NOTE: This review includes an interview with Zach of VAZUM. See below.
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Detroit’s VAZUM is a band I’ve had my eye on for a while now. Zach Pliska started the band in 2017, with Emily Sturm joining in 2019. Since then, VAZUM has released three albums and an EP. Unrated V marks their third full-length release and their second release this year.
Sonically, Unrated V has a fully realized sound. Everything sounds like it is meant to go with everything else. Clever arrangements and intricate songcraft are certainly the bedrock of the album, which also serve as the perfect fit for Sturm’s vocals. You’ll hear what I mean on the song “Lycanthrope”. Pliska’s no slouch as a vocalist either. The duet on Frankenstein Gurl showcases their voices in tandem and gives evidence of the chemistry these two artists share. The synths interact with the guitar parts and themselves in a very eloquent way; a sign of well-rounded musicianship, IMO.
With such song titles as “Lycanthrope”, “Frankenstein Gurl” and “Vampire”, it’s easy to guess their aesthetic (- a style which they call “Deathgaze”). But there is certainly much more going on here than your garden-variety deathrock dirge or yet-another darkwave push-button band-in-a-box. The instrumental, “Fantoms” is a cinematic tour of a horror movie nightmare-scape and is something you really have to know what your doing to pull off effectively; especially in the darker musical world.
And they’re not afraid to change gears. “Wytch Tech” has a decidedly more danceable approach and is surprisingly minimal compared to the songs leading up to it. “Summon Her”, another instrumental, is rhythmic clangy-ness in the style of old-school industrial. In fact, the entire latter half of this album is instrumental. VAZUM takes full advantage of this to explore sonic possibilities not always called for in 3 1/2 minute radio-friendly crowd pleasers.
All in all, I can’t say enough good things about Unrated V. It had me already looking forward to the next release; which, conveniently, was released on December 31st, 2021; the double single, “Gallows”.
Zach was kind enough to take some time with us and do an interview via text. Here it is…
Who are your influences and what did you take away from those artists?
Smashing Pumpkins had a big impact on me from when I was 10 years old and served as a gateway to other genres like classic rock, shoegaze, new wave, goth, progrock and jazz drumming. Emily is really into Gary Numan, Christian Death and Queens of the Stone Age. She naturally brings elements of new wave, deathrock and desert stoner rock into her songwriting. Lately we’ve been influenced by more atmospheric groups like Cranes and Miranda Sex Garden and listening to their production techniques.
I get a cinematic feel from your music. Do you draw inspiration from sources outside of music, per se?
Emily and I are both visual people and associate images with music. Emily is a horror and sci-fi film expert. She is strongly influenced by Dario Argento (Suspiria) and Panos Cosmatos (Mandy) with The Thing and Alien being in her top five. She is also really into the aesthetics and soundtracks of the video games Silent Hill and Bloodborne. Emily has a background in jewelry and costumes which she incorporates into our videos.
What’s next for VAZUM? How are you forming/adapting your plans in the age of COVID?
The pandemic set the stage for the path we’re currently on which is writing, recording and releasing a steady stream of music and videos. Before the pandemic there were a lot of distractions. I was playing drums in multiple bands and I didn’t take recording or producing seriously. We’re currently recording a new single called Thief which is about energy vampires. Thief will be on our next album along with our previous single, Gallows. We’re doing electronic versions of the songs too as we go along.
Please describe a typical day in the studio with VAZUM. What is the chemistry like?
We’re fortunate to have a good home studio set-up so it’s pretty relaxed. It’s nice being able to wake up on a Saturday morning, brew some coffee and get to work on a mix or overdubs. Recording and producing can be a long and tedious process but we are committed to seeing it through to completion. When we’re working on a new song we’ll usually play through it a bunch of times until we’re comfortable then begin tracking each instrument individually. Emily and I understand each other pretty well. We can learn and play a song without saying a word. We just feed off each other. I can sense when she’s going to a change and vice versa. I’m in the studio everyday working on something. I like experimenting with my gear. I mostly use hardware for compression, reverb and effects instead of plug-ins. On Unrated V we ended up using a Dark Glass distortion pedal on a lot of tracks and it worked out really well.
What is your take on the current state of the dark music “scene”? (Impressions, opinions, funny thoughts, etc.)
I think the music industry as a whole would benefit from toning down the nostalgia and giving new artists a chance. When a tour announcement from an artist that’s been around for 40 years is the biggest news story of the week, or the popular bands of the day all sound alike, I shake my head. The music industry is relying on nostalgia acts to keep itself afloat which is short sighted and counterproductive. And I think people are sick of it. Fortunately there are underground outlets supporting independent artists. We are very appreciative of the DJ’s that play our music and the websites that share our videos or write reviews. There is a healthy network of artists, DJ’s, bloggers, youtubers and playlisters all keeping the dark scene alive. I wish there were more mainstream outlets, but we will infiltrate those in time. Most independent artists seem to share a common belief structure and are supportive of one another. I’m optimistic about the future. As messed up as the music industry is, there are a lot of advantages at our fingertips. Being able to record, produce, market and promote from home is a huge advantage. The technology really does place the power back into the hands of the people.
Komrads: The one man industrial crusade led by Zachary Burnett hailing from Rochester,NY recently signed to Negative Gain Productions and is not wasting any time. August 20th will see the release of the album “The Wolf”, the follow-up to 2018`s self-released “Resistor”.
I`ve trudged through the debris of broken analog synthesizers, drum machines and ash to find front-man/leader of the revolution, Zachary Burnett and interrogate him about his latest collection of machine-driven hymns and the Komrads agenda.
Let`s start off with something fairly simple, what is the origin of the name Komrads
– I picked the name for a couple reasons. The main inspiration was Waynes World 2 when Wayne holds a fundraiser at a Soviet Union themed club called Comrades to raise money for Waynestock. I changed the spelling because if Korn could do it then why can’t I? Also it’s a gender neutral pronoun, an all inclusive term. When you’re at a Komrads show, we’re all comrades.
You started out as a full band and eventually ended up as a solo project which seems to be the opposite of how things go in thisscene with bands often started as a solo thing and evolving into a full band later on, how do you think you`ve benefited from this move?
The main reason I went solo was because of the relentless touring schedule I was working up to. My previousband members, Jesse Halstead and Joe Sexton, we’re great sports and I couldn’t have gotten this project rolling without them. But life happens and spending months on the road with an unsteady income is less than appealing to most sane people understandably. The biggest benefit of being solo is I have little to no overhead cost and if I wanna pull over and go to Starbucks for the third time that day there’s no one to argue with.
Your new album “The Wolf” shows great musical range, opening track “Crossfire” setting the tone with it`s doomsday sound design, “Exile” showcasing the rock/metal influence and “The Cure” seemingly living in between post punk and industrial. To what do you attribute this seamless slithering between the worlds?
It’s mostly to keep things interesting for myself. I’m a fan of all genres within the “Goth” realm and I love to pick elements of each and mash them together. Sometimes it turns out great, other times not so much. I started this project without really picking a direction to point myself fully at. It’s definitely been an experimental journey trying to figure out exactly what Komrads is to me. With this album I’ve found a lot more confidence in what I want this project to sound like.
This is your first time operating within the industrial borders [or lack-thereof] what made you wanna go this route? What about the industrial concept so to speak was it that attracted you to it?
What really pushed me into this territory was the fun factor. Maybe not a whole lot of people think of the word “fun”when they hear industrial. I’ve been drifting back and forth between the post punk/darkwave and industrial realms for a few years. After touring with Skold and opening for Pigface, Suicide Commando, and Psyclon Nine I found myself enjoying the energy output at those shows more and more. It seems more fitting for me to pursue that route given I already instinctively have an angsty, aggressive approach when I produce electronic music. So diving deeper into Industrial just seemed like the next logical step for me.
Komrads – The Wolf
The wolf as a symbol is found throughout time in nearly every culture, which interpretation, if any, influenced the album to the point of choosing it as its title?
I chose to name the album after the track I had titled The Wolf. It was the last song I had written for the album and it’s deeply personal about my resentment and outright hatred for someone close to my immediate family. I won’t go into details about this specific person but due to a series of events over the course of many years, this persons involvement within my family has left me sort of cast out, a lone wolf you might say.
Who is responseable for the albums artwork and what was the idea behind it?
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed as I often do and I came across this outrageously badass drawing of my favorite Pokémon (Haunter). I immediately followed Keith West/HangxFang after checking out the rest of their work. I asked if they could draw up something for me with a Wolf as the focal point in a cemetery of sorts and barely a week later I’m looking at what would become my album cover. I’m planning on working with this artist again and I highly recommend them. Very friendly and fast turnaround for quality work.
The music of Komrads is largely built on hardware equipment and heavy use of sampling, was this a conscious decision? Why not simply open Fruity Loops and program up a beat or two?
I guess you could say it was a conscious decision to use hardware instruments as opposed to software. I played guitar in punk and metal bands for years, some drums too so having a hands on approach just made more sense to me. I want to physically feel the instruments I’m playing, twist the knobs and push the pads myself. Maybe my performance will be less precise and limited but that brings me back to the fun factor. Physically hammering on MPC pads and dialing in the synths and drums as they’re looping brings me a lot of joy that I don’t feel when just sitting in front of a computer screen. My DAW is largely just a means to record the outputs of my gear.
On the topic of equipment, which piece of gear would you say was essential to the creation of this album and why?
I couldn’t have made this record without my Akai MPC 2500. That is the key to all of my operations for this project. I’ve compiled tons of samples on it and I love the workflow. Aside from that I heavily used a Roland SE-02 and Korg Minilogue and often ran them through an Industrialectric Incinerator silicon fuzz pedal. I practically made those synths scream and chug like guitars.
You`ve played a fair amount of shows and tours, opened for several well known acts within the scene and have a tour of your own coming up in October. Being a solo act how do you go about translating the music for the stage? Do you have a live line-up with you and if so, who does it consist of currently?
As of right now I perform solo live as well. I used to bring all of my gear with me and that became a massive headache. Now I have a minimalist rig put together so I can get on and off of stage in less than five minutes to make way for the other acts. I run backing tracks, several pedals I process my vocals through, and a synth or two for some extra flair and performance. I also supply and operate my own lighting rig. I’ve spent countless hours dialing in lights that bring a lot of movement and life to my stage performance.
Having a consistent flow of releases whether it be stand alone singles, EP`s or whatever else, what do you have planned after the album drops?
I have a couple things in the early stages of planning but nothing set in stone. I am planning on releasing remixes off of this album in one form or another. I also have plans to collaborate with a few other artists but I won’t be divulging any further information on that at this time. I’m lending my vocals for a few features that will be out late this year or early next year as well.
Blind [Single from The Wolf]
As you know, Sounds & Shadows is all about supporting smaller artists/bands from around the globe. Who are some of the current underground acts you`re into these days that you`d want our readers to check out?
STCLVR (pronounced Street Cleaver) is easily one of my favorite underground acts in the scene right now. They’re a solo industrial artist based out of Jamestown, NY. They slam out releases quickly one after another lately and each one blows me away. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re into harsh industrial. Some other favorites I highly recommend are 6th Circle, Bustie‘, and The Russian White. All three of those acts vastly differ from each other but they’re all among my favorites that I think deserve a little more credit
When industrial was but a foetus [pun intended ; ) ] there was various political as well as spiritual and occult ideologies tied in to the music whether that be in terms of the creators outlook or the methods and equipment used to record said music, while this seems to have taken the back-seat in the modern era in favour of the more club-friendly interpretations of the genre I`d wanna know if the ways of old has any influence on how you create, think about and execute your art?
I think a lot of the original and older acts in the Industrial genre had no intentions of receiving club play. I don’t set out to write music with a political agenda but sometimes, and more so especially on this record, that’s exactly what happens. When I’m not yelling about my personal feelings my anger/grief usually finds itself pointed at political issues. I do appreciate when my music is played in clubs and I do strive to write hooks now and then but I’m writing this music to build a connection with an audience. I’m of course influenced by the likes of Skinny Puppy, NIN and Ministry, but I want to take that influence and combine it with everything else that makes me who I am, and put it out there as something new and fresh.
The Cult Sounds is a band I dscovered somewhat recently and immediatly fell in love with. They make the most wonderfully dark yet dreamy rock music which leaves no question abou their influences and yet manage to carve out their own sound in the process.
Having one self-titled EP along with a string of singles and covers of some classic songs they`ve been off to a great start and is currently working on a full-lenght album taking their sound a few steps further.
I got in touch with Jordan Hagerman, the bands rythm guitarist and inquired as to wether or no they`d be up for a quick chat. Needless to say they most definetly were so read on and learn about this gem of a band.
Who is The Cult Sounds and where did it all start?
The Cult Sounds is a Dark Rock band based out St. Louis, Missouri consisting of Bennett Huntley on Lead Vocals, Ryan McBride on Lead Guitar, Jordan Hageman on Rhythm Guitar/Synths & Programming, Wyatt Eagen on Bass, and Justin Riley on Drums & Percussion
Jordan, Bennett, and Ryan met in 2012 during their freshman year of college at Webster University. We had wanted to do music together before since we all actively listen to vinyl together and go to shows or discover new bands together. The right circumstances and the write demos created the opportunity for The Cult Sounds to exist past just our original inclination of a studio project.
You`ve released a few covers by Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie and Bauhaus, why did you choose those artists in particular?
Our cover choices usually come from us being interested in seeing what we could do with that song either adding elements, stripping it down, or adopting our style entirely to it. With these 3 – Bela Lugosi’s Dead is usually considered the first Goth song so it seemed like a good place to start for our first release, Rhiannon cams from our love of Fleetwood Mac and the arrangement is a fun take on that classic, and I’m Afraid of Americans came originally as a tongue-in-cheek jab at Americans for the coronavirus handling but ultimately morphed into something else with the murder of George Floyd.
Is there any symbolism behind the artwork for your self-titled release? it goes really well with the music and adds to the atmosphere.
Not particularly, the cover is more of an art piece Bennett created using a skull Ryan found and gave to him. It inspired all of us when we saw it and it seemed to just make sense with the tone and atmosphere of the music.
My favourite of yours thus far as to be “Anatomy Of A Car Crash” How did this song come about?
Originally the song came from a car accident Jordan was in coming home from an Alkaline Trio show. There was a desire to capture that anxiety and fear in a song. The main riff fell into place with the structure and the ghostly vocal inflections with the guitar solo section was just too perfect of a way to end it. What really makes that song feel so powerful is Ryan’s solo just cutting through and hanging over like the grim reaper. Ironically enough, not long after the song was finished, our old keyboardist and Bennett were also in a pretty awful crash on their way to rehearsal just before our second show. Lyrically it’s of course a bit of a double-entendre; a literal car crash and a wreck of a human being. The “white lines the dashboard” lyric was inspired by a time Bennett watched a friend snort coke off the dashboard of his car- THAT is the anatomy of a car crash.
What`s your take on current events? Do you think we will learn something from all this and perhaps be witness to the beginning of the end of the corrupted systems of the world or do you think we will simply forget and move on ending up treating this like just another trend?
That’s a pretty tough question. You hope things will change, and I think every time something like this comes around we all think “this is it, this is the moment.” And maybe it is. Hopefully it is. I think we’re heading in the right direction, and I think if we continue to fight we can bring change. But I think that all depends on how much we all commit ourselves to the cause and how long our country’s often incredibly short attention span can hold all this in view.
You`ve been working on a new album recently as well as music videos to accompany it, how far are we from getting to hear some new stuff and does it have a title yet?
The album is called “Death of a Star” and hopefully we can release it in the fall and actually play shows here and on the road to promote it. It’s very near and dear to us. As far as singles go, there should be one coming within the next month or two, hopefully. COVID has somewhat marred a lot of our plans. But we do have a music video in pre-production for one of the singles being handled by the creative/conceptual team behind the short film “Follow Me.”
How does the new album differ from your current discography?
The album contains 11 songs that each explore our sound. It’s our most dynamic material thus far – containing our heaviest music, our softest music, our fastest, and our slowest. We really let our Dark Rock sound permeate our outside influences of everything from Punk to old Country to Metal to Industrial to Space Rock to everything in between. We felt more comfortable as a band this time around and really explored ideas and ended up with around 35-40 different songs and ideas we optioned for the record. The songs you hear on the record are the ones that inspired us the most as well as fit the concept we were going with for “Death of a Star” and reflected the themes or ideas therewith-in.
“Death of a Star” represents a lot of different ideas on the record – some being celebrity worship, fame-chasing, literal death and how unprepared we are for it no matter what we do, death of relationships and connections, and the idea of the death of a dream that was never attainable to begin with. So, clearly it’s a happy record.
I caught a few of those classic Davey Havok “Oh`”`s in some of your songs so I take it AFI is an influence but who else would you say influences your sound and style?
AFI is absolutely a massive influence on us as a band, particularly Bennett and Jordan but as far as our biggest influences and inspirations musically (that are mutual across the board) we’d have to say David Bowie is in the fabric of everything we do, The Cure, Type O Negative, Bauhaus, Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Joy Division, Tribulation, My Chemical Romance, King Diamond, Sisters of Mercy, Ghost, Queens of the Stone Age, Black Sabbath, Alice In Chains, Danzig/Samhain, Nine Inch Nails, The Beatles, The Doors, and Depeche Mode. We listen to so much different music all the time, that we really pull from every decade of music from the 50’s to now.
Style comes a lot of from the idea of the “rock show” of the 70’s which doesn’t really exist as much anymore. People love music with substance and people love a spectacle and a show – why not give them both? It’s fun for us to dress up, wear makeup, have fog onstage, candles, lights, incense, etc. It gives the audience something to remember and tell others about. This idea is nothing new, obviously, we’re pulling from the masters – Alice Cooper, Ghost, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, David Bowie, and KISS. Regionally, no one in St. Louis does that live show aspect with outfits and makeup so naturally we wanted to do that in a way that would compliment our Gothic aesthetic.
Why did you name yourself The Cult Sounds?
We’re actually named after a record released by a very small previously-defunct-now-active Australian label called Aberrant. It’s a compilation of recordings from some, let’s say “spiritualists,” such as Anton La Vey, David Koresh, and Heaven’s Gate. You can’t really find the album anywhere and it’s banned from sale on some sites, so if you find an actual copy please let us know.
You`re based in St.Louis right? How`ve you been handling the protests there and how are things right now?
St. Louis is unfortunately fairly segregated and there are hard economic divides within the city, so to see people of all skin colors and walks of life coming together is beautiful. The world needs more love and unification, but, we cannot have any of that while people of color are not truly equal. It’s been 157 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and being white people, we have to be better. There’s no excuse. Racism, political corruption, and police brutality is a disease that must be dealt with.
As we all know by now live shows have become pretty much extinct for the time being so how are you guys dealing with that? I
Not well – we love seeing bands live and we love playing shows, without that group catharsis and outlet it feels like there’s a huge void in our lives. It’s a scary and sad time. We just hope we can play a show again soon.
I tend to leave space after each interview for the artists to use for whatever they would like, The Cult Sounds chose to leave the following music reccomendation:
Polterguts, Abraxas, Time and Pressure, Direct Measure, Bellhead, Gary Robert & Community, Reaver, Luxora, Summoning the Lich, and David Bowie.
Keep up with The Cult Sounds via the following links:
The world of modular synthesis is a world of infinite possibilities.
To build your own personalized instrument with the ability to switch out each and every part as you go along you can truly craft your own sound which others will be hard-pressed to replicate.
While modular synthesis might summon either images of what looks like a telephone operator board or endless loops of ambient bleep bloops there is more to the art, something darker and more aggressive.
One of the first such modular artist I came across was TL3SS.
With black and white videos accompanied by the doom and gloom of a voltage controlled apocalypse TL3SS is the antithesis to everything people seem to imagine when they hear the term “Modular”.
I`ve been in touch with him sporadically over the past few months and as I await a cassette version of his debut EP to arrive from the U.S I approached him for an interview.
Let the ritual commence:
Who are you and what do you do?
-I’m TL3SS, and I make dark electronic music with mostly modular synthesizers.
What is TL3SS and how are we meant to pronounce it?
-TL3SS is kind of an accident. I returned to making music after a long hiatus, and a friend suggested I set up a SoundCloud account so he could listen to a track I was talking about. When I went to set up the account, all the names I tried to pick were taken, so I picked this as kind of a joke. At the time I had no idea that people would end up wanting to hear more of my music. Now I’m kind of stuck with it. There really isn’t a right way to pronounce it, but I personally pronounce it like the letter “T” and then the word “Less”.
How long have you been working with modular synths and what about the modular initially caught your interest?
-I’ve been working with Modular synths for a little over 3 years now. I started making music again about 4 years ago, and a Moog Sub-37 was the first synth I picked up. When I stopped making music years ago, everything was software based, and there were hardly any hardware based synths that I found compelling. I’m not a huge fan of sitting in front of a computer screen with a mouse trying to make music, so that was part of the reason I quit. For the next few years I completely ignored anything music production or synthesizer related, and honestly hardly listened to music at all – as I felt the majority of music that I had been hearing before I quit was uninspired and mostly sounded the same – probably due to the prevalence of VST instruments and endless amounts of presets. There were some gems here and there, but I was mostly disillusioned with the state of music styles that I usually listened to. Imagine my delight when I started feeling the urge again, and realized that there was a literal golden age of synthesis happening. There were so many options, and advancements, and they were more accessible than ever before. I have always been fascinated by modular synths, but back when I was looking at them they were completely unobtainable for me. As I got back into synthesis, I naturally explored what was available with eurorack and immediately fell deeply in love and fell down the rabbit hole. I think I watched at least a thousand hours of tutorials for various semi-modular synths and different modules before I made my first purchase.
Your sound is quite different from the usual ambient leaning bleeps and bloops most modular artists produce. Who are your influences and how did you begin to develop this sound?
-I like all kinds of music, but I’ve always been drawn to dark, sad or angry music. When I first started music a long time ago, I was really heavily into all kinds of Industrial music, as well as some IDM here and there. For specific artists I’d probably say Leæther Strip, Pain Station, Nine Inch Nails, Front Line Assembly, Scorn, Cabaret Voltaire, Dead Voices on Air, Numb, Gridlock, Dive, Ministry, Klinik, Nurse With Wound, Coil, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Autechre. I also really enjoy listening to post-punk and goth music as well. I think my sound naturally developed as an extension of wanting to make what I wanted to hear.
You`ve done some demos for Noise Engineering in the past, what`s your relationship with the NE team and what about their modules specifically do you find so attractive?
-I haven’t actually done any official demos for Noise Engineering – I did do a guest post for their blog, however. It was about how much I love various types of distortion and some of the techniques I use. It’s just a friendly relationship – I really love the instruments they make, and they seem to appreciate the nasty sounds I make with them. I’ve gotten to know them a little bit and they’re really great people, and I want them to continue to be successful and keep making awesome modules for me to use. I was initially attracted to their modules for a variety of reasons – basically everything. I loved the company name immediately, and as I dug deeper into what they had to offer I found that I loved the sound of their oscillator modules, and their approach to utility modules. I also really connected to the visual aesthetic they use, and really enjoyed the naming conventions they use as well.
Modular synthesis allows for quite a vast amount of experimentation, improvisation and just stumbling across greatness on the road to who knows where. Would you say you have a technique for approaching the instrument or do you just kinda go with the flow and let it carry you away?
-It depends, sometimes I set out with a specific goal in mind (which usually ends up sounding NOTHING like I had in mind), and other times I’ll be away from my modular and realize “you know, I haven’t ever tried plugging X into Y – I need to try that when I get home”. Other times I get a craving to hear a particular module and so will just start patching with it and see where things end up.
I believe I saw you say somewhere you wouldn’t be too comfortable with the idea of live performances due to shyness. How does this affect you now as you`re starting to gain some traction and people in the community know your work?
-It’s a question I get asked more and more frequently. Part of it is that I am a perfectionist when it comes to performance, and I feel that modular by default is not a perfect performance tool. Trying to recreate something you have patched up at home is difficult to do at home, let alone performing. We will see what the future holds, I’m not ruling it out – but for now I’m content to focus on recording as opposed to preparing for live performances.
What would you recommend to someone looking to get started in modular as far as gear and just general advice?
-Use the resources that are available to you. There is a wealth of knowledge out there on various forums and youtube channels. Educate yourself before you jump in and spend tons of money. The way I approached it was learning about the various semi-modular synths that were available and picking one based on what I felt sounded the best to me. From there you’ll experiment and some of the concepts will begin to click, and you’ll hit a point where you feel limited with just the semi-modular and you’ll want to expand to do something that’s impossible currently.
You`ve released three EP`s thus far. Are we gonna be seeing a fourth one anytime soon or perhaps a full album?
-I have a single with some remixes releasing later this month on Errorgrid Records. I plan to release another EP later this year. I’ve thought about doing a full album, but for the moment I’m enjoying the EP approach.
The space below is yours to use for whatever you desire, promote anything or anyone you can think of or just leave a quote for the readers to ponder on. I’m really thrilled to be a part of the Errorgrid roster. I think there’s going to be some amazing music coming out in the next few months. It’s very exciting.
Industrial music is having a resurgence for me. Sometimes I have to put something on the shelf for a while and let a form of art grow on it’s own until I am ready to jump back in. This year in particular I have fallen so deep in the hole of new releases I couldn’t keep up. So I am going to fire through several reviews at once to try and touch on the wondrous new movement happening in this genre. This piece is a bit of the throwing several things in the blender and doesn’t have my usual formatting. It’s also two authors because Adrian Kjøsnes did the review for Moris Black.
Industrial music has generally been something nostalgic for me. The music of my jaded youth. My aggression, my frustration, a remembrance of a young man lashing out with fire at the world. Then like many things from my youth I put aside that fire and found myself drawn in new directions. Maybe I felt I had outgrown Industrial. this year that changed for me with Stoneburner’s “Technology Implies Belligerence”. This was an album that kindled that fire and chaos once again. This time with an intelligence and focus that made Industrial feel mature. When Steven told me he had a new EP already I will admit I was skeptical. How do you follow an album I thought of as groundbreaking so soon? “Massdriver” to my amazement and excitement has done just that.
Currently out on a US tour Stoneburner is bringing to life this throwback to old school rhythms and noise with modern production and lyrics that matter. With “Technology Implies Belligerence” we were assaulted with abstract concepts of progressive thinking persons blends of sound and image. Drawing on world beat drums and samples. “Massdriver” takes this idea, but clarifies it. Pushes the poetry and emotion of the vocals to the front where Industrial has been afraid to go. To create a psychic assault so powerful that a piece of the artist is left resonating in your mind after the show.
Live at Smalls in Detroit
I had a chance to discuss this tour and record with Steven a bit and here are some insights.
(Ken) Why is this album and tour special for You?
(Steven) The album and tour are special because they are the culmination of 35+ years of listening to electronic music. When I sat down to write this record, well these records, wanted to address the lack or originality and grit that seeing to have pervaded their genre.
(Ken) How has your stage setup changed for this tour?
(Steven) The stage setup has grown. My drummer Hemlock is playing my old hand drum rig and I’ve built a new one out of sheet metal and triggers. Which frees up, or at least changes the performance dynamic.
(Ken) What material (books) (music) were you drawing from when you composed this album?
(Steven) The recent full length from this summer, “technology implies belligerence,” is based in large part on the book “Blindsight” by Peter Watts. Essentially I wanted to write a record with footnotes.
I was lucky enough to see the kick off show of this tour. The emotional and visual offering put on display in an intimate setting. Here is something I haven’t witnessed in a long time. Every aspect of what you see and hear is painstakingly constructed by hand and with extreme meaning. Also the live show features percussionist Hemlock MacNamara, who throws so much intensity into smashing mic’d up pieces of sheet metal I am tired just thinking about it. She is a force of nature. Steven is truly bringing fresh artisanal farm to table locally sourced sonic explosion right to your doorstep. Don’t miss this tour.
Sun
Nov 10 KC MO @ The Riot Room Mon
Nov 11 St. Louis MO @ The Crack Fox Wed
Nov 13 Houston TX@ Super happy Funland Thurs
Nov 14 Austin TX @ Texas Mist Fri
Nov 15 San Antonio TX @ The Amp Room Sun
Nov 17 New Orleans LA @ The Goat Mon
Nov 18 Tallahassee FL @ 926 Bar & Grill Wed
Nov 20 Knoxville TN @ The Concourse Fri
Nov 22 Nashville TN @ The East Room Sat
Nov 23 Chattanooga TN @ ziggys music box Thurs
Nov 28 West Palm Beach FL @ Respectable street Fri
Nov 29 Jacksonville FL Bay Street bash Mon
Dec 2 Raleigh NC @ Legends Fri
Dec 6 Richmond VA @ Fallout Sat
Dec 7 Charlottesville VA @ Holly’s Diner Sun
8 DC @ The Pie Shop
Top Tracks:
All The Wells Are Poison Now – Fierce and dangerous in it’s pacing with a lovely echo chant. “You will always curse the ones you love”. It is an infectious hook with building intensity. Goddamn this made me dance hard live.
First World Murderer – Breakneck attack right out the gate. This track really shows Stevens love of east coast intellectual rap like Public Enemy. They lyrics strike forth in a rhythmic cadence assault. It really reminds me of the common ground between well done rap and well done industrial.
The name Jim Marcus is such an integral part of Industrial music. For me personally seeing Die Warsaw in my formative years opened my mind to how wide the range of Industrial music could be. Go Fight also put out an amazing album last year Tokyo Sexwale. The follow up Anthem was fairly uncharted ground for Jim in that it is an album of covers. One of the powers of great industrial music has always been to take something old and wonderful. Run it through machines, effects, and sludge and make it new and glorious again. This is what Jim achieved by taking his most influential songs of the 80’s. Showing you the music that fueled him in his art and feeding that energy through a giant battlemech. You recognize these “Anthems” but they are dancing towards you with cybernetic tank tread power.
I was lucky enough to be at the CD release party and hearing this album blasting over club speakers was experience that fueled me with hope. There is still more ground to explore in Industrial, and GoFight is paving the way.
Top Tracks:
My Spine is the Bass Line (Shreikback) – Ok, Shreikback is one of my favorite things in this life. To hear GoFight add its filthy, sexy, dance groove to it left me speechless. Honestly I am not sure how to even process how excited this makes me.
Right Wing Pigeons (Dead Milkmen) – The Dead Milkmen are one of the most underrated bands of all time. They are a huge influence of mine and their versatility to flow between political punk and humor was so unique in a time desperate for satire. This cover is an almost unrecognizable re-imagining which GoFight truly made its own. It’s still so poignant, maybe even more so all these years later.
Here I get a two for one. I Ya Toyah remixed by Joy Thieves. These are two of the hottest new bands coming out of the Chicago Industrial scene. I had the amazing pleasure of sharing a stage with Ania last Saturday. I can’t remember the last time I faced that much terror having to follow someone on a stage. The amount of sound, emotion, and precision she achieves all by herself is nothing short of staggering. Having Dan of Joy Thieves who are amazing in their own right do this remix creates an absolute burner single. She is about to go on tour with Pigface and if you miss her live performance you have done a disservice to yourself.
I Ya Toyah leads well into the amazing new release from superband Joy Thieves from Chicago which features here. I just did a review of this release but it is putting the hard rock edge back into Industrial and music be checked out.
Moris Blak is an industrial artist based in Boston,MA who after the release of their “Dead Summer” EP began gaining a cult following within the scene of dark electronic based music.
November 8th saw the release of the debut album “The Irregularity Of Being” and that is what we will be dissecting here…
So, let the ceremony begin.
We begin with the intro track, just a few seconds over a minute long “Every Limb Into The Bottomless Pit” . I myself honestly tend to skip intro tracks as they`re often just not all that interesting but this one escapes the trap most intro/outros fall into. Big, chiming bell like sounds combined with the spoken word and sizzling electronics draws you in and anyone who chooses to not discover what follows would be just plain wrong to put it very lightly.
The intro leads us directly into “Druglicker” where we begin with a catchy sequence, a Silent Hill-esque siren sounds comes crawling in before the first punch of the beloved industrial beat. I do have to say that I myself do not always the most positive view or words regarding the current state of the industrial scene but Moris Blak quickly dispels any expectations I may have had by breaking the traditional and quite simplistic 4/4 kick drum over a series of arpeggios and/or sequences by giving us something more akin to glitched out industrial madness.
So far so good. After a glitchfest of an ever evolving buffet of sounds, bleeps, bloops and squeals regularly breaking into a sequenced bass synth the track slows down and enters noise tinged ambient realms for a moment before we enter back into industrial territory.
track number three is entitled “Pain” and features Angel Metro.
Here we begin by entering the church of synth, in fact, we`re crashing in right in the middle of choir practice. Ominous, choirs layered over samples, with a sequenced bass creeping in all slowly evolving into a slower paced beat.
And then come the sirens…
Female, and quite interestingly produced vocals is a pleasure to hear rather than your usual balding dude in camo pants screaming into a mic processed by the Boss SE 50 as with so many other bands within the genre….Moris Blak offers a great variety of vocals styles ranging from whispers to broken up, glitched out and pitch shifted . There`s even a small piano sample at one point for extra creep factor 😉 This track looks like it`ll be on my top three list when we reach the end but with how well this is going who knows? Maybe I`ll find something even better..
Next we got “Erase Displace” featuring Pete Crane of Australian electro act Shiv-R. There`s an element of horror score to the intro, which of course, is no complaint. Clean vocals draw you further in before the drums, which stay consistently big , punchy and bass heavy appears. Atmospheric melodies comes and goes before the drums speed up and drops us down into ambiance. A soft yet dark and beautiful pad accompanied by the vocals slithers around us…And then comes the drum attack, broken by what sounds like reversed and crushed samples before the vocals reappear and brings us to the end of the track.
It`s hard not to want to put this on the that top three list as well but I must resist in order to keep the space open for anything that may come next…
When I looked at the title of the next track I couldn`t help but smirk a little as I saw it features Amelia Arsenic of Angelspit. A band I was introduced to in my early teenage years by one of what must have been the only four (including myself) alternative people in the middle of nowhere town I grew up in… I`m a bit surprised to find out this track seems to, at least to start of, be more of a ballad.
I also want to point out the production quality overall, the sound design of this release is interesting and fun in all the right ways, Moris Blak definitely has his “sound” I think it`ll be interesting to see what the future brings.
The ballad esque aspect leaves and introduce vocals reminiscent of Skinny Puppy nicely sprinkled around Amelia`s voice while the drums seemingly builds up towards something big only to drop us back down with high pitched piano sounds tricking us into that this is all nice and soft then hitting us with driving, pulsing synths beneath floating almost dreamy vocals. This track in particular seamlessly incorporates elements from a wide array of genre. Something not everyone can pull off and even less can make you want to listen to.Beat changes, style switches, every color of the proverbial crayon kit is used.
“Strange Eternal” features the trademarks of the 90s and early 2000s industrial scene, four to the floor and cut up vocal sample galore. Not my preferred form of the genre but MB hasn`t let me down thus far and so my hopes remain..
What I will point out however is that while Moris Blak does have his own style and ways of things it`s never predictable, each track serves you something new which keeps things interesting yet recognizable which can`t be said for that many.
“Strange Eternal” trudges along as what seems to be the more club oriented track this far, I may not be a clubgoer myself but I can easily envision the hordes of darkly inclined youth (and elders) enjoyment of this track on the dance floor of any given industrial night.
“The Violence” follows and features Slighter.
An instant improvement from the previous.
Clean, soft vocals always interest me in a genre riddled with screaming.
Musically it quickly changes from slow paced and atmosphere filled to drum driven and interestingly broken by glitchy sound design. The drum work in itself is interesting, yet another element that so often lacks in this genre. To hear something where you can`t always so easily predict the next hit of the drum, or the sound even, is definitely refreshing.
About three minutes and twelve seconds in is where for me at least this really shines. I`m loving the layering of the near seductive vocals as well. The track ends in a glory of ambiance and piano and leads us to the second to last track “Velvet Coil” which features Noire Antidote and Johnny E. Veil, the latter being a member of fellow industrial band MAN1K1N who I absolutely would recommend.
What sounds like lost souls screaming in despair greet us at the gate here with a melodic bass line almost hollow but the good kind. Trust and believe , I`m not happy about making this comparison but my immediate thought regarding certain aspects of the first seconds of vocals brings Marilyn Manson to my head.
I`ll see myself to the door…
Anyway, this track is a serpent slithering through each and every crack leaving a trail of reverberated melody before entering into a more danceable territory featuring cut up samples of the aforementioned choir of lost souls in despair.
We`re lead towards the end by drums and melody galore and enter the last track, being the albums title track clocking in at ten minutes and 49 minutes.
A drone greets us.
It presents us with malicious piano melodies, air raid siren esque synth sounds and heavy, slow ,draggin drums that quickly picks up it`s pace.
Full stop and only remains of ambiance and a fractured piano remains until we go back where we came from but this time there`s the sound of reversed samples to accompany us along the way.
Glitchy sound design, a steady beat that stops up here and there but not for more than a second at a time to keep dragging us into itself as a softer style synth sound floats over, witnessing our arrival at the end of days, or at least this album.
An array of sound comes in after a nicely timed build up, not too long, not too short, just right there at the sweet spot. At least for those of us with SASD (Short Attention Span Disorder)
Five minutes in and halfway to the end it`s clear that this track could only be described with one word: Grandiose. In fact, we could sum up the album as a whole using that very word.
Six minutes and six seconds in comes one of my favourite moments of this album.
The beat slow its pace, a haunting melody crawls ever near…Can you tell I`m a sucker for ballads yet?
It doesn`t last as long as I`d want it to but what follows isn`t bad so I won`t bitch too much about that..
Back to what I can`t help but describe as a more club oriented pace I`m a little surprised to see we`ve only got a couple minutes left `till it`s over. Longer tracks tend to bore me quite rapidly (see the aforementioned SASD) I`ll take this as a positive sign of that Moris Blak has managed to keep me interested, my attention has been firmly pointed towards the music rather than drifting off into thoughts of well, anything else really.
The album closes with large, atmospheric pads floating through a piano as the album title suggest this album is indeed an “Irregularity Of Being” in that it doesn`t lean and rely on old, trite genre tropes , it keeps itself exciting with its ever changing soundscape yet retains it`s identity for the full 45 minutes of running time.
Overall I would say this is definitely one of the better releases to come out of the current industrial scene yet it operates within the confines of the genre, the modern take on it that is…
Helvete Inc. – Raunchy loud Electonic corruption from Baltimore flung at terminal velocity and exploding on your face. This project is unapologetically changing the landscape.
Ratio Strain – California based percussion terror from Vanessa Saw (W.A.S.T.E) is an organized assault from chaotic angles. Rather you are in the club or doing building demotion this is a beat to get broke to.
RED MEAT – Manchester UK Industrial Destruction keeping it queer and furious like Industrial music was meant to be. Every time I hear this I feel like I just went through a fight club and lived to tell the tale.
HAEX – California Industrial Void metal will transport you to a vapor hellscape where you fight a sabretooth tiger with a stone knife. Primal on a circulatory level.
We are just scratching the surface here of the exciting things happening in Industrial. If you are ready to take a dive back in with us these bands will give you the right starting point. What bands did I miss you are excited about? Leave a comment below. KM
