Very odd, shifting ambient industrial ala Mentallo and the Fixer and closer still to Necrofix. The tracks shift constantly from one extreme to the next,from driving industrial to synth-laden classical pieces to ambient orchestrations. Very unique and while not totally revolutionizing industrial, it has done for it what Alphaville did for synthpop: give it a new degree of strangeness and experimental daring. Each song in average tracks in almost 3-4 different time measures and shifts, something not too often seen in an age of putting a redundant drum beat in and just singing over it. . Definitely worth a try if you’re looking for something a little deeper than the 4/10 beat times and monotones of modern day EBM. Rating:10.

Scapesonik formed in the spring of 2002 by the brothers Pontus and Niklas Nelldal and the sisters Malin and Matilda Heimdahl. The members had earlier been 4/5ths of The Mourning After (do you remember the review I did of their MCD?) and Nick is also active with two other bands: Vision and NN. All these experiences allowed the band to prepare an astonishing five tracks demo titled "Demep" (which I suppose in Sweden is meaning "demo". Smart, eh?). The band has composed four tracks which contains sinuous atmospheres always in balance between new wave and synthpop (the fifth track is more a melancholic ballad and remember me a little the Abba) and I assure you that Scapesonik wouldn't fail into gathering new fans only if music channels would stop promoting crap. I found absolutely convincing tracks as "I'll Be Me" or "A Man With A Dog" which aren't upbeat tempos or dancey tunes but are capable of capture you in a subtle way. I only hope that they'll be able to find soon a record label that will produce an album because I'd be really curious into listening new tracks. Check their mp3 files and spread the word.

This EP features brand new tracks not previously released called "It's Time" and "Monument" as well as "Machines" from the early demo Synthesis. What fans will first notice is the harder club beat and elektro styling of "It's Time" that has a sort of darkwave-EBM sound to it that the band never previously had. Ah, when I see bands I love improve this much I just love it. Shannon's ethereal vocals and Robert's industrial interests were meant for this type of structure. Butterfly Messiah never sounded so good. Both the first mix and the Dance mix are great for DJ club play so I'm hoping they will not be timid and take a risk on these guys, they are well worth it! "Monument" contains the somber dark synth orchestral and ethereal vocal style the band is more readily associated with. This is great for those unfamiliar with the band to check out to get a bit of a taste of what some of their other music generally sounds like, however this track has it's own unique aspects as well. Butterfly Messiah are the only band that deftly combines ethereal elements with hard industrial and mechanical elements. The man-machine concept is one that has been done many times in cyber-industrial but Butterfly Messiah take a more spirit-machine angle on the perspective created with their own unique combination of sound. If anyone is curious about what a younger Butterfly Messiah sounded like this EP gives them the opportunity with "Machines". However this mix is not the original version so there is something here for fans too. They've cleaned this one up a bit and added some overall effects to it that give it quite a bit more body and ambience. The original is dry in comparison to this version (Nice job Robert!). Lastly, is an instrumental of the title track. Without the vocals it sounds much more EBM oriented and may be why it was included. I hope this is a good idea of what is to come from the band in the future!

Spray are a band coming from England (land that is showing good electro acts again after years of shoe gazers; as NME called the guitar pop bands in early and mid nineties) and LIVING IN NEON is their second album. The first one has been released in 1998 for Stone The Kubist and was titled "On Air, Tonight". The band had also a couple of songs played various times by John Peel, the famous BBC's dj (for sure you own at least one record of a John Peel Session of one of your favorite bands). Formed by Jenny McLaren (on vocals) and Ricardo Autobahn (all the rest) Spray are the perfect example of modern synthpop band: powerful, melodic and someway danceable. Their tracks are always pumping and energetic (the album contains few ballads, if I can call them this way) and from the lyrics of "I'm Gothic" I may say that they have got also a good sense of humor, here's the song's refrain: "I am gothic / I am pale / I am scary / I'm insane / I'm a loner / I am cold / I feel special when people don't phone". "Child Of The 80s", "Brainiac", "I'm Gothic", "I Kill With My Car" are for sure songs that can catch the attention of different kinds of audience. As bonus you can also find remixed versions of "Child Of The 80s", "I'm Gothic" (check the "Freestone" version which is gothic indeed with the bass guitar that seems playing a Joy Division's song) and "Spaced". Check their mp3 at their website and wait for their new MCD which will include tracks from their "I Am Gothic" remix contest.

If I was still making music I would have done this myself sooner or later 'cause I always thought about the possibility of creating something musical with today's most widespread and intimate piece of technology of the Western world: the cellular phone. Apparently somebody did it before me and considering that somebody is 29 years old computer whiz Golan Levin, 32 years old sound designer Scott Gibbons from Lilith and sound artist Gregory Shakar, they did it much better than I ever could have done or thought. Anyway the day I never thought would come, the day major phone network providers and manufactures sponsor a Staalplaat record, has arrived: 200 people in the audience, 3 sound designers, 9 additional technicians, 200+ phones, 200 discrete channels of patched audio and a computer system that could trigger the sounds of these portable phones and play new custom-composed ring tones distributed via SMS (one of the many features that the shitty American wireless networks don't provide) before the concert. An audio-video matrix system allowed the creators of this amazing project to individually trigger (call!) these cell phones 8000 times in 30 minutes and at the same time light up the person whose handy is ringing in the audience and project a dot of light on two wide screens, while everything is also reflected by a 36foot/12meters wide mirror diagonally spanning from the stage to the ceiling above the people... A surreal third millennium scenario in which people can explore the sonic possibilities offered by the musical instruments, sort of an un-complete synthesizer, that one in ten people in the world have been half-unconsciously carrying around for the past decade in an ensemble context. Musically we are talking about a carefully choreographed cacophony of cell phone ring tones and dial tones producing everything from polyphonic drones sounding like a cello or a church organ hovering above the audience's ambient noise (coughing, laughing, talking, moving...) to sparkly mellow spatial chords sounding like frogs, birds, crickets or other bugs in the wilderness; from actual and logical electronic music improvised compositions with melodies to the loud cacophony of 60 (the maximum) hand-held devices ringing contemporaneously that you would only wanna be running away from if you were in the same room. Everything in between the two ends of the sonic spectrum is uncharted territory for new creations. The concert consists of three "movements": in the first one the audience's 200 un-amplified phones ring in various configurations; in the second one Scott Gibbons plays a solo on a small number of amplified phones (he prefers Siemens ;-); while in the third section the staff's phones dialogue with the audience's phone like a soloist would with an orchestra. The whole thing was recorded and shot on the 2nd of September 2001 at the big and beautiful Brucknerhaus Auditorium in Linz, Austria (as part of the TAKEOVER: the 2001 Ars Electronica Festival) and then again with a 99-piece audience from May 28th to June 6th at the Arteplage Mobile de Jura in Murten and Biel, Switzerland (jeeez, I can't believe I am Swiss and I missed it!!!). Of course such performance could only take place in Europe, where the GSM network (G for global), as opposed to the lousy CDMA digital network of the States), allows for much greater flexibility and creativity. As an owner of a cell phone I belive you must buy this CD to become aware of the unexplored potential of this modern appliance and to start pushing the envelope yourself, for this could easily become a new musical sub-genre in the coming years (maybe we'll have Dj's and Cj's - cellphone-jockeys!)... The CD comes in a nice digipack with a thick booklet stuffed with information and also has a CD-ROM section with loads of hi quality pictures, four mp3 files, a video of the concert, video interviews with its creators, links to various interesting websites and to the websites of the people involved in this outstanding project and a lot of written technical and philosophical material about the concept. One of the most forward-thinking records of this year! Definitely highly recommended buy!!! For more info check out http://www.telesymphony.com/ and if that doesn't work point your browser to http://www.flong.com/telesymphony.