an ironic micro-genre). But it’s not necessary, dark ambient connoisseurs content within their own interests, though perhaps with a shared smirk towards those who fear treading within.

Cities Last Broadcast, or Pär Boström to the Swedish Illuminati Division, has floated about the dark ambient scene for a while now. He’s probably better off known as Kammarheit, a project trending towards the reflective, melancholy side of dark ambient, and didn’t offer much exploration of unique recording methods. As an alias like Cities Last Broadcast though, you’re practically mandated to indulge industrial’s aesthetic of metropolitan decay. Crackling tape recordings, rusted grind of neglected machinery, billowing wind through burnt husks of buildings, warped records of a fallen culture - all that good stuff. For sure I’ve dealt with the post-apocalypse setting before, but most of those feature times significantly past the fall of Man, and often still using contemporary studio gear for recording. The Humming Tapes places us about as close to the initial action I’ve come across yet, feeling more like a Final Days Of A Victorian War than dealing with the after affects.

Well, the setting makes sense, given the crackling, droning analog tone that permeates this album. The actual content, however, focuses on the practice of séance, where a group of people sit together to communicate with spirits, a rather popular activity during the Victorian Era. Even Houdini getting in on that action, and grainy photographs of the sessions helped perpetuate the myth, but most séance mediums were considered frauds or hoaxes. Whether real or fake, The Humming Tapes presents itself as a recording from one such intense session, and I can’t help but wonder if ol’ Pär partook in a séance just for some authentic field recordings. Well no wonder that Glossolalia track sets my neck hairs on end!

Whether you believe in commune with the afterlife or not, The Humming Tapes definitely sells you on the atmosphere of a séance. It’s got the anxious waiting in the dark (The Sitting), the creepy contact (Glossolalia), a strangely forlorn discourse with the dead (Centennial), and that soul-emptying sense that you got more than you bargained for in toying with spirits (Electricity, Kathédra). A charming Halloween album, then.

Fear Factory - Genexus

Nuclear Blast Entertainment: 2015

I didn’t think I’d return to Fear Factory. Demanufacture is a bona-fide industrial metal classic that throws enough cyborg bones to my techno sensibilities that I can return to it plenty times over, and maybe I’ll pick up Obsolete should I find it on the cheap, but I had little need to dig further into the band’s material. Besides, general consensus is they’ve essentially fixated on their singular style that made them famous, all the while having personnel issues as members leave, return, and all the typical turmoil that comes with metal egos clashing. Not good developments if you want to stay relevant. They sorted their shit out though, eventually reconvening with most of the original band intact, and appear on the resurgence again. Not because they’ve adapted with changing trends to fit with modern times, oh no. They’re sticking to their phased plasma rifles, but sounding more confident in who they are and what their music entails.

Thus, taking a browse in what Fear Factory had been up to in recent years, I discovered a new album called Genexus, and that it was being hailed as their best since Demanufacture - some even claimed it better than that seminal record! It definitely has the same sonic markers: machine rhythms firing like gatling guns, vocalist Buron C. Bell doing his vintage growling verse/clean singing chorus thing, all marinated with electronic treatments from Rhys Fulber. The topics remain fixated on future shock industrialization, mechanical societies stripping away our humanity, resisting the inevitable cyborg apocalypse, and all that good stuff. I mean, if you’ve heard Zero Signal - and any metal fan or Mortal Kombat disciple should have by now – you’ve heard a good chunk of Genexus.

This is everything we’d want in a Fear Factory album anyway. The band carved out a unique niche, and despite a few metal groups co-opting it in the two decades since, nothing comes close to sounding like these guys when they’re firing on all cylinders. And while I haven’t taken in much of their material since Demanufacture, I’m told this is one of their most melodic records ever. It definitely sells the more melodramatic aspect of their style, tracks like Autonomous Combat System, Protomech, Anodized, Battle For Utopia, and especially Regenerate laying the supporting synths on thick. Hey, you won’t see me complaining about this – far as I’m concerned, Fulber’s contributions remain one the best parts of a Fear Factory tune, giving them their distinct character above so much death metal out there.

Though Genexus is nearly balls-to-sprockets thrash all the way through, they do mix things a little in terms of tempo, tracks like Soul Hacker and Church Of Execution going for more groove metal action instead. Meanwhile, final track Expiration Date offers an epic ‘ballad’, which I can honestly say I never expected from this band. I’ve heard creepy, industrial ambient sections from them, but a full track of Bell forgoing his usual growl? Wonders never cease! Genexus definitely deserves the praise it’s gotten.

Front Line Assembly - Tactical Neural Implant

Third Mind Records/Roadrunner Records: 1992/2007

The only Front Line Assembly album you're supposed to have, even if you're not a Front Line Assembly fan. Heck, some make the case Tactical Neural Implant is an essential LP in the industrial scene period, though that's a bit of a stretch. For sure the band that Bill Leeb built grew to be one of the most popular during the early ‘90s, but industrial reaches far with its assortment of Very Important People. At best Front Line Assembly helped lead the charge in the world of EBM, but even they were quick to move onto different explorations of their sound, eager to try something else with each album or side project. That can make for some difficulty in knowing which of the roughly dozen FLA albums is a good starting point, if I hadn't already said the answer is Tactical Neural Implant right at the start of this paragraph.

First off, this is where Leeb and Rhys Fulber really hit their stride as a unit, taking what they’d learned in their first producing outing on Caustic Grip and applying it to some serious songcraft muscle here. Industrial music has always been about manipulating sounds into garish, abrasive attacks on the senses, things like ‘melody’ or ‘earworms’ treated as musical conventions intended for parody. EBM, with its heavy focus on rhythms, lightened a little on such sonic perversions, but was no less cutting in this aesthetic. Tactical Neural Implant, on the other hand, generally sounds cleaner than earlier FLA albums, relying more on grinding, mechanical samples and menacing synths rather than harsh effects to sell its dystopian vision. A good thing too, otherwise the many, surprising melodic moments throughout this album wouldn’t be nearly as effective as musical counterpoints if they were equally muddied and full of murk.

For instance, melodies in songs Remorse and Outcast don’t sound too off from Leeb and Fulber’s Delerium work, to say nothing of melodramatic closer Lifeline. Sample lyrics: “In the shadow, An angel cries;... Innocence confused, By hate.” Part of my brain wants to lambast these words as hokey goth poetry, but damn if Leeb’s bellowing doesn’t get stuck in my head with me eager to hit the replay button.

Still, these are outliers compared to the other songs, where Leeb opts for the snarling EBM sneer (Final Impact, Bio-Mechanic, Outcast, Gun) or fierce industrial growl (Mindphaser). And that’s when you can hear his words at all, some tracks rendering them all but indecipherable with vocoder effects (The Blade). I personally love it when Leeb’s voice morphs though, as in Bio-Mechanic where it grows ever more vicious and robotic in the chorus. Talk of insidious earworms too, Mindphaser the biggest hit Front Line Assembly ever released – heck, they named their website after the song!

Tactical Neural Implant might be a smite too catchy for industrial purists to take seriously, but that just makes it a great entry point for folks looking to cut their teeth on EBM. A tactical neural implant indeed.

Depeche Mode - The Singles 86>98

Mute: 1998

Depeche Mode, the band everyone loves when they want to get in touch with their darkside, and will get beaten to a bloody pulp by the South Park goth kids for it. Depeche Mode, the band that’s seen so much reinvention over the years, even their long standing fans have formed tribes based on which version is the one true Mode. A band that had a singles package released before their most recognized songs hit the radio waves, followed the year after with another ‘greatest hits’ album to accommodate those, and was still followed upon by some of their most famous songs. They soundtracked everything from foppish New Wave clubs to nebbish S&M dungeons to family friendly mall speakers. They’re the band you enjoy until their sound falls out of fashion, secretly admire while no one’s looking, then proclaim a long-standing devotion when it’s cool to do so again.

So yeah, Depeche Mode has had a career, one lengthy enough for retrospectives dividing their different eras. Obviously the mid-‘80s record The Singles 81 → 85 covered the early portions of their discography, but albums Black Celebration, Music For The Masses, and Violator came after. These LPs held the songs Stripped, Strangelove, Behind The Wheel, Enjoy The Silence, A Question Of Lust, A Question Of Time, A Question Of Your Personal Jesus… Basically every song we’ve come to associate with Depeche Mode (that reverb!), even those who contend Just Can’t Get Enough is their crowning achievement.

Naturally another greatest hits package had to capitalize on these singles. Like, shortly after the ‘90s took form, when their darkwave synth-pop sound could no longer stand toe-to-toe with trendier sounds like industrial rock and raving techno. Get a few extra dollars from their fans and- wait, Depeche Mode’s still going? What’s with this ‘adapting with the times’ strategy of theirs? It’ll never work, “never” claims the critics! Well, the band must have been doing something right, for they managed a whole second CD of singles from their ‘90s efforts.

Honestly, CD2 of The Singles 86>98 isn’t as memorable as CD1. The albums released during that period - Songs Of Faith And Devotion and Ultra - have their fans, and it’s remarkable the band navigated the ‘90s as capably as they did before ‘80s revivalism gave them another boost with 2001’s Exciter. Yet, hearing them go all distorted in I Feel You and Useless, or try trip-hop with Barrel Of A Gun, doesn’t quite mesh with how I, a passive fan, fancy the group. Leave the angst-ridden sonics to Nine Inch Nails, and give me more of that cinematic melodrama bombast in Little 15. Wait, why is that song on CD2?

I guess there’s no harm in slapping a second disc of material to an essential first, but was there no other way of summing up thirteen years of band’s career? CD1 has all the songs you know and love, CD2 has the fans-only material. So much cake that needs eating too.

Filter - Short Bus

Reprise Records: 1995

It’s been a long while since I dealt with any of Ishkur’s old CDs. Okay, there’s been a scattered few that had actual ‘techno’ on it (win an Ishkur t-shirt if you guess which ones!), but nada from his pre-rave days. I bring this up because it’s the only reason why I’m reviewing Filter’s debut album today. Obviously I’d never have bought this for myself, though the possibility of it being a gift from an aunt always lingered. Seemed every guy I knew who had some hard rock or alternative rock or industrial rock collection had Short Bus in their CD pile. You couldn’t escape it, even in store shelves long after Filter had faded from public discourse. You’d spot it in ‘90s rock retrospectives, the cover art distinct and memorable. Yet, beyond one major track, does anyone recall any of the tunes off this? I sure don’t.

Yeah, yeah, not like I should know of Filter’s work, since their music scene was well outside my interest. Hear their music I did though, primarily because their brand of Nine Inch Nails metal made for ample edgy soundtrack fodder. In fact, they were tapped for the lead single off Spawn, collaborating with The Crystal Method on (Can’t You) Trip Like I Do. Right, ‘collaborating’ is used very loosely here – more like sang over an existing Crystal Method cut, but Spawn was one big ‘yawn’ anyway, amirite?

Point being, Filter’s the sort of alternative rock one easily identifies with a specific era of music. That post Trent Reznor, pre Limp Bizkit sweet spot of aggressive distortion, angst-filled singing, yet just enough strength of songcraft to take it seriously enough. Like I said, perfect for goth-inspired movies such as The Crow, Demon Knight, Valentine, The X-Files, 3000 Miles To Graceland (huh?), The Cable Guy (wait), and Little Knicky (oh come on).

Short Bus, then. I guess it’s good. Hey Man, Nice Shot, the opener tune about R. Budd Dwyer’s suicide, I most certainly have heard, because that song was on nearly every alt-metal compilation you could think of. MTV Buzz Bin, Family Values Tour 1999, Freedom Sucks Vol. 2, The Next Generation, Absolute 90’s, plus a number of those soundtracks listed above. Most of the tunes off Short Bus sound like it, some a little sludgier, some a little brisker, all heavy with distortion and shouty lyrics. I’d make a quip about how all industrial metal sounds the same, but Nine Inch Nails sounds pretty different song to song, and it’s not like ninety-percent of techno isn’t recyclable either. One thing I do like is the requisite acoustic tunes (Stuck In Here, So Cool) have a neat bit of distortion fuzz playing in the background. Like, some sort of sonic sift or sieve.

For as hopelessly ‘90s as Filter come across, they’ve managed a career lasting to this date. Good for them, I say, though one ride on the Short Bus is all I need for my Filter fix.

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

TVT Records: 1989

S’up, Nine Inch Nails? Remember when I went on a binge of your music a while back, nearly every month having a review for you? It’s been a year and a half since I last wrote about you though, and that flame I felt for Reznor’s vocals, dense industrial rock production, and album craftsmanship has dwindled some. Maybe it was only meant to be a brief flirtation anyway, as so many explorations outside one’s comfort zone go. I’ve no doubt I’ll return to The Downward Spiral and Ghosts I-IV at some point, but did I really need to indulge The Fragile? Perhaps not, but it was good for me at the time, so no regrets at this late point. And yet, after such a long dearth of NIN in my diet, I get to tempt my palette once more with the album that started it all, Pretty Hate Machine.

Hmm, it tastes… kinda’ plain? Oh dear, this really is a debut album, isn't it. I give Reznor all the credit in the world for persevering with his passion project, but it’s clear there’s quite a bit of musical growth ahead of him. The song-writing is rather straight-forward for industrial rock, though considering ol' Trent was helping define the genre at the time, that's not surprising. Still, it was Reznor's bold experimentation in the ensuing decade that intrigued me, and Pretty Hate Machine is in old-school mode, owing more to gothy new wave and early EBM than thrash metal and dense sonic manipulations. It’s a sound many, many, many others would emulate throughout the ‘90s (some undoubtedly inspired by Nine Inch Nails), so doesn’t come off as sonically amazing compared to Reznor’s later efforts. Plus, there’s a sense he’s still playing a bit with conventional rock song writing, mostly intent on getting his lyrics across with rhythms and melodies in service of them. Ah well, it’s better to learn the rules before you break them anyway (erm, even if industrial was all about breaking rules to begin with).

Honestly though, I'm more fascinated by the process Pretty Hate Machine came into being and the success that came with it. No matter your taste in music, you have to admire Reznor's gumption, creating his demos during studio downtime while working as a janitor. Then he settles on TVT Records to release it, a label that wasn’t known for much of anything beyond soundtracks and scores even then (though they did release The Timelords music too – maybe that’s what attracted Reznor to TVT?). Following that, a whole lot of underground buzz bloomed, Nine Inch Nails finding an audience with tech-savvy metalheads and the like who dug on those cold electronics with the guitar riffage and angsty singing. Soon enough, Pretty Hate Machine is hailed a classic, even though Reznor was quick to move on from it. It goes to show if you have the dedication, you can accomplish anything. Okay, it also doesn't hurt having something unique as your final product either.

Kenji Kawai - 2002 Patlabor 2: The Movie "Sound Renewal"

Vap: 1993/2002

I indulge in anime every so often, but am nowhere near otaku levels (ignore that one year marathon in my early twenties, ne?), and definitely not to such a degree I'll snatch up soundtracks. Oh, there’s plenty of stunning works available should you go digging around, but I’m at best a casual watcher. Why, then, do I have the score to Patlabor 2, an anime that, while not hopelessly obscure, seldom comes up in discussion, especially musically. It's certainly no Macross, Cowboy Bebop, or [insert modern classic Sykonee should be checking out]. Heck, it's not even a Ghost In The Shell, the movie director Mamoru Oshii and composer Kenji Kawai worked on right after this one. In some ways though, Patlabor 2 is a conceptual precursor to their work on that flick. To get into those details, however, would utterly derail this review, and I’m here to talk music, not anime - you’ll have to find another site for that (I recommend Anime Abandon by Bennett “The Sage”, should he ever get around to reviewing Patlabor).

While Oshii’s gone down as one of anime’s most influential directors, it’s his partnership with Kawai that helped solidify his legacy. They share a film-making synergy similar to the likes of Burton and Elfman, in that you can’t help but think of the two in unison despite occasionally doing projects without the other’s input. Kawai’s also incredibly diverse when called upon, even within the Patlabor pantheon of movies, OVAs, and TV series. Peppy j-pop, traditional Japanese orchestral, and future-shock industrial, he finds ways molding his music as needed to fit the situation, and as Patlabor 2’s all about political intrigue and philosophical quandary in a near-future mecha-milieu, you bet we get ample amounts of the latter styles on this score.

As Oshii often makes use of montages in this movie (at least, when characters aren’t discussing the meaning of existence, or something), the music had to match the imagery in narrative drive. Thus, Asia’s slow tribal rhythm and ominous strings build upon the growing sense of unease as martial law is instilled upon Tokyo; ...with Love’s gentle pianos and pads contrast with harsh, tentative synths as Nagumo questions her allegiance between her duty and her heart; ”IXTL” trudges along a slow EBM beat and soft falsetto choir, far from the sort of music you’d expect from an action climax, but keeping in tone with the minimalist direction Oshii went with. Wait, when did this turn into a movie review too?

All well and good, but the piece I ultimately bought this soundtrack for was Unnatural City. A recurring motif throughout the movie (there’s three variations), it’s a simple bit of music, haunting discordant pads casting feelings of contemplation and doubt upon the scenes it plays. The easy comparisons are Eno and Glass, but Kawai injects just enough traditional instrumentation underneath to make this sound wholly his own. It’s also perfect for late nights when you find yourself staring out at city lights.

Troum - Mare Idiophonika

Tourette Records: 2010

See, this is the sort of release I expect from the dark ambient scene. Troum are comprised of former members of Maeror Tri, one of the few 'deep underground' industrial bands of the early '90s that could count on being name-dropped as highly influential and all that rot. That they would start doing experimental ambient stuff was inevitable, almost a requirement for any self-respecting industrialist really. The two members of Troum even have quirky cyberpunk names, Glit[S]ch and Baraka[H] (I'm guessing the “h” is silent). Throw in a multitude of LPs released in the past fifteen years, and you've got a dark ambient duo that's built up quite the legacy for themselves, on par with luminaries like Nurse With Wound and Merzbow. Good for them. Shame I didn't stumbled upon a stronger album than this as my first impression of Troum. Maybe a re-recording of a live performance wasn't the best point to dive in with this duo.

It has a great start, mind you, working a methodical, droning build with plenty of tasty dark ambient textures. Funny enough, it even opens with heavily-echoed bass guitar, which gave me pause in thinking I’d accidentally replayed In The Mist’s Lost. But nay, whereas van Cauter’s music retained his sludgy doom metal roots, The Self-Playing Ocean (the only titled composition on Mare Idiophonika) is clearly a product of the industrial scene, a sense of suffocating technology reverberating through your earholes as bleak, dystopian pads create a choking atmosphere of anxiety and dread. As I also mentioned in the Lost review, dark ambient is best when momentum is suggested, that the composers aren’t spinning their sonic wheels under the pretence of ‘minimalism for artistic sake’. Troum work an excellent build here, The Self-Playing Ocean creating a sense of musical pressure that begs for release of some sort.

That Troum would add a rhythm to the track makes sense, as it’s a logical step in maintaining The Self-Playing Ocean’s urgency. I just wish they’d have chosen one less bland than the repetitive tribal loop they settled on. What briefly did add an interesting new element soon turned into a distraction from all the weird, discordant sound drones going on, and lingers in a lo-o-o-ong fade out for well past any point of usefulness (about fifteen minutes worth). Once gone, you realize it didn’t add much of anything to The Self-Playing Ocean, the track working just as fine had the music remained solely on its dronier aspects.

Its retreat also marks an abrupt change for the forty-five minute long piece, settling into orchestral swells and such. Not a bad way to end on, but after the tedious middle portion, I've kind of zoned out on Mare Idiophonika, and not in the good way ambient music does – your mileage may vary. For me, the brief bit of blissy music tacked onto the end of the CD as a secret song was more enjoyable than most of The Self-Playing Ocean. No lame tribal loops!

Chris Korda - Demons In My Head

Kevorkian Records: 1993

There's something wrong with Chris Korda's outlook on the world. No, not the cross-dressing thing – he's actually kind of good at it. No, not that whole Church Of Euthanasia thing either – I cannot deny there is some practical logic in this promotion of overpopulation prevention, tongue-in-cheek though this outlet may be. And no, his totally provocative approach to music making is hardly the stuff of oddness – performance art, t'is, and all that rot. No, what strikes me peculiar about Chris Korda is his relative reluctance at music making. Maybe he simply doesn't make time for it, or maybe he's an act some find too controversial to sign. Pft, as if. DJ Hell had enough gumption to give the Church Of Euthanasia an outlet during International Deejay Gigolo’s rise to fame, so Mr/s Korda couldn't be all that bad. Lord Discogs tells me he's been silent on the music front since the early '00s though, and if I can't trust the Lord That Knows All, where can I go to find out more? Oh yeah, that website.

Anyhow, Korda's debut LP Demons In My Head came out a number of years before the chap/gal got chummy with Hell, self-releasing it on the appropriately titled own-label Kevorkian Records. It's also a forty-five minute long, single-track album. Yay, noodly ambient drone, with industrial abrasiveness I bet.

Not at all, though there are sonically confrontational segments throughout. Truth be told, I was a bit hesitant going into this one, figuring this would end up being some Hellraiser-level dark ambient assaulting my sanity, but Demons In My Head seldom goes down those roads. Some thirty-five minutes in, a bit of reverse chanting coupled with a gargling deadite wail crops up, and that’s about as outright creepy as things get. So, something out of a Tool interlude, then?

Before we get there though, we have industrial clanking, hydraulics pumping, bleepy sci-fi dithering, children playing (ah, ol’ Chrissy was at the county fair at some point), reflective ambient tones, meditative New Age melodies, water running, water raining, water spilling, water pumping, water flushing, and water swirling in pools. Yeah, there’s a lot of water sound effects in Demons In My Head. Maybe Vodyanoi took up residence in Korda’s noggin. Oh, and he finishes off with your standard industrial noise assault. Haha, madness overtook him! Time to form a church with a bizarre concept.

What’s frustrating about this LP is it could have been indexed into individual tracks, as there are distinct sections and passages. True, listening to it in its entirety rather than selectable chunks forces you to take Korda’s narrative as a whole, and dark ambient always works best in this context. Still, if a story has a clear sequence of events as Demons In My Head does, why not clarify them with titled ‘chapters’? It only enriches the musical tale. Erm, when there’s actual music going on, that is. Ah well, at least there’s definite structure and flow here, more so than I was expecting.

Various - Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

TVT Records: 1997

The movie Mortal Kombat: Annihilation represented everything that sucked about being a teenager in the '90s: utter ruination of a popular franchise, clueless pandering with pointless character cameos, over-reliance of shit CGI, crap plotting, no campy charm, and generally just poo. It showcased how little corporate executives thought of the demographic, figuring we'd eat up any ol' slop. Okay, they were right on most occasions, but after the surprise quality of the first Mortal Kombat movie, we expected better. Man, fuck this movie.

Speaking of failures, let's talk about the soundtrack. Something feels totally off about Annihilation compared to the first, as though TVT Records were unwillingly sucked into the 'electronica' hype machine and forced to accommodate the rising bankable genre going forward. For a label known primarily for industrial rock, shoving in a pile of one-off breaks acts must have been frustrating for them. Or maybe not, and they truly were gung-ho about this turn.

Thing about the first soundtrack is it didn’t even come off like a soundtrack; rather, a mixtape from TVT staff, giving equal share and exposure to thrashy techno, industrial, and metal (plus a few original pieces from George S. Clinton). Annihilation, in contrast, is almost all ‘electronica’ of some form. KMFDM at least get a return spot, and I’m sure plenty were properly introduced to Rammstein by way of their classic Engel (for those who weren’t, Du Hast was just around the corner!). Elsewhere, industrial gets a spit more of attention with one-off act Urban Voodoo, and that’s it for the genre. Metal? Hah, don’t make me laugh. Megadeth’s Almost Honest is turned into a Spawn clone via Danny Saber, and that’s it – unless you count the thrashy guitars in Scooter’s Fire as metal, since that’s about as close as anything else gets to the genre on here. Yeah, I don’t think so.

It’s essentially generic ‘action-movie’ big beat making up the remaining two-thirds of Annihilation, surprisingly none produced by Junkie XL. Remember how Mortal Kombat had distinctive songs that perfectly fit with the scenes and characters? Forget that nonsense in Annihilation. Perfect example is the use of FSOL’s We Have Explosive, horribly shoe-horned in a lame fight between Lui Kang and Baraka, for barely thirty seconds! But hey, they got the rights to use it, so better shove it in somewhere. Think about it: Annihilation made the f’n FSOL sound pointless and inconsequential. Man, fuck this movie.

Just as a collection of tunes, then, does this CD hold up? Without the movie association or comparison with the first CD, only barely, and thanks largely in part to the inclusion of some choice material from those already mentioned (plus Psykosonik, Juno Reactor, Cirrus, and Lunatic Calm). Keep in mind though, the music’s so late ‘90s sounding, you can practically see the wire-fu action sequences as they play out. The good tunes can be found elsewhere, and the lesser cuts are forgotten by the end of a play-through. Annihilation’s pathetic legacy, as it were.

Various - Mortal Kombat

TVT Records: 1995

The movie Mortal Kombat represented everything awesome about being a teenager in the ‘90s. Based on the classic fighter that pissed off no end of mothers and sold a ton of Sega Genesis (“we got blood, yo!”), a film was inevitable despite a jaded gaming culture untrusting of such things. Yet against the odds, Mortal Kombat delivered about as good a movie as the demographic could have hoped (re: campy fun; didn’t outright suck). The original score was composed by long-time Warner studio hand George S. Clinton (who also went on to do the Austin Powersmovies), while several songs were licensed by TVT Records to give the movie that proper Gen-X feel. And hoo, what a soundtrack it is!

Mortal Kombat’s well regarded in how it exposed many to electronic music, despite techno making up barely one-third of the track list. TVT though, they had a few signed acts too, including many industrial groups. KMFDM’s biggest hit, Juke-Joint Jezebel, is featured in the opening couple cuts, leading right into ‘techno jihadists’ Psykosonik and Juno Reactor- whoops, I mean Traci Lords. If any metal-leaning teen felt ‘techno’ was “gay-ass shit”, Control’s a track that had them reconsidering, slamming beats and thrashing riffs galore. Additional industrial rock acts like Sister Machine Gun and Bile didn’t hurt in further cementing that connection. Also, this was the first soundtrack Orbital’s Halcyon + On + On was featured, beating Hackers by a month.

Then there’s the metal. Fear Factory’s Zero Signal was the standout of the bunch, mostly from acting as the backing score to Johnny Cage and Scorpion’s match (arguably the best scene of the whole movie). There’re old hands like G//Z/R (such grinding guitars!) and Napalm Death, and newer acts like Type O Negative and short-lived Mutha’s Day Out. A solid assortment of music for the metalheads, then, and an incredible eye-opener of the genre’s potential for the sorts who never gave it a chance before (*cough*).

And what discussion about the music of Mortal Kombat is complete without bringing up The Immortals? I’m certain Virgin only had a quick cash-in on mind when they approached Oliver Adams and Praga Khan for a techno album based on the game. It’s a testament to their skill, then, that what resulted not only became a surprise hit, but has endured as the definitive Mortal Kombat theme in all its incarnations. Techno Syndrome may be utilizing classic Belgian techno tropes to the nth degree, but it’s done so expertly, there’s not a Kombat soul alive that can resist its potent appeal. Heck, even the covers that emerged since, including the Utah Saints’ go at it on here, pales to the Immortals original.

Mortal Kombat wasn’t the first soundtrack at bringing metal, industrial, and techno together (Cool World has that honor, I believe), but definitely proved it could be commercially successful in doing so. Spawn, The Matrix, and many more ‘90s action movies followed its lead, an impressive legacy for something everyone was certain would fail.

Front Line Assembly - Millennium

Roadrunner Records: 1994

Bill Leeb swears it wasn’t a bandwagon jump, but it’s hard not to suspect so. Industrial rock was gaining traction within the rock world at large, an intriguing alternative for those burned out by grungey alternative rock clogging up the airwaves. It also didn’t hurt all those weird, piercing electronic noises made perfect soundtracks to cyberpunk movies and CD-ROM games (oh, early ‘90s…), a perfect bridge for the technologically savvy and metal-head types out there. Still, I’m willing to give him the benefit of doubt, he and Rhys Fulber taking Front Line Assembly out of the realms of pure EBM and closer to proper-rock territory. Their sound was due for a shake up, EBM coming off a tad dated in the wake of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral.

Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself. Just in case you aren’t aware (hi, post-Silence Delerium fans!), Front Line Assembly was Bill Leeb’s main music project for a good decade before a side project of his grew even more popular. Along with Skinny Puppy (of whom he was once a member), Front 242, and Nitzer Ebb, he was instrumental in developing electronic body music as a dancier, purely electronic off-shoot of industrial. It gained popularity in underground clubs and the seedier side of dance culture, but as all things born of the ‘80s, the scene eventually fizzled out in the ‘90s as bands moved onto industrial rock or aggrotech (industrial techno!). Front Line Assembly were no exception, Millennium being their own take on guitar-infusion body music.

Only they kinda cheated in the process, sampling and replaying heavy metal riffs from Pantera, Sepultera, and Ministry as a complement to their EBM rhythms. Well, if that’s the way they’re gonna do it, may as well take from musically compatible sources. Ministry were already considered an industrial group (though more heavy rock than EBM or thrashing metal), while Pantera and Sepultera were incredibly groove-orientated with their riffage; a perfect complement, then.

It doesn’t always work, as tracks like Vigilante and Division Of A Criminal are too far outside of Front Line’s EBM comfort zone to sound like anything other than wonky attempts at industrial rock on their part (and let’s not get into the woeful go at ‘industrial-rap’ on Victim Of A Criminal). Nay, this fusion truly flies when we’re still dealing with good ol’ soaring synths, blistering electronics, thrilller movie samples, and those gloriously over-the-top, operatic, ear-wormy melodic passages; the cathartic bliss in the mechanized rage. I honestly can’t take it seriously (am I supposed to?), but it sure is fun getting swept into Leeb’s distorted, menacing singing in This Faith, Search And Destroy, and Liquid Separation. Plus, those chugging, funky guitars sound great in Surface Patterns, Plasma Springs, and titular cut Millennium.

At best, this album’s an experiment on Front Line’s part at taking their sound in a different direction. It doesn’t always hit (God, Victim is so stupid), but when it does, it ranks high among anything Leeb and Fulber’s made over the years.

Infected Mushroom - Legend Of The Black Shawarma (Original TC Review)

Perfecto: 2009

(2014 Update:
For a late-period Infected Mushroom album, this has held up surprisingly well. Too much of their work instantly dates, whether it be doing crap nu-metal years after that scene died, or jumping on the brostep bandwagon like everyone else. Since they went for more an industrial sound here, though, it doesn't come off so tired. Something about industrial has allowed the genre to endure far longer than anyone would have believed, and while Infected Mushroom's offerings wouldn't have Trent Reznor quivering anytime soon, it's at least respectable enough takes on the sound. Or maybe I'm just showing '90s bias.

This definitely was an odd time for the group, getting picked up by Oakenfold's Perfecto print while suddenly finding themselves rubbing shoulders with trance-cracker jocks at the top of popularity polls. They've since plummeted and are no longer on Perfecto, so who knows what the future holds for Infected Mushroom. Maybe full-on garage rock?)


IN BRIEF: Back in the right direction.

Someone must have sent Infected Mushroom a memo informing them that nu-metal and that entire ilk was a dead genre, something that grew out of favor when all the teenagers that listened to it earlier this decade came of age. Sure, it’s a shame the group didn’t actually read the damn thing until after Vicious Delicious was released, but at least they have read it now. Their latest album, Legend Of The Black Shawarma, thankfully sees a lack of rap-metal leanings, power ballads, and, most thankfully, Amit Duvdevani hilariously awful attempts at gravel-throated earnest singing (even the mock singing in those Creed Shreds vids on YouTube are better). Oh, there are still problems to be had with this album, but IM have at least abandoned the worst bits of their last one. In the process, they’ve also managed to refine some of the things that did work, and the group comes off far more musically taught than they have in while. In a nutshell, they seem to mostly be done exploring, and are now solely focused on execution.

Cause for celebration, right? Perhaps. If you’ve stuck with them through their last couple albums, it certainly is, and definitely so if you’ve only just recently discovered Infected Mushroom. Of course, you’ll still find an army of IM old-schoolers who’ve written this album off as a continued degradation of the psy trance scene, but Infected Mushroom are quite removed from it at this point. Sure, they still retain a few instances of the music, but this album aims for a different audience than crusty hippies and cyber-trippers. And by ditching much of the teenager angst that permeated Vicious Delicious, it seems they’re after a more mature audience as well.

Or maybe not. The CD opens with a guest acoustic strum by Everlast, suggesting the duo ha

The CD opens with a bit of acoustic strumming that reminds me of Everlast, but quickly turns to chugging metal guitars, faux-funk breaks, a bit of psy wibble, a few wordly trappings, and, um… not much else. Poquito Mas is hardly much of a song, sounding more like a mish-mash of ideas IM are preparing you to hear once the album properly gets underway. Rather pointless, to be honest, even if it’s meant to be an intro.

From there, the album unfolds quite entertainingly. You have catchy EBM tunes like Sa’eed and Smashing The Opponent, blinding buttrock goa with Can’t Stop and Herbert The Pervert (now there’s some effective use of their guitars!), and even a credible ballad with Killing Time (having long-time alt-rock favorite Perry Farrell on vocal duties here certainly helps). Elsewhere, ‘Duvdev’ does carry on with the vocal duties, but his voice is fed through so many effects, it actually helps enhance the tracks.

The only real duff track in the opening half is End Of The Road, which seems to be a woeful attempt on IM’s part to do a ‘minimal’ track - that is, a whole bunch of aimless, tuneless dull beats and sounds, with a couple instances of false-climaxes (here’s the build, but forget about a payoff); it does come correct with a typical psy ending, but the lead up is pure toss.

That’s the first half done. The second half of Legend Of The Black Sha-Na-Na sees IM get their concept on; in other words, having satisfied the masses with catchy tunes, Erez and Amit are now ready to get prog rock/metal on our asses. In terms of ambition, the triple-dose of Project 100, Franks, and Slowly can’t be faulted, as there’s quite a bit going on between these three tracks; however, as a listening experience, it wanders aimlessly too much.

Changes in tone, abrupt shifts in time signature, overcooked effects, and just plain dull stretches dilute the great moments to be had. For instance, there’s an excellent burst of strong harmonizing between the psy effects and chugging guitars at the climax of Project 100, but the song needlessly carries on afterwards with dull faux-funk. Meanwhile, Franks and Slowly wander all over the place more so than Israeli psy often does, never seeming to come together as a solid musical outing. If you skip through a track by a few minutes at any given point, it sounds like you’re listening to an entirely different song, and trust me there isn’t much to bridge these disparate sections in a convincing fashion. Any island of quality is thusly lost in a sea of mediocre wibble. For every winning wailing guitar peak, there’s a pointless dinky bloop-bloop bit elsewhere (I’m looking at you, Slowly).

The trouble is then multiplied by just how plastic it all sounds. Granted, Infected Mushroom have long had that aesthetic about them, but it served them well when they were dishing out typical full-on psy (or, in the case of Legend Of The Black Shamwow ’s first half, EBM). In attempting complex prog structures, however, they’re shooting for bold musical statements that can’t be done justice with the hollow sonics they use.

After all that, it makes the titular track a welcome, fun return to the material that worked in the first half of Legend Of The Black Shangri-La. As much as it may infuriate long-time IM fans, the duo seems to have found a comfortable niche in being more of an EBM group than a psy-trance one - they definitely show more aptitude for writing such music than they do in overly-ambitious prog. (by the way, the remix of Riders On The Storm is a love-it/leave-it affair; it’s serviceable, though hardly surprising if you’re at all familiar with IM’s sound)

Legend Of The Black Shawarma is not without its faults, but it is a step in the right direction again. Even if the album is split between catchy cuts and overcooked ambition, the gulf between the two isn’t nearly as pronounced as the split between full-on psy and rap-metal was on Vicious Delicious. You may want to give this a few listens over before making a firm purchasing decision, but it remains one of Infected Mushroom’s better albums in some time.

Juno Reactor - Hotaka

Metropolis: 2002

Juno Reactor was already popular within the psy trance community by the turn of the century, but as the new millennium took form, something must have happened in Japan, as Ben Watkins’ music found an even wider audience in the Far East country; at least I assume, given how many live CDs and DVDs they’ve released of concerts there. So big, in fact, that while the Reactor project was between albums, he released this EP titled Hotaka, a major tune for the Hotaka Mountain Festival where Juno Reactor performed the year prior. What else could it be for?

The track itself is quite the mish-mash of musical heritage. Taiko drums and Japanese vocalizations are obviously a bit part of the tune, but as we're still in that 'spaghetti Western' portion of Watkins' career, the thrashy guitar riffage is accounted for as well; and, of course, those pseudo-EBM rhythms that's long been a Juno Reactor trademark. I guess if the first half of the album Shango didn't do much for you, neither will Hotaka, as the tune's firmly moved on from all those early psy trance vibes many were introduced to the Reactor. Heck, it doesn't even have that 'buttrock goa' thing going for it, so finely produced it is.

Juno Reactor had a decade-deep discography by the time Hotaka came out, but very few singles to their name, as their main strength lay in the album format. That trend continued here, with a pointless Radio Edit and two remixes included with the main track. As for the re-rubs, there's some discrepancy. They're credited to Thomas Heckmann and Der Dritte Raum on the CD, but Lord Discogs states otherwise, the “Heckmann” remix done by Kloq, and the “Raum” one by Juno Reactor member Kris Kylven. There's also a note stating the CD credits are mislabeled, but if that's the case, it's one Hell of a mislabel. Were Heckmann and Raum even commissioned to do remixes for this EP? Who knows at this point, but I'm sure some Juno junkie could enlighten you if you're curious enough.

Ignoring all the clerical mishaps, how do these remixes sound? The “Heckmann” remix is far more banging, almost what you'd expect the techno producer to do to the track if given the chance. Meanwhile, the “Raum” remix goes more subdued and minimalistic – it's almost meditative in an ambient sort of way, but without losing any of the high tempo of the original. Overall, they're both interesting variations of Hotaka, in a stripped-down, understated way.

Hotaka’s a tidy little EP, though probably only Juno Reactor completists will likely feel the need to nab a copy; what an odd thing to say, coming from yours truly, as this and Shango are the only Reactor releases I have. Granted, part of that oversight’s because of an early Audio Galaxy raid gathering up their music for burned CDs, but those have long since disintegrated. Looks like I’ve some music hunting to do…

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV

The Null Corporation: 2008

This is the last one, I promise. Well, at least until we get around the ‘P’s, if I decide to pick up Pretty Hate Machine (might as well, right?). I’m astounded that I now own this much Nine Inch Nails material, gathered up in such a small frame of time (helps when friends are offloading their old CDs). I mean, there were odd tunes here and there that I liked, thought were interesting, didn’t mind if they happened to air, but little that’d make me go, “Okay, let’s do this!”, and properly dive into Trent Reznor’s discography. Something had to be a catalyst though, to finally pique my curiosity enough to take that leap, and that would happen to be this here album, Ghosts I-IV.

Actually, it was a single track off here that did it, used as the backing score to this fucking awesome video of the Cassini Mission to Saturn, created by Chris Abbas. The images are already lovely, but the accompanying music stunned me when it was revealed as a Nine Inch Nails piece. The band was doing music like this? And not as a simple one-off filler, but a whole album’s worth? Wait, two CDs worth!? I’ve misjudged you, Nine Inch Nails, may I experience more?

To be fair, nearly two hours of pleasant, ambient doodling can get tedious (yet Brian Eno’s had a long career peddling such stuff), even with such a tantalizing piece as 2 Ghosts I leading the way. The whole project isn’t really about that though; rather, having finally freed himself from any and all record contract obligations once his deal with Interscope ended, Reznor desired to free himself of any and all creative direction. In other words, no specific themes or album concepts, just musical expression and experimentation, letting the muses of everyone involved to go where it may. Swell… jazz, then.

Heh, no, but Ghosts I-IV does get rambly after a while. As one can expect with drifting muses, the music comes off like half-formed ideas, bits and pieces of something that could have been made into a greater whole had Reznor went down that road instead. With so few breaking even the four-minute mark, it’s the sort of music you’d expect to hear as transitional pieces on a proper album, or weird experimental remixes on Side B. I can’t say I was ever bored with Ghosts, as there’s enough stylistic variation – glacial piano drone, brief industrial freak-outs, distortion-fuzz rock jams – that’ll keep your attention, just to hear what odd-ball sounds will come with the next cut. At the same time though, so much of it comes off like teases, musical ideas deserving of more care.

Apparently Ghosts was intended as a one-shot EP, and perhaps it should have remained as such despite Reznor and co. enjoying all the results. It’s akin to one of those ‘studio sessions’ rock bands often release as bonus discs to their classic albums, only missing the classic album. Interesting and oddly enjoyable, but unessential.