This project is a bondage themed industrial rock project which has such a hard edge sound it borders on punk, or rather goth-punk in some cases. I first heard of Spanking Machine (SM) from the Megatropolis 2001 compilation project from Cybortronik Media featuring “Evil Kitty”. The first advice I’d give to anyone listening to this for the first time, skip the first track on your first listen then listen to it later – it’s so noisy and hard edge an less structured than the rest that it may turn listeners away from the album before you can hear what they are about and get to the ‘meat’ of the album. The second track, “Discipline” would have made a much better first track with it’s grinding guitar riffs, punk-esque female vocals and rhythmic electronics and live drums. “The Push” is just too difficult as an introductory track but on later listens it fits perfectly with it’s nearly Berlin-like structure and hard analog synth sounds. “Fallen Angel” begins like a combination of hard elektro vs Kraftwerk and builds into a dark synth-rock structure. “Deathryde…” has some nearly metal guitar and some very heavy rock oriented rhythms. SM shows they can truly rock as well and reminds me of something akin to Lords of Acid or White Zombie. In contrast “Flesh Chamber” is very dark and melodramatic and has a nearly Christian Death feel to it. “Evil Kitty” is one of the obvious favorites on this album combining hard dark elektro and rock-n-roll with in-your-face sexuality. “Pleasurebound” is mostly composed of sampled bits and noises with a touch of piano in the intro to create a bizarre, dark yet ethereal start but with a very heavy rock main composition. Just say, “Yes Mistress”. “Wet Nightmare” reminds me of those sampled bits from White Zombie where they use grinding guitars, drums, and samples from things like old Batman episodes or 1950’s documentaries. The vocal samples here are all in reference to ‘wet’ dreams or nocturnal emissions. The ninth track, “Nazi Love Slave” continues their hard edge punk-industrial-rock feel while maintaining their strong BDSM and fetish themes. The final track, a “Deathryde” remix is very elektro based and features almost no rock or guitar elements and is more industrial feeling instead and even includes the heavy noise-buzz bass beat found in some EBM or Noise projects and an interesting vocal effect. This last track is great for Goth-Industrial nightclub play. Overall Spanking Machine brings many elements of several years of underground music and culture into one highly original combination and do it in a manner that lends both a well structured and produced sound as well as some rawer elements as well. Punk fuckin’ rock!

The prolific Russian musician, composer and producer Artemiy Artemiev continues his collaborations with other musicians from all over the world. "A Moment of Infinity" showcases five long experimental and artsy suites with e-orchestral backgrounds and noises worked out with Phillip B. Klingler, whom we are used to refer to as P.B.K.. This is Artemiev's second collaboration with him (the first one being "Dreams in Moving Space", 2000) but the overall sound differs from the first one as it is more atmospheric and less "noir". There are practically no electronic beats and actually no definite rhythmical structures are to be found (except for a short percussive pattern in the last and darker composition), yet there are a number of weird tribal sampled percussions that give it a truly native and distant appeal. The Russian coldness of deserted landscapes covered in snow is only one of the virtual places you will visit when travelling this musical journey... On the other hand percussive (mainly metallic percussion) sounds sometimes almost recall African shores, like a warmer wind blowing through the snow and melting the snow... Clearly, it is a very visionary album. Industrial drones interwove with ritual field sounds, atmospheres of stillness and infinity are the playground for spacey and drifting experimentalisms that remind me of a bunch of releases from Extreme records I once reviewed, which included Skuli Sverrison's all-bass "Seremonie" album and a Shinjuku Thief work. Almost 70 minutes of glacial and noble avant-garde sounds for the true lovers of envelope-pushing.

When I found out that Artemiev and Frohmader were working together I wasn't surprised at all, it all made perfectly sense to me! Peter Frohmader is known for playing his guitars and basses over layers of keyboards, long lush synth chords and sequences but never throwing away the beat. This is what happened in this case too, but it sounds like the german composer has also added more keyboards, to those already laid down by his Russian companion, thus widening the rich sound palette that "TransFiguration" is based by and originated from. Considering that it took the couple almost an entire year to achieve this, it sounds like they never met and instead mailed each other the tracks some way until done. This is their second collaborative work (after "Space Icon", from two years ago). The five tracks are numbered and vary in length, ranging from a little over five minutes and a half to almost half an hour. Detailed and outlined beat structures and sytnh/synth-bass lines make for an easier approach to Artemiev's musical art. A pleasing experience that combines electronics, atmospherics, rock, ambient, fusion, experimental music and more, all nicely driven by rhythms and sound sequences. Considering how many genres converge in "TransFiguration" it is probably safer to just say that it represents a very good example of what electro-acoustic avant-garde, two terms often used to describe Electroshock releases, is or can be.

It is surprising how Artemiy Artemiev manages to release so many records and how many of them represent collaborations with artist he knows, respects or released music by in the past, like in the case of properly titled "57 Minutes to Silence", one of the latest collaboration albums on his Electroshock records (which by the way could very well have been released on Staalplaat), involving the great American composer Christopher De Laurenti and presenting you with eight tracks of claustrophobic experimental industrial "music". Definitely one of the most out of the ordinary and challenging of Artemiev's collaborations, these 57 minutes escape his usual style made up of a classical synthetic and analog synth sound library to bring you nightmarish deceptive repetitive loops, painful harsh noises, sharp and hi pitched whistling buzzes, cold stellar found sounds, random field recordings and more... Musical structures, in the common meaning of the word, are discarded, a new path is followed, randomness and noise seem to be dominating, but in the same way there is an order in chaos, there is one here too, plus it's definitely less extreme and more organized than some brutal Japanese noise we know so well. It is decidedly less of a musical record, but a very remarkable one indeed. Unpredictable noises, differing in source, frequency range, loudness make for an awfully dynamic tracklist where soundtracks for madness are interrupted by quite yet disquieting longer suites that take a dive into the cosmic dimension that seems to be the theme here, at least judging from the titles of the compositions. A special flower in the Electroshock garden for those who don't fear to dare to test their limits with some very interesting audio material.

This 2002 release of Butt Boy seems to have a general theme of fairie bondage. The first track "Walz of the Imps" is supposed to be an obscene night forest dance of imps. Given this you can easily see how the music fits this as it is visual music much like "Night of Bald Mountain" is. This album already shares certain trademark sounds like the usual 'ahs' found on previous albums and various purcussion instruments such as xylephone and various bells and woods. "Riding Centaurs" slowly builds a pace until you are virtually 'galloping' musically.
"The Ritual of the Whip" takes on a wholey different pace and atmosphere and seems a bit more suspenseful with some minor bit of bass beats. There is one sound that travels the speakers so that you feel it is passing or circling you. Tension slowly builds in this track as does the overall composition. The fourth track also begins at a much calmer pace but then builds into a bizarre combination of thumps and growls. It's interesting at the least.
Track five uses some interesting sounds to begin with and the composition is a bit unorthodox but the following bassline is very casio-box to me. The concepts behind the music display the artists creative thinking - unfortunately the synth sounds used detract from the overall sound of the compositions. The best part I like on this track is the nearly orchestrated sound it builds into.
Hmmm, Succubi on a gay man's album? Okay if you say so! Personally I feel this composition is too light and floating to fit the presence of the succubi. Also, the militant snares don't fit the atmosphere either. The concept is interesting, the music track is okay but the two do not seem to match in this case, at least not to me. I think the ritual dance of the Satyrs may be something this artist would more likely associate with and the musical composition tends to imply the same in that I can feel more passion of the artist put into this one. Personally I think this is the best composition on this particular release.
The only thing I can say to the artist is invest in some new equipment. The compositions and concepts are very interesting but sometimes get lost in the nearly 'video-game-like' sounds which many of the currently used synths for these compositions have. I also like the 'Conundrum' release better than this one as this one has too much of what I would consider standard 'factory' keyboard style, technique and sound to it.