In all these years In The Nursery have been an unique band in the electronic/alternative scene and each project has been particular, for this I'm sorry to say that I don't really understand this CAUSE AND EFFECT. In my opinion a peculiar band like In The Nursery didn't need this remix project to get exposure and the remixers didn't do something really innovative because almost all of them used similar sounds the band is used to use only with the addition of a little more electronic instruments. Only Steve Bennet which did a sensual trip hop version of "Miracle Road", Assemblage 23 which gave an e.b.m. treatment to "Hym Noir", Attrition which by surprise build out of "To The Faithful" a techno ambient track, Haujobb which industrialized a little "L'Esprit" just like Electronium did with "Chronicle", did something a bit different respect the original versions even if some of them aren't really catchy. The most innovative has been Seize which did a industrial/goa version of "Caprice". Also the version of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" played by the band itself isn't that catchy because is well played, well arranged but it lacks of energy. I'm sorry to say this but this CD isn't a must in the band's discography...

Sounds of Mass Production's new release is a remixes album. After their third album they swithched label from ADSR to Invisible Records (Martin "PIL, Killing Joke, Pigface" Atkins' label) which re-released "Terminal" (just check the old reviews database) along with this new HACKED. The sound of the band which on the last album was basically a sequenced bass line with samples, synthesizer, guitar, drums and angry vocals (that sometimes have got the hip hop cadence) is slighty different in this remixes album as the various bands didn't use guitars but concentrated mainly on the dancefloor potential of the songs. So the various versions of "Chemicals", "September" and "Megaton" (which are the three tracks that have been remixed mostly with two, six and three versions) had every rhythmical and melodic aspect exploited and explored by bands such as Mindless Faith, Vers, Doll Factory, Akuma & Reverb, Codec, etc. The sixteen songs sound all fresh and energetic and various. It's amazing to notice the efforts that each band did to give a new life to the tracks and I appreciated that. You know that generally I don't like remix CDs but this is worth the purchase.

With a name like that how can you not think of Stilluppsteypa right away? Of course it's them! Or at least one of them, who recorded his second solo CD after a CD on Trente Oiseaux and an LP on ERS.
Abstract rumbling noises over a thin line of looped high pitched coil sound, deeper drones, electrical noises (but not classical statics), almost inaudible very distant sounds looped and made increasingly louder over time, murky and sinister sounds, distortion, detuned and detuning sources, progressivly madness-inducing ear aching mid frequency loops... All packed into a CD whose booklet, front cover and inlay card has pictures of the inside of a room, fridge, living room, whose track titles are funny and whose volume knob you'll always have to retouch to make sure you are not missing some absurdly low and far away thing or you are not damaging your hearing (nevermind, it ain't that bad after all); I guess it's done on purpose as this has been mastered by Johann Joannson in Reykjavik in 2001... Not anybody's cup of tea!

Hey hey hey, Mort Aux Vaches is back, and so is the Italian experimental noiser Massimo Sapienza (remember him from the 1999 releases "Massimo" and "Minimo", which mean maximum and minimum, respectively? - cmp older issues of Chain D.L.K.). The 27 year old computer nerd became part of the laptop-musicians league and moved away from microwave music to step into the brighter (or darker?) light of "industrielectronoisics" (I just came up with that all by myself, aren't you proud? ;-). His "Mort Aux Vaches" contains live performances at VPro Radio 5 which tend to be willing to move toward an insane and illogical all-noise rawness but instead actually maintain a pretty astonishing balance between hard core power electronics and industrial noise... Even though there are no percussive element, there is a quite definite rhythmical soul to this sound and I like that a lot better than just plain distorted static distortion. The guy's deeply involved with musicians of the like and has already released several things for you to look for (don't look too far!). The VPro sleeve this time is cardboard with perforated lettering, quite smart.

Here goes one more round of Mort Aux Vaches! Single notes, deep drones, sporadic tones gradually and extremely slowly building up to somewhat more elaborated harmonies of apparently randomly played notes in the range of a 6 (or even 8) octave keyboard... These notes assume new meaning every time a new key is hit and thus every time a new harmonic combination is achieved. They interact with each other relatively to their position, depth, velocity, loudness, frequency etc... All this punctuated by silences that get shorter as the music goes on. Always the same keyboard sound, at least until the last track where a harsh static noise that was slowly escalating, takes full control over everything else and turns the never-ending droning dreamy ambient suite into a long manipulation of awful noise slowly sweeping through a filter range and going through phasing, eventually becoming something like a loud feedback and then a softer one with a mid and and a hi frequency component. Only at the very very end, the sound dissolves in a casual ambience, quickly taking new forms but being absorbed by silence. This record is about the sympathy and the resonance between notes, about how notes can co-operate toward a harmony, fight for a dissonance, clash for a disturbance or just play in unison. The record is meant to be played continuously (in fact the track IDs are there only to aid retrieval).
Previous recordings include "Suspension" (Touch, UK) and "Trieste" (Idea, US).