Started as a duo, Colony 5 became a trio after the release of their first CD "Lifeline" and now that they released their second album STRUCTURES, they are turned out a duo again but with different band memebers. Anyway, without concentrating on band's story, let's focus our attention on the new album which is better respect their first one. Even if STRUCTURES presents a sound similar to most of the German synthpop bands this time the tracks sound more personal and convinced me more respect the old ones. Tracks like "Hate", "God", "Unaware" (which has got a certain techno print) and "Band Of Brothers" are melodic, rhythmic and catchy without being too trendy. The only note I can do is that the vocal's melodic lines are a little too similar and this sometimes spoil the final result. The CD has got also a CD-rom track where you can find all the lyrics and watch to the "Black" video which got some exposure on the satellite channel Onyx.

Intricated is a band coming from Denmark and A:VOID is their second album (even if it's their first who's been officially released). Their music is a mixture of synthpop, ambient and new wave. The three influences are well mixed and just to give you an exact idea of how they sound like I can say that: the melodic structure is generally a sort of melancholic synthpop while the ambient influences are "hidden" between the background layers' sound. The new wave influences, instead, consists of some guitar intuitions that here and there make me remember of the Cure of the "Disintegration" period. The album is not that bad but in my opinion it lacks a little of energy and this couldn't be in contrast with the melancholic atmosphere they create. For sure there are good tracks ("Game Over" and "Galled" are my preferred ones) and intuitions but that sparkle of energy would help so much... This CD has been released by a label created by the effortst of different artists who are gathering because of their passion for electronic music with a melodic foundation and an introverted, melancholic, edge and this is a good thing.

Kasual Tease is a fetish production company here in Birmingham, Alabama. They put a cd together, which is industrial music for the soundtrack "Score" for their fetish shows. All 15 tracks are instrumental with samples with electronics being manipulated. The music score is produced by gothic/industrial producers Bleed and Evilucion. Some of the tracks have a Nitzer Ebb and Nine Inch Nails sound. "Score" is another best industrial cd I recommend to get besides Envy Is Blind "The Eyes Of Time's Conception." Here's some tracks that's interesting and enjoyable; "Sexual Intimidation," "Obsessed With Flesh." "No Soul Mix," "Falling Into Damnation," "Die For Her," "Gloomy Sundayz," which have a sample of the legendary blues singer Billie Holiday singing and voice manipulated like she's singing from the grave; and "Pain Mix," a track that's used for Kasual Tease promo fetish show video. "Score" is best described s/m bondage and sexual stimulation music. To contact them for shows, the e-mail address and phone numbers are: delilahborealis@aol.com, (205) 918-0566, (205) 592-6545.

Franck Stofer's now Tokyo-based label's 20th release is this interesting experimental avantgarde record by eclectic and prolific pop artist, composer, producer, DJ, writer, book-author, Max/MSP Commu community member, critic and of course noise-music maker Satoru Wono. His obsession with structure and his new concept album is made from only two sources: sine wave (which is one clean tone/frequency with no harmonics) and white noise (which is basically every frequency playing together). It's tempting to file it under glitch-electronics, but considering where the sounds are originating from this is really a much more pure experience and exercise of form, a symphonic sonata for the body and the mind. Check out some intellectual noise experimentation!

On the 25th anniversary of the legendary band The Cure, their co-founder Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst is back with a new project called Levinhurst. Him and acclaimed vocalist Cindy Levinson recorded an entire album entitled "Perfect Life" that comes out October 28th. This 3 tracks advance promo gives us a taste of what ex-Cure's Lol has been up to. Inspired by the constant presence of The Cure's influence in many of today's best selling artists and by the come-back of electronic music and the fascination with retro sounds, he wrote an album of driving synthpop electronica. Soft-beat technoid synth ballads with the eclectic voice of Cindy Levinson, who sounds like a mixture of Annie Lennox and Joy Askew. If you're gonna buy this album just because you worship The Cure make sure you understand that there are no guitars and that this is neither The Cure nor some new band trying to sound like them (although there's a lot of them around already). Nevertheless it is a great modern/retro-ish synth-electro album that, as their promoter beautifully put it, «leaps into the future as much as it acknowledges his past».