Category: industrial

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Boise’s Street Fever Shares Brooding and Sultry “Fate”

Street Fever is a mysterious and enigmatic, Boise-based multimedia and mixed media artist who crafts gritty soundscapes that incorporate elements of hardcore, hip-hop, industrial techno, EBM, noise, electronica, pop and classical music. The mysterious Boise-based artist cites Three 6 Mafia, and the DIY hardcore scene as major influences on his sound.

For the mysterious Idahoan, his work is anchored in an ongoing and continuous spiritual awakening informed by a desire to better understand themselves as an artist, spiritual speaker and human — and by the profound experiences and circumstances of his life: After losing all their professions, being institutionalized several times and nearly losing their life in a Southeast Asian prison, the mysterious Boise-based artist has used the project as a platform to speak on their own addiction and recovery with the hopes that they will connect with others who are seeking personal and spiritual growth. Aesthetically and thematically, the Idahoan’s work is a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment through thought-provoking creations while seeing them deftly balancing between destructive possession and holy reclamation.

The Boise-based artist’s latest single “Fate” is a sleek and slickly produced, club friendly bit of industrial electronica that seemingly channels Downward Spiral-era Nine Inch Nails, A Place to Bury Strangers and Out of the Black-era Boys Noize featuring aggressive, tweeter and woofer rattling beats, wobbling synths, buzzing guitars and a yearning vocal that pieces through the haze. “Fate,” as the artist explains is a reflection of self-love and desire, and a deep look into one’s shadow to embrace who out is that we want to be. It’s also a call for the listener to dive deeper into th love we want to give ourselves and the feeling of an indescribable love from a power beyond ourselves. And as a result, the song evokes the tug of war between desire and presence.

Directed by Street Fever, the accompanying video is shot in a cinematic black and white, and seems to channel the video for Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.“

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Alex Paradoxe Shares Club Friendly “T.U.E.R.”

Alex Paradoxe is a queer, Brussels-based artist who pairs defiant protest-fueled lyrics with a sound that draws from electro pop, pop and rock. His latest single “T.U.E.R.” is a dark yet club friendly industrial-inspired, club banger built around tweeter and woofer rattling thump, woozy synth oscillations, big bass drops, buzzing guitars paired with sultrily delivered vocals.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays The KVB Share Brooding Yet Club Friendly “Labyrinths”

Formed back in 2010, the acclaimed Manchester, UK-based JOVM mainstays The KVB initially started as the solo recording project of its founder, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nicholas Wood. And as a solo project, Wood released a series of limited cassette and vinyl releases. But my 2011, vocalist, keyboardist and visual artist Kat Day joined on, finalizing the project’s lineup.

Since Day joined on, the JOVM mainstays have released several critically applauded albums and EPs through a series of different labels that saw them crafting a sound simultaneously inspired by The Jesus and Mary Chain and Cabaret Voltaire that became increasingly streamlined. The duo signed to Geoff Barrow‘s Invada Records, who have released 2018’s Only Now Forever, 2019’s Submersion EP and 2021’s Unity.

The duo’s seventh album, the James Trevascus-produced Tremors is slated for an April 5, 2024 release through Invada Records. Tremors sees the band returning to the darker, coldwave sound of their earliest releases and some of their early influences, while retaining the infectious hook driven pop of 2021’s critically applauded Unity. The band have dubbed the new album’s material “dystopian pop” and specifically wrote it with the live show in mind — energetic and full of hooks and dynamic moments.

Thematically, the album’s material, as the band explains expands “on previous album themes of dystopia, apocalypse and the human condition, but with a more pessimistic outlook and deeper distrust than before. It also touches on themes of loss, and the resistance, lament and acceptance of inevitable change.”

Tremors latest single, “Labyrinths” is a shadowy and brooding yet club friendly bit of coldwave/New Wave built around skittering, tweeter and roofer rattling beats, glistening synths, scorching guitars and a motorik groove paired with Wood’s seemingly detached delivery. “Labyrinths” sonically nods at Suicide, New Order, JOVM mainstays The Vacant Lots, A Place To Bury Strangers and others — but a bit sleeker, which gives the song’s underlying menace and unease a cinematic quality.

With “Labyrinths,” the band explains that “it’s the most aggressive track on the album and a nod to some of our early releases. Lyrically, it was inspired by the collection of short stories of Jorge Luis Borges and its references to historical subjectivity, the flexibility of truth and construction of narratives.”

The accompanying video is a highly digitalized realm of screens within screens with computerized effects in the background, with the duo signing and playing the song with layers of analog glitch. The duo describe the video as “a visceral assault of digitalised nature, CRT screens and analogue glitch textures. We wanted the first video single to reflect the album artwork and the energy of the edit to mirror the aggression of the song.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: OWLS Shares Abrasive and Uneasy “Bury Me”

OWLS is a rising Longford, Ireland-based producer, who crafts dark and brooding songs paring driving rhythms and grooves, dynamic vocals and abrasive textures. Sonically, his material draws largely from post-punk, techno and synth pop — or as he describes them “songs for the night, for the moon and its shadows” and “dark tunes you can dance to.” Thematically, his work focuses on the uneasy balance between love and brutality.

2023 has been a busy year for the Irish producer: He has made the rounds of the national, summer festival circuit. He has played headlining shows in Dublin — and he has performed at a slew of underground events throughout the country. He closes out the year with “Bury Me” a broody and uneasy mix of industrial and post punk built around relentless, twitter and woofer rattling, skittering beats and whirring and wobbling synths and bursts of angular guitar paired with the Irish producer’s furious howls.

Lyrically and thematically, the song sees its narrator on a tumultuous dance between life and death, hope and despair with an uneasy, unvarnished honesty.

Directed and shot by Nathan Sheridan in Longford, Ireland, the video features the Irish producer in a dilapidated and abandoned school building, a brown Ford Cortina, a woman clad in leather burying an eggplant in the woods and more.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Montréal’s AN_NA Shares Uneasy, Industrial “So Far”

Formed over three decades ago, French-born, Montréal-based married couple and electronic music duo AN_NA have had a lengthy career in which they’ve used their experiences in electronic music, industrial and experimental music to create a unique sound of their own while playing with different styles and genres. They’ve found that their penchant for experimentation has given them the space to evolve as artists while keeping them open to new ideas and influences that could be incorporated into their own sound and approach.

Now, if you’ve worked in the music industry long enough, you’d begin to recognize that surviving for longer than a few minutes in a cutthroat industry is extremely difficult. The members of AN_NA have managed their lengthy careers by being true to their art — and making music that they’re passionate about.

At the end of 2022, the French-Canadian duo began to write and record new material, which they began releasing as a series of singles across the following calendar year, before being officially released as their forthcoming album More Pills.

Their sixth and most recent single of the year “So Far” is a brooding yet dance floor friendly bit of industrial electronica built around glistening synth arpeggios, a relentless motorik groove and twitter and woofer rattling thump paired with icily detached vocals and anthemic hooks and choruses. The result is a song that channels Detroit-based electronic music legends ADULT., complete with a similar sense of unease.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: The Serfs Share an Icy, Club Banger

Cincinnati-based synth punks The Serfs — founding members Dylan McCartney (vocals, percussion, guitar, bass, electronics) and Dakota Carlyle (electronics, bass, guitar, vocals) along with Andie Luman (vocals, synths) — can trace their origins back to when McCartney and Carlyle were working the fryers at a local pub and generally wallowing in puddles of despair.

The duo decided to express their grim outlook through the self-hypnosis of drums and synthesizers. After a couple of bungled attempts to play live shows, Luman joined the project, finalizing their lineup.

The Cincinnati-based trio’s third album Half Eaten By Dogs is slated for an October 27, 2023 release through their new label home, Trouble in Mind. The album reportedly sees the trio putting a decidedly Midwestern spin on the modernist twitch of future-forward acts like Total Control, Cold Beat, Skinny Puppy, Dark Day, This Heat, and Factrix while being informed by the existential doom of our current moment — with the album’s material at points featuring doomed proclamations of natural and supernatural disasters.

Half Eaten By Dogs‘ latest single “Club Deuce” is an icy, industrial-inspired club banger built around glistening and shimmering synth arpeggios, burnt out, tweeter and woofer rattling 808s paired with Lumen’s sultry cooing. Channeling early Depeche Mode and mid-80s New Order among others, “Club Deuce” is specifically designed to make you head to the dance floor and move — right now.

“I thought of the idea for this song at first like a movie in my mind,” says Luman. “It was the story of a fated man and a modern day Venus with complete and unrelenting control. The set was a quiet corner in a thunderstruck city with endless commotion in the distance. The whole thing glowing like a neon sign. ‘Club Deuce’ churns unhurried until it billows all around you and you’re caught like a fly in the jaws of a venus fly trap.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Portrait of a Nightmare Share a White Zombie-like Ripper

Formed back in 2009 by core members Pascal Simpkins (vocals) and Tass Szanto (guitar), the Orange County, CA-based industrial/hard rock/heavy metal outfit Portrait of a Nightmare seamlessly blends elements of hard rock, metal and industrial to create headbanging material that’s danceable.

Since their formation, Portrait of a Nightmare has going through several different lineups that included both permanent members and hired hands. But they typically perform a high-energy and captivating live show as either a quartet or a sextet. Locally, the band has received critical applause — they received a Best New Band Award nomination at the OC Music Awards and have been featured in local papers.

After a lengthy hiatus, the Orange County-based outfit is gearing up for their 11-song full-length debut I Still Remain. The band’s latest single “Dirtier You Dirtier Me” is an enormous, White Zombie-like ripper built around scorching riffage, thunderous drumming, mosh pit friendly hooks and Simpkins’ guttural howls. Play loud — and then start up a mosh pit!

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Trent Reznor!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Trent Reznor’s 58th birthday.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

French electronic duo Nomenklatür — Olivier”Labinsect” Rossi and Olivier “Mitch” Brucker — have similar backgrounds as raver kids and DJs in the mid 90s: Brucker has long been influenced by EBM and industrial techno while Rossi is a product of the techno scene. The duo initially met at wolrld renowned Berlin-based nightclub Berghain; but they didn’t start collaborating together until 2005.

With Nomenklatür, Rossi and Brucker have displayed their seemingly undying devotion to synths of every era, both analog and digital while seamlessly fusing their influences and sounds into something completely new. Their first two releases, their self-released debut EP and their full-length debut Gift of Ages were released to critical applause. Gift of Ages hinted at their multifaceted sound: The album’s material featured elements of EBM, techno, tech-pop and New Wave.

The duo went on a wildly prolific period that saw them exploring techno and tech house rhythms without diverging from their influences. Through a series of EPs, remixes and albums, the duo began to explore the many nuances of techno, pushing the boundaries of the genre as far as they could. The duo expanded upon their profile in the electronic music scene with live shows at Parisian clubs like The Rex Club, Batofar, and La Machine du Moulin Rouge, and then to clubs in Belgium and Switzerland. They also had their work remixed by Kiko, David Carretta, and Commuter. And they collaborated with Montreal underground scene star Mimi.

The French duo began a decided focus on melody, bolstered by progressive production, which caught the attention of German label Beachcoma, who signed them and released an EP in 2020. During pandemic lockdowns last August, the duo remixed Odge’s “Sad Love Song,” which led to the singer/songwriter collaborating with the French production duo on their latest EP When The Wind Blows. Released earlier this month through Clivage Music, the EP’s material sees the duo drawing from Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, The Chemical Brothers, Plastikman, classic Detroit and Berlin techno, coldwave, ambient electronica and sci fi.

When The Wind Blows‘ latest single, EP title track “When The Wind Blows” is a slickly produced, propulsive and darkly seductive bit of house centered around scorching synth oscillation, skittering thump and Odge’s sultry delivery paired with razor sharp hooks. The end result is a song that sees the collaborators meshing elements of house music, industrial, techno. electro pop and goth into a certified club banger with a dreamy and uneasy quality.

Hi The Joy of Violent Movement, Nomenklatür will release its new EP in a week. Mysterious, intense and bewitching, this new project somewhere between electroclash, techno and synthpop let us into the hypnotic world of this french duo. The track When the Wind Blows is the first extract of this EP coming on October 18th and will be accompanied by a video clip. Do you think a relay of this release would be possible on your website? Cheers Tiphaine Citizen Records

New EP When The Wind Blows coming on October 18th on Clivage Music

Bio

The room was damp and hot, red-lit bodies swayed as if in a trance, strobe lights spattered… In this concrete domain the night continued, helmed by famous German label Ostgut, in the mythical place now known as… Berghain.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Ottawa’s Antigen Shift Shares a New Banger

Ottawa-based industrial/post-industrial/noise synth duo Antigen Shift — Nicholas Theriault and Jarius Khan — formed over a decade ago. And over the course of five albums, three EPs and a handful of remixes and compilation appearances, the Ottawa-based duo’s sound has evolved. “We started as a straight-up industrial power noise project, but evolved into a more diverse, complex post-industrial project,” Antigen Shifts Nicholas Theriault explains.

The Canadian duo’s latest single “Sugar and Stamps” is a accessible industrial banger featuring layers upon layers of buzzing and scorching synths, thumping beats and walls of industrial clang and clatter that sonically brings Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and Fat of the Land-era The Prodigy to mind.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Flossing Shares Sultry and Menacing “All We Are”

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and sideswiped everything, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Heather Elle found themselves thrown from touring with buzz-worthy post-punk outfit The Wants (f.k.a. as BODEGA) and into a dizzying state of long overdue decompression. Aching to artistically progress, Elle felt the need to completely untether from both personal and professional entanglements: They left The Wants and a long-term relationship and quickly began writing and recording songs in their new bachelorette pad.

Elle dug up five-year old songs and song ideas written on the road and unexpectedly wrote last year’s confessional and hedonistic “Switch,” which pushed the Brooklyn-based artist to take their Flossing project further. Elle’s Flossing debut, Queen of the Mall EP was released to critical praise with critics describing the Brooklyn-based artist as a “mischievous pop poet” and the “newly appointed master of psychological provocative.”

Building upon growing buzz, Elle’s sophomore EP World Of Mirth is slated for an August 26, 2022 release through London-based Brace Yourself Records. The soon-to-be released EP continues the Brooklyn-based artist’s for being enigmatic and provocative, while excavating and proving into the self even further than before.

World Of Mirth‘s latest single, the smoldering “All We Are.” Centered around densely layered, tweeter and woofer rattling, Nine Inch Nails-meets-ADULT.-like industrial production paired with Elle’s alternating cooing and howling, “All We Are” is possess a sultry yet menacing quality that’s simultaneously irresistible and uneasy.

“Inspired by binge-watching Steven Soderbergh’s medical drama series The Knick at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which is set in an ER in turn-of-the-century New York City — the song invokes themes of metaphysics, existentialism, pride, competition, and legacy,” Elle explains in press notes. “‘This is all we are,’ is the final line from the lead surgeon as he operates upon himself in front of a stadium of colleagues and doctors, attempting to outsmart death.”

Directed by Dylan Brannigan, the accompanying video for “All We Are” is shot through grainy VHS fuzz and emphasizes the song’s sultry yet menacing air.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Poltergeist is a young, mysterious French producer, who quickly emerged into the French electronic and industrial scenes with his debut single “Ich bin ein Kämpfer.” 

O

The emerging French producers full-length debut is slated for release next month — and if you’ve been frequenting this site throughout this past month, you may recall that I wrote about the Depeche Mode — or a goth take on Kraftwerk-like “La Grand Dame,” an infectious banger that captures a deep-seated existential terror.

“Der Nachtvogel,” the woozy, latest single from the French producer’s full-length debut is centered around thumping kick drum, skittering beats, dense layers of arpeggiated synths paired with the French producer’s insouciantly delivered lyrics, and continues another run of club friendly, goth/industrial bangers seemingly indebted to early Depeche Mode.