Written & composed by Rob Wentz with additional instrumentation from Paul Karlik & guest vocals from Shikhee of Android Lust. This is the Monstrum Sepsis' debut on their new label WTII Records which also features a host of great new Industrial, EBM, and Darkwave such as cut.rate.box, In Strict Confidence, Beborn Beton, Arcanta, Melotron, Regenerator, Trigger10D, & Stromkern. Experimenting with Industrial, EBM, Noise, and other subterranean rhythms and melodies I'm fast wishing I'd had more time to review this sooner! The CD layout and cover features primordial-looking semi-transparent blue jellyfish like creatures gracefully floating in a sea of darkness. I find this an apt artistic design for this work especially when combined with the futuristic LCD readout stylings. This music is definitely ethereal and transient, an album that would easily be appreciated by dark-ambient artists and fans. At the same time, this release also has upbeat dancefloor appeal. It sort of reminds me of an industrial version of Sven Vath's "Accident In Paradise" with it's continual flow ebbing between melodrama and ambience and hard-hitting trancey dance tracks. Excellent work! I can see why my friends at WTII picked up on it so readily. A healthy addition to any true music lover's collection!Also check out Doors & Windows, the companion to and first EP from Monstrum Sepsis' critically acclaimed full length, Deep Sea Creatures.

Written & composed by Rob Wentz with additional instrumentation from Paul Karlik & guest vocals from Shikhee of Android Lust. This is the Monstrum Sepsis' debut on their new label WTII Records which also features a host of great new Industrial, EBM, and Darkwave such as cut.rate.box, In Strict Confidence, Beborn Beton, Arcanta, Melotron, Regenerator, Trigger10D, & Stromkern. Experimenting with Industrial, EBM, Noise, and other subterranean rhythms and melodies I'm fast wishing I'd had more time to review this sooner! The CD layout and cover features primordial-looking semi-transparent blue jellyfish like creatures gracefully floating in a sea of darkness. I find this an apt artistic design for this work especially when combined with the futuristic LCD readout stylings. This music is definitely ethereal and transient, an album that would easily be appreciated by dark-ambient artists and fans. At the same time, this release also has upbeat dancefloor appeal. It sort of reminds me of an industrial version of Sven Vath's "Accident In Paradise" with it's continual flow ebbing between melodrama and ambience and hard-hitting trancey dance tracks. Excellent work! I can see why my friends at WTII picked up on it so readily. A healthy addition to any true music lover's collection!Also check out Doors & Windows, the companion to and first EP from Monstrum Sepsis' critically acclaimed full length, Deep Sea Creatures.

Abysoma is quickly becoming one of my favourite outlets for downtempo/chillout/lounge music. Based in Madrid, they keep an eye out for beautiful electronica discovering and promoting new artists otherwise mostly unknown (especially here in the States) and put together great compilations such as this very one: "Urban Woman .01". As the title suggests, this compilation CD features female fronted artists or songs with a female voice. Mostly spanish artists including Luis Junior (check out his great solo CD on Abysoma - reviewed elsewhere on these pages), Mantrox, Luis Junior, Nuits de Songs, The Other Room, Nacho Sotomayor, Funkana, Luis Vaquero, Croma Lite; all contribute one or two songs each (including chill version remakes of the Twin Peaks and the Gladiator movies' themes) and together bring this compilation to the highest levels in quality, making a dual statement about the female presence in the scene and about the quality of work originating in such an overlooked and underestimated musical underground scene as that of Spain is. I might have wished for a little more of the female vocals (don't expect so much lyrics and singing, it all mostly focuses around layers of smooth ad libs and sampled hookes) but I am just being plain picky here. I wholeheartedly recommend this gorgeous CD to all you loungy bastards out there! ;-)

Lots of records by Muslimgauze have been coming out lately, and many of them portray the most electronic side of his production, which to me is a pleasant re-discovery. With this frame of mind, polish label Vivo released a 550 copies limited edition of "No Human Rights for Arabs in Israel", a six tracks CD mostly based around electronic beats with vague hints to percussions and other sounds. Included are the title track, two versions of "Teargas" and three versions of "Refugee", one of which, along with the title-track, were originally released on a 10" out on Staalplaat, who by the way licensed this material and did the art-work for this CD. Also two of these versions are actually different versions of the songs "Wabi Araba" and "Herzliyya". As always the sound is mostly if not completely focused on its rhythmical side. There are less interruptions in the flow of the beat than in other records. This CD was released in a multi-fold ecopack, according to Vivo records' use (www.vivo.pl) and was co-released by the Muslimgauze's official webmaster's own label The Label & XZF (www.the-label-xzf.net).

Composed in Manchester in December 1995, just three years before his unexpected death at the young age of 38, "Alms for Iraq" doesn't come out on Staalplaat (as frequent readers of Chain D.L.K. might expect), but for the American outlet Soleimoon recordings (closely related to the Dutch label). Bryn Jones' 161st (!!!) album features 75 minutes and 26 tracks of mostly rhythmical-oriented material impregnated of electronics in the form of vibe, but also distortions, filter sweeps and choice of sounds for its repetitive patterns. The entire nature of this record is based around the stop'n'go of these repeating grooves and on the tricky misleading lo-fi abberations of dimming the volume of 20-30 dB's for brief periods of time to make it louder immediately after; from time to time "Alms for Iraq" sounds almost like a minimal glitch-electronics record, but chances are what is being conceived as such is nothing but what you are about to hear a lot louder a minute later (this might be a good time to warn listeners about the deceiving volume of the first 5-10 seconds of the record - don't be fooled or your ears might pay the price!). When the silence breaks the beats take over, sometimes even in the form of piercing noise loops. "Alsm for Iraq" is not monotonous. Instead its dynamic properties shed light on what maybe is/was Muslimgauze's production's most challenging and ground-breaking side. Of course your (dare I say) "average" Middle-Eastern percussion still find a way to sneak into and among the tracks, but the the electro-beat meets rhtyhm-noise meets middle-eastern grooves approach of this record is definitely among my favourite ones, not to mention the outstanding 6 panel A5-sized folding full colour digipack-style packaging with quotes, sleeve notes and beautiful pictures and art work. One of the best Muslimgauze records in a while, maybe.