Allegedly one of Greece's most important gothic-dark-rock bands, the Ding An Sich have now released a CD that includes never before released songs or songs that have never been on a CD anyway. The time span is 1988-1992. This band has been making music since the late 80es but only one person from the original line up is now still producing tracks. Like pretty much every rock band involved with dark or gothic music between the 80es and the 90es somehow they all manage to sound like Mission, Bauhaus, the Cure, Sisters of Mercy or the Nephilim. Garden of Delight, Killing Joke, Nosferatu and This Mortal Coil are mentioned on their background info as influences too. Personally I am not that fond of this stuff anymore, but I am not saying there shouldn't be a time for remembering, therefore I would say I definitely only recommend this for nostalgic listeners.

Greek label Creepy Awesome Predacious Prelacy's "Commemoration of the Dead - We're on the Planet" is a compilation CD with mainly local contributions of dark bands featuring The Narrator Mr. Cricket, Decadence, Ding An Sich (cmp review elsewhere on these pages), Into the Abyss (with two songs), Glaufx Garland (the main project on this label), Snowskyn, Density of State, Viridian Green (cmp review elsewhere on these pages), Alpha-Omega, Slow Motion and Cpinalonga. As I have no background info about this record, I don't know where the title originated from, but I have reason to believe (and hope) that all these people/bands ain't dead yet. The spectrum covered is wide and goes from long-pad synthetic soundscapes (The Narrator and the 14 minutes long "Sequent C" suite by Cpinalonga, offering ethnic, natural, acoustic, ritual and electronic sounds in a meditative frame); dark-folk songs in the vein of World Serpent or Kirlian Camera (Decadence, Into the Abyss); deep dark ritualistic sonorities (Ding An Sich, Glaufx, Slow Motion); my favourite three songs of the record, covering the experimental droning ambient-electro-industrial end of the spectrum (like with the murky Snowskyn composition or the great piece by Density of State sounding like :W: or the Viridian Green who here sound like a heavily pounding angry version of Dirk "Dive" Ivens meets Richard "Aphex" James); old-time dark-electronic material (Alpha-Omega). You've got it all here.

It LOOKS like a Johnny Cash meets record Willie Nelson, it SOUNDS more like a Merzbow meets Dive record, Big Tex (ex Mumble) has put together 74 minutes of harsh noise music with a funny "big-ould" texas looking art work (including background info about cowboy's life) and divided into 28 tracks with funny totally ranch-lifestyle-like titles ("Fancy Boy's Fancy Horse", "Saloon", "Saddle Up", "Midnight Cattle Drive", "Digging a Latrine", "Can of Beans, Bag of Nuts", "Campfire Stories on the Prairie", "Sleeping on Dirt" and so on...). I am usually not a huge fan of stuff that can hurt my ears but this record has more to offer than just plain noizzzzzz... Big Tex has a lot of power electronics / power noise influences and even occasional harsh dark ambient tracks that really widen the spectrum of the available moods. Even though the sound palette pretty much sticks to the glitchy mid/high frequency distorted brutality, Tex has been able to play his cards (probably in the mixing saloon with his buddies and some whiskey) with an open minded and creative approach and has therefore generated something that is a little easier to approach and a little more pleasing to listen to than just uncompromising harsh industrial noise that many others produce. My (cowboy) hat goes off to that; and that did even rhyme! Holy cow!!!

I am assuming Dirk Ivens and Dive need no introduction. After almost three years of silence following the "Soes Mix" 12" release on the italian Minus Habens label, the five tracks of his new "Lies in your Eyes" break new ground in the musical evolution of one of the greatest Belgian noise-musicians. Distortion is present as always, but there is room for more rhythmical structures and even more definite vocals get clearance. His long-time collaborator Eric van Wonterghem takes part in this project as well and maybe that is the reason why Dive is going back to the noise-electro of the past. The bodies of the songs are quite minimal but the full force effect is guaranteed, especially if you follow Dirk's directions of playing it at maximum volume! I love it!

Despite the very poor recording quality of their self-produced CD and a hard to describe eclectic mixture of influences, The Id play shows, conferences and festivals all around the world, staging and spreading their political beliefs and showing their support to associations such as Greenpeace. The UK duo hardly conforms to set standards or musical labels and instead absorb ideas from the past and the present, mixing dark, wave, electronics, rock, noise in what they like to refer to as «experimental eclecticism» or «new wave of the new wave of alternativism». Their style is characterized by heavily processed guitars and vocals, draining and stomping drum patterns and sounds, lots of wanted (and sometimes unwanted) distortion/saturation, sequenced and improvised electronics and male and female vocalists talking, shouting and singing. To be honest I am not crazy about this, but on the other hand music is a matter of taste and reviews are a subjective point of view so I suggest you check it out for yourself (which you should have anyway). I am truly sorry I am not impressed with this band's music as much as I am with their attitude. They have my deepest respect for their attitude and for being so politically active. We need more bands that understand the importance of having a political agenda alongside their music! Well done!