Arnaldo Pontis has been long active in the Italian, and specifically Sardinian, audio and visual scene. He's also very political, outspokenly libertarian, distinguishably provocative and doesn't believe in mass production of goods, Therefore all of his productions are available freely as a download but also as an unconventionally packaged limited edition physical edition. In this case, Magnetica Arts Lab's self-titled CD comes in a DVD casing with Shepard Fairey artwork, easily recognizable by the yellow, black and red colors that made him famous. The front cover has an almost Nazi Germany SS vibe to it, which nicely adds to the provocation layers of this artist, who is clearly NOT in that world but loves to push people's buttons and provoke visually, and not just sonically.
Musically, this 10 track CD will take you on a pretty low key trip, for the most part, through mellow electronic suites, occasionally juxtaposed by louder and more abrasive industrial tracks. The CD is mostly instrumental, although there are a lot of vocal samples intertwined with the music throughout. There's definitely also a dark veil of somber moodiness being cast over the whole production, which I enjoy.
The listening experience flows nicely and presents plenty of interesting moments but the repetitive nature of this type of anti-song-structure loop-based composition sometimes fails to develop enough to take you from enjoyability to engagement. Nevertheless a good album all in all.
If you like what you read, you can download this album for free from the artist's website but if you want to support or own the beautiful artwork head on over to their website and purchase a copy from them.

This is not only the new title for this third full-length album of Russia's former Harsh-EBM/Hellectro institution Wavefall ' it is also the manifest for their musically development. Slava Busygin and his female, better half Tat'yana Borisova are returning with this new album and they have some surprises hidden in their backpack, which the interested Harsh-EBM listener wouldn't have expected. They may had already integrate some first hints for a style changing with their last release, the 'EP-Tronics' EP, and I thought already on a mutation from the Hellectro to a more Punk-driven genre, somehow comparable to classic Cat Rapes Dog inspired works. First of all, with the new band member Kirill Ivanushkin being responsible for electric, bass, and acoustic guitars, you may get a hint of what has Wavefall become. They are more than ever inspired by guitar-driven Punk and Rock 'n' Roll music. The electronic elements are still present, but got often reduced to a minimal insert. 'Collider' is a good example for the still active Electronica-side in their work, though this one has been taken part in a 'Speed'-Mix on their last 'EP-Tronics' EP. Their Punk-attitude can be also discovered through their track-list and their beautiful, comic-strip cover artwork. The artwork shows the both protagonists being green-colored, Alien-like bank robbers on the run. 'God, Guns, and Gasoline' has been a title of a classic Cat Rapes Dog album, Wavefall nowadays could name their album 'Cash, Guns, and Gasoline'. This album develops completely into new territories and results finally into a hard cake to bite for their old Electro-based fans. It really needs a lot of tolerance and an open horizon of the Rivetheads to accept and enjoy this release completely. I personally think that this release is also an experiment for their Advoxya-label, since the Hungarian label-giant is known for their 'only-Electronica' attitude. Wavefall seem to be quite convinced with their new direction, to me they are taking the risk and have to start from scratch again. Multiple live performances might be helpful to perform conviction work.

Most of devoted fans of this master from Italian avant-electronics scene should already know many tracks which have been included in this double-cd collection of recordings and every connoisseur of that scene should immediately realize the connection between its title and the glorious Italian tape label Trax by mail artist, music critic and expert on countercultures Vittore Baroni and the late lamented eclectic artistic Piermario Ciani. The most "flamboyant" tracks - due to their remarkable length - perfectly exemplify the network-based operational philosophy of Trax: the first one is the long-lasting, estranging and really evocative "Rednight", inspired by the notorious novel "Cities of the Red Night" by William S.Burroughs and partially based on the original version, a collage of edits, samples, spoken words, overdubbing and noises from different artists and musicians, who took part to the first Trax convention, held in Bertiolo in 1982, having recourse to a plenty of techniques such as cut-up or detournement, which have largely been applied to avantgarde and industrial releases of that age; the second one is "Where Angels Can't Land", representing in Becuzzi's own words "a sort of semi-controlled application of the aleatory theories of John Cage" for the way this track has been assembled, whereas each involved artist/musician - Simon Balestrazzi, Fabio Orsi, Nigel Ayers (Nocturnal Emissions), Pietro Riparbelli (K11) and Rod Summers (VEC Audio) - recorded a track for each base they received from the central operational unit (Becuzzi himself), which organised all sonic contributions according to a sort of radial scheme, where the peripheral units "interacts" only with the central one. Other tracks are equally interesting: halved track "All Frontiers Anthem" easily collides with listener's eardrum with the combination of heavy thumps and very piercing acute sounds, while "Unspeakable" is the moment when post-industrial languages sounds like winking at old-fashioned dark (and even folk...) tastes. The only unreleased track, the final "Untouchable", is an immersive dark-ambient track, where Becuzzi inserts buzzing and cutting sounds into a spooky and somewhat ghastly magmatic pool.

Tender words to traders and their indulgente money-feeders ("Traders Must Die"), attempts of sweet awakening media-addicted sleepwalkers and middle-class insouciance despite awareness of media manipulation about "reality" ("Let's Talk About This During Dinner", but I'd say their wise cover artwork refers to media control and the typical master/puppet relation between people who control media and their unaware victims), feeling of solipsism and withdraw in front of widespread acceptance of the state of things ("Not My World"), redeeming escape attempts ("Give Me Somthing Stronger"), refusal of homologation ("Rest In Silence My Friend", "They Won't Get Us"), memories of pure love ("LoveTape"), saga-like dramtic stages of anti-heroic teeny personal growth ("Lizzie And The Charming Prince", "Lizzie In Toxicland") and other themes digged by this French industrial band by brothers Sylvain "Syco" and Arnud "Arco" Coeffic could be considered as cliches for the musical and cultural fields they cross over, but the way they melt them, a fusion between industrial standards (particularly KMFDM and Skinny Puppy), a ferocious digital hardcore approach (a la Teen Age Riot) and contemporary hybrids such as nu metal, neurotech or grime dubstep, don't deserve the assumed unconcern (their album has been introduced as "2011's best CD that no one wrote about"...) related to their first European issue. Canadian label Artoffact recognised their talent and decided to let their product land in North America through an edition which five bonus tracks, including their raging cover version of Pink Floyd' hit "Another Brick In The Wall", the hitting tracks "All Guilty" and "Freakout", the above-mentioned "Lizzie In Toxicland" and "We Are Fod For Worms" - one of my favorite track of the whole album -, which mentions a notorious line by professor John Keating on Peter wseir's "Dead Poets Society". Chrysalide could have gained more visibility on underground press, but maybe it needed to be fed more to turn into a butterfly.

'Introspection ~ Extrospection' is the latest release by Belgium's Psy'Aviah. Despite having an overall milder sound than 2010's 'Eclectric,' right out of the box, this record throws some hard industrial right at you. Very modern in sound and production, but has a distinctly vintage industrial feel to certain elements, i.e. the vocoders, distorted, screamed vocals, and throbbing, four on the floor beat coupled with a thick, buzzing bass. The song is 'SOS Overdose' and it is a great opening track, and if you've gotten the limited edition 2CD (the 2nd disc being referred to as 'Retrospection') then you'll eventually be treated to a Leæther Strip cover of this song, which is, needless to say, also quite the listen.

From the harder edge of the opener, we make our way through a variety of sounds and styles and feels. Most of the rest of the album has female vocals as opposed to those harsh male vox on the onslaught. These smooth, sensual vocals weave and slither their way through more plenty more industrial, though more often than not, a much more pop oriented version. The harder edge of that first piece softens considerably for several songs, some of which seem to have an almost industrial-reggae feel to them, an odd, but surprisingly successful fusion.

Through industrial dance pop, to that industrial-reggae, to high energy dance anthems and even a pseudo lullaby this album is pretty solid from front to back. The only possible misstep, is 'Nouveau Quiche,' a very reasonable song, dotted with lackluster guest rap verses, and even opens with an obligatory 'Roll out the red carpet!' sample. It's not just the simple fact that the rap is quite out of place on the record, but its just rather drab all around. That being said, the choruses are quite nice and again the music itself is fine.

Overall Psy'Aviah cross a lot of boundaries while maintaining that core industrial sound yet with serious pop sensibilities. Great for a night at the club, great for dimly lit night at home.