The Crucifix ‘Psychopunk 2165’ is out now on Bandcamp and Spotify.

Pure Acid Hell by Grimbeard

Grimbeard ‘Pure Acid Hell’ is out now via Bandcamp and Spotify

Check out ‘Inner Speech’ on Bandcamp, Spotify and other streaming platforms

Just released last week via Brutal Resonance Records, “The Book of Revelation,” is a masterful mix of EBSM, darksynth, and industrial. Urban Matrix called it his “…musical interpretation” of the Book of Revelation, boasting titles like ” The Great Dragon Was Hurled Down,” “The Blood Of The Lamb,” and “He Who Accuses Them,” along with some fantastic OG Gustav Dore album art featured in Paradise Lost.

Well, if the apocalypse had a sound, “The Book of Revelation,”  has certain nailed it. The album manages to sweep between oppressive atmospherics, intense minor-key synths, and astute percussion with ease. It’s a truly nasty ground-pounding amalgamation of sounds as fit for a horror film as to the dancefloor. Perhaps a comment on the release’s bandcamp page summed it up best:

Somewhere between a slo-burn horror soundtrack and a night out in the gallery warehouse district, keep your wits about, as you’re about to be flattened by The Book of Revelation.
– Bandcamp user overfar

As plagues and forest fires sweep the land and our oceans begin to boil, it’s easy to think that perhaps we really are living in the end of days. Well, have no fear folks, for at least now the perfect soundtrack for these dark times is upon us with “The Book of Revelation!”

Vile, twisted and incredibly abrasive, Microchip Terror has served yet another polarizing classic that switches up comfort with unapologetic subversion. Fans of pure Japanese cyberpunk mayhem (think Shinya Tsukamoto and Shozin Fukui), your prayers have been answered.

Microchip Terror ‘Illegal Experiments 2’ is out now on Bandcamp and Spotify.

Aside from their musical output, Technophobia also operate their own nonprofit label Working Order Records, self-releasing albums and hosting benefit shows for local charities.

Some of Us Are Looking at the Stars LP by TECHNOPHOBIA

“We are working to bridge the gap between musician ideology and social impact. Our operating model aligns with our belief that music is inextricably linked with the potential for positive change. WOR facilitates fundraising/advocacy campaigns on behalf of different community-based charitable organizations. We partner with musical artists to leverage their music and popularity to advocate and fundraise on behalf of one of our partner charities. Each campaign we launch is unique in that it is always with a different charity and with various musicians. The Working Order Records mantra is Music -Vinyl – Impact -Change.”

Favorite Tracks : Follow Me Down, Tied up in You, Dear Reader

Known for his unusual and intense blend of darksynth, techno, and industrial, “Discordian Disco” deviates a bit from Filmmaker’s usual sound. In what may be his last full-length release of 2020, “Discordian Disco” is light on the disco and heavy on the discord. Although this might not seem retro at first, there are some gated-reverb drums and warm yet-minor key tonalities that anyone familiar with David Lynch’s work will feel instantly be nostalgic for.

Drawing inspiration from Greek goddess of chaos, Eris, and elements of the Discordian religion, Filmmaker has crafted a uniquely interesting album that explores elements of dissonance and disharmony – creating an incredibly interesting listening experience. Wrapped in a cloak of IDM-styled beats, “Discordian Disco” is the perfect tribute album to the fickle goddess of discord!

Grab a listen here!

“FLOPPY DISK OVERDRIVE” is an exercise in sheer brilliance, providing an evolution of the MBR sound into a more robust and well rounded aesthetic than ever before.

By combining MBR’s signature synth guitar and crunched chiptune sound with new clean synth guitars, a mixture of baroque, romantic, and bay area thrash influences, “FLOPPY DISK OVERDRIVE” has achieved a truly fantastic and innovative sound that is pushing the envelope of the metal genre and simultaneously darksynth and cyberpunk genres to their limit. This combination of influences makes for a very hard listen that never becomes tedious or grating.

With more variation in track length and progressive composition, MBR has also shattered the circuit board ceiling he had been pressing against with his previous, shorter but also amazing release “INTERNET PROTOCOL.”

In short, “FLOPPY DISK OVERDRIVE” is one of those rare albums which acts to permanently change the state current musical achievement – setting the bar a little higher than ever before in truly grandiose fashion.

Listen here now!

It is also worth noting that MBR has another project coming up in the form of the soundtrack to a retro-futuristic cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game entitled “VirtuaVerse.” Out May 12th! 

*** “A resident of Italy, MBR has recently been in the midst of one of the most severe outbreaks of COVID-19.  With this terrible situation as a backdrop, “FLOPPY DISK OVERDRIVE” was released, adding another certain historical context for this record we would be remiss overlook. While we at NRW do not endorse any particular charity, if it within your power to do so, please try to find a way you’re personally comfortable with to donate to the victims of this ongoing crisis.”  – Andrew Zistler

Hailing from Ontario, Canada, Holon’s sound is an interesting mix of cyberpunk and industrial synthwave with hints of ambient and italo. An eclectic mix for sure – but one that Holon pulls off effortlessly to create a unique and interesting atmospheric, dark, and goovy sound! Certain progressive percussion elements of “Trust the Machine” also reminded me of my psytrance days. The blend of genres here is interesting for sure, and it’s great to see more continued synthesizer innovation!

Release your fears and give yourself to the gears – listen here!

Your percussion machine is named “Rails,” and it costs upwards of $4,000. I’m sure your other gear is expensive too…. Have you ever gotten too absorbed in a set and  popped a sprocket, sprung a spring – mashed it a little too hard and broken it?

“Absolutely, yes! The things that break are not the major things that’ll cost a lot of money though, it’s usually just wires or buttons.”

“Rails” – TristansShone.com

What do you do when your gear breaks and you’re on the road?

“It’s a concern, it’s the same with the van. I’ve a Sprinter that I own, if that thing breaks I miss a show, I miss x amount of money, x amount of merch, it’s a big deal. It’s a whole process from the van, to my health, to the instruments. Like that is a basically like I’ve learned over the years how to be professional about that stuff, how to have backups for certain things, belts for the van, or like for the thing I’ve got to have buttons, a soldering iron, extra Arduinos that are already programmed with the code that I need, cables.”

I read you’re an engineer with a Master’s in Kinetic Sculpture, and you worked as a researcher at UC San Diego, is that still current? What are you researching at UC San Diego?

“Yes that’s current. I am basically a mechanical engineer in a lab that is run by a bunch of– a really brilliant scientist, Dr. Mark Ellisman, who’s a neuroscientist. It’s his lab, he has engineers and scientists working for him about research, different ways to image stuff with electron microscopy. We’ve developed new, inventive ways to look at like mouse brain, cancer, Alzheimer’s, things like that. I basically helped them modify these microscopes.”

How do you the time to get away from your professional life, where you’re a researcher, you have degrees, and you work in a laboratory. How do you find time away to tour and to do stuff like this, how does that work?

“Well, the way it started was I basically I was an engineer who already went back to grad school for art. When I was graduating art school I got a job in the lab, because there was an artist there doing installations, basically as like taking some of the data they use to make, to look at like the mouse brain, for example, on these huge panel displays so you could have a virtual reality walk-through of the brain.”

“I got hired to help them with that. When the main guys who worked at the lab found out that I was a robotics guy and automation engineer, they hired me. When I got out of art school, I was like “Well I could go and be an art professor or I could just work with at this lab”. I stayed at the lab – those guys knew that I was an artist already. My bosses are the best. Someday they’ll get sick of me and fire my ass! I’ll understand. I deserve it,” he says with a laugh.

You grew up on a farm and you surf in your free time but you build these machines that rasp out cold and unnatural sounds. That’s an odd kind of dichotomy way of breathing life into these inanimate objects. Is that metaphorically related to the music that you’re producing?

“It’s funny, I was just talking to my agent about this, about me. I’m not exactly the most typical doom or industrial producer but for me, it’s just like dark music, dark ideas, dark poetry, dark literature, dark form, that comes from so many different places. If you looked at the most film makers who make this kind of stuff, they just don’t look weird, like Lars von Trier, you see a dude with glasses and a dress shirt but – because we’re in the performance world, I think I get more scrutinized because I don’t have a persona that exudes make-up and costumes.”

“If you make dark shit and it’s fucking effective on people. I think it’s better if you’re not wearing a costume. I think it’s better if it’s just real. That’s the way I feel.”

Are you cooking up any new infernal machines and deviant contraptions?

“Every time I build a new machine, I say I’m never doing it again,” he sighs through a chuckle “But now… it looks like I’m going to be building for an eternity because we’re starting a company… We’re going to start making this stuff!”

“Not that I want to enough of these EDM douche bags—Fucking playing my shit – and you can quote me on that – because they will, and it will be painful, but we’re gonna do it. We’re going to make tactile and industrial instruments in a way nobody has ever done before.”

“Is there anything you want to add that we haven’t talked about?”

“Yeah. fuck fascism all forms and you know what, if you are involved in dark music you’re not protesting through your fucking teeth – then you’re not doing your job as a human. This is ground zero for the apocalypse and you need to get your ass out there. You can quote me on that too.”

Scandroid has always had a flair for the dramatic. The Darkness and the Light is, in itself, an operatic undertaking. It will consist of two EPs released over the span of a few months that operate as companion works. Scandroid adds his flair to the first of the two releases, The Darkness, due to be released on December 4, 2018. If you liked previous Scandroid releases, this will be your favorite. As strong as they are, The Darkness takes everything that made the Scandroid debut special but infuses it with better production values and a more focused mood.  

While “Phoenix”, the second track, is probably the most in-your-face track of the album, it’s metal riffing intro is a treat that suits the sincerity that Scandroids imbues into lyrics that could easily fall into camp territory. It’s on the third track that The Darkness hits its zenith. “The End of Time” is, in no uncertain terms, an absolute banger. It’s a fast-paced track with a pulsing groove at its core. Klayton’s vocal performance here is at his best, fluctuating between menacing lows and catchy highs. In terms of vocals and synths, this is the catchiest track offered here. It interrupts its own hypnotic groove with tom fills and an interesting shift mid-song. Scandroid mastermind Klayton’s experience in pretty much every electronic sub-genre is on full display here as it approaches dubstep and krautrock territory. It’s in Scandroid’s absolute mastery of style mixing that he shines.

“Out of the Darkness”, the final (kind of) track, is the second best offering here. It builds tension effectively in its opening bars. It’s opening drums are strange enough to keep listeners off-kilter before more of the song reveals itself. It ramps up the tension and sense of dread appropriate given the title of the EP. Instead of this leading to a drop, it turns those sounds into something more hypnotic. The end of the track leads smoothly into the four remixes that close out The Darkness, creating a cool effect of disorienting listeners before reeling them in with something more recognizable.

As with Scandroid’s previous release, if you don’t like vocal synthwave, this isn’t for you. Likewise, if you are not a fan of music that is highly narrative in nature. This is synthwave prog, and it’s more upfront about that than most. If that sounds like your jam, then The Darkness is going to give you a non-stop wild ride. Scandroid is at his catchiest here, with his pop sensibilities shining through even the most menacing of synths. Throwing the vocals through a multitude of effects help integrate the vocals to the world that the EP creates. And that sense of atmosphere is so strong that it’s going to be hard to wait until The Light drops in 2019.

From a review standpoint, this is focused primarily on the original tracks of The Darkness. Though this release includes six songs that contribute to the overall The Darkness and the Light project, the album also boasts four remixes full of pulsing synth goodness for your retro-lovin’ ears. You can stream and pre-order The Darkness here.

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Bandcamp Link