Sophia is, with Arcana, one of Peter Pettersson's projects and while the second one is more concentrated on classical atmospheres, Arcana has a "industrial/military" sound structure and I assure you that SPITE is really powerful! The eight tracks of the CD (the seventh, "Stained", and the eight, which is an hidden track, have been recorded live in Bochum on December 2001) have got as main structure powerful percussive sounds along brass or strings and are capable of overloading your nervous system because they are: tense, hypnotic and sick. If you have not idea of what it could sound, try to imagine an evil version of the first Laibach: the ones which were shouting songs like "Brat Moj". As reported on the label presentation: "Evolving the theme of spite certainly spawns anger. Here the rhythmical pounding, a bit more tasty clinical than before, spews forth a scary atmosphere and the oppressive walls of heavy string arrangements fuels the picture of an imaginary, personal hell". Really amazing...

Here is the year's newcomer Dismantled. There's been a lot of talking about American immigrated Russian Gary Zon, and after I first heard of him from TG Mondalf at RhythmUS Network, I interviewed him (please read interview in the appropriate section for more info and background). He's only been doing electronic music for a little over a year and yet after an mp3 demo and a couple of compilations, his powerful blend of electro-industrial music has convinced even the talent scouts at Metropolis. Nine blasting songs where strong bombastic industrial beats are the common ground for atmospheric long-chord layers and jumpy ebm textures and an intricate web of sounds, media samples and bass lines. Filtered and vocoded vocals singing lyrics about life, annihilation, extermination and so forth (including a 9/11 tribute). An outstanding balance between robust rawness and melody. Perfect for all lovers of FLA (primary influence), but also :W: (who he remixed), Velvet Acid Christ, Haujobb, F242. Album will hit the streets on June 4th in US and June 17th in Europe. Look out for his first single "Dystopia" also!

Coming the stores June 11th is LA Manifesto records' sub-label Orbisonic's first release "definingTECH", a various artists comp whose primary goal seems to be to set a standard for the nu-new wave, or rather sort of an ultimate record about how older 80es electro has merged with new wave, which obviously isn't being used as a term the same way you're all used to back in the days. Let's put it like this: "definingTECH" is all about the new movement (wave) of dancy old fashioned electro-pop. It's the Kraftwerk playing with a Groovebox. The 80es' all-innovation-and-electronica attitude couples with today's desire to shake the boodie and just have a good time. The sampler has been put together by the authoritative and knowledgeable figure of Summer Forest (collaboration with Annie Leibovitz, writer for a magazine and of a book about the rave scene as well as director of a New Orleans electronic music scene report documentary film) and presents fourteen international male and female sound crafters, manipulators, Djs, bands: FisherSpooner, Memory Boy, Japanese Telecom, Miss Kittin & the Hacker, Shapeshiftr & the Sentinel, Dexter, Innate, Peaches, Bis, Adult, Bug Orchestra, Mr Velcro Fastener, Detroit Grand Pubahs, Felix da Housecat. The final result is a pretty heterogeneous album that keeps a common denominator in the synthetic computer driven patterns, the drum machine beats, the techno fashion with sneak-peaks at more commercial stuff as well as at more experimental things or just plain different approaches you might wanna check out yourself. It's a good starting point if you are new to the genre, and an cool album to have if you are into it already, but don't ever take anything for definitive, just keep exploring for even more cool stuff out there! Go with the flow!

Pretty much your average Staalplaat record, only this time it is Swiss label Domizil (house/location, in german), sent to us by german promoter Dense. I am extremely glad that finally some stuff is coming in from Switzerland, my home country. No rhythm (except for the «rhythm that emerges only out of the nothingness of the silence»), only discontinued found sounds and digital noises, interrupted by silence, whether it be silence within a composition or silence between two pieces). I especially like Domizil's description when they say that «calmly flowing, the sound is capturing a space, then it is compressed and swings in an intensity that leads the listener to the inside of the sounds»: it's one of those times where it's useless to look for better words when the one we got do already perfectly describe it. This Swiss artist, using the moniker of Steinbruechel, has been around since '96 and has released various 7"'s, CDR's and one LP. The person behind the project also runs the Synchron label. S/he makes a rule out of the process of looking for sounds and utilizing them in a certain way, without forgetting aesthetics, you'll never get scared by a burst of improvise loud noise, you'll rather be floating in the wavy white environment that these soft hi pitched sound produce, eventually bouncing off the complex and asymmetrical webbed structures and patterns that he (or she?) has prepared and is developing under you. The nice art work helps imagination. "Zwischen.ram" (space in between, in german) is a 19 tracks 3" CD that you should check out only if you are open minded enough for light but highly experimental collages.
PS On their website you will also find a web only remix (in the mp3 section). Also check out the very cool flash website of the band!

Weltschmerz (the world's pain, in German) are an Italian gothic band who started out around '94 on initiative of Monumentum's bass player Anthony Duman (I remember reviewing one of their earlier works on L'Alternative Dramatique once) but apparently they've been going a long way from there and are now signed to Italy's quality dark label Eibon (whose owner Mauro Berchi, mastermind of Canaan, also plays guitars with this band). "Capitale de la Douleur" comes as a beautifully packaged jewel case inside a cardboard box, with a nice smelling booklet containing the lyrics (in English, French and Italian; if you ask me gothic in italian sounds a little cheesy, but I guess it's a language like any other). Their music has evolved into a slow and grand gothic-dark mixture with layers of orchestral strings, slow but driving and huge doom metal sounding drumming (phat reverberated snare and lots of cymbals), melodic distorted guitars, many chorused arpeggios, piano, pushing bass lines, deep vocals (also a female vocalist is to be found on a bunch of tracks). It all evokes a little the Nephilim, Beyond Dawn and sometimes I even thought about the Spanish Heroes del Silencio, but it was probably just the Latin-ish language that brought that up in my mind, 'cause the Weltschmerz are a lot darker than that. In fact, the melancholy expressed by these eight tracks goes way beyond what dark-goth bands usually pull together: Weltschmerz is so grande that it's almost epic, and the powerful negativity that comes across is almost disturbing. This was such an intense and oppressive listening experience that you are gonna be begging for some sun after it.