Plastic Assault utilize heavy EBM styled rhythms with harsh samples and vocals to create an image of shock and violence. Released on the German label Bloodline Plastic Assault would be of high interest to fans of the harder side of Front Line Assembly and bands like Stabbing Westward's Ungod album. The first track "Crackhead" sounds like it could very easily have fit on the FLA album Caustic Grip due to the vocal and sample style as well as the ever riding bouncy synth bassline. It's also reminiscient of earlier FLA as well (aka Initial Command, Total Terror, etc.). This continues through much of the album as Plastic Assault focuses on a little used but highly loved form of early dark EBM which personally I feel should have affected more industrial oriented groups. Sounds of ambulances, military commandos, police ham radio and live arrests, shotgun blasts, screams of terror, cheering crowds and other sounds of chaos, angst, aggression, violence and fascism fill this amazing album. Strangely enough there is a purely Punk-rock sample at the beginning of "Pesticide" but I couldn't say who the band is but it's amusing all the same. It's wonderful to hear another artist expand on the original sound that Bill Leeb created but he himself as left in his past. I've always thought that this style of music would catch on somewhere, somehow and it's nice to see somebody doing it still.
The track "Devotka" sounds more like a DSBP Records band or something like Any Questions? or Eye Kandy with it's heavy use of metal guitar sampling combined with synthetic tones or harshness. Heavy, dark, and aggressive this band succeeds where many have failed in their attempts to create similar audio structures. "Strangled" sounds very much like something from FLA's "Hard Wired" album. I hope to hear more form Plastic Assault in the future.

Bruno Dorella has been one of the most active musicians and producers of the Italian independent circuit (but not only of that, actually) over the last few years. His label Bar La Muerte has proven to be corageously eclectic, with a series of high-standard records ranging from no-wave to electronica, from mutant pop to chamber music. Active as a musician with - among others - Ovo (no-wave/grind/improvisation), Lava (power electronics/industrial, now defunct) and Ventolin Orchestra (noise), and as a collaborator with Brusaschetto, Rollerball etc., he now presents his most personal creature Ronin. Aided by members of Alba and RUNI, and by Jacopo Andreini (Nando Meet Corrosion, E-Neem, Bz Bz Ueu, Enfance Rouge, Frigorifero Produzioni and a thousand more) on drums and sax, he has written a handful of songs which will probably surprise many listeners. Think of (lots of) Morricone, Badalamenti, Calexico, Godspeed You Black Emperor, some Aerial M… Melancholic melodies, epic and nocturnal atmospheres delivered with a gentle touch... A sort of mariachi band ("Ronin Theme") colliding with an Eastern European ensemble ("Canzone d'amore moldava"), but also an incredible solo track ("Nada") with a guitar playing which is both essential and moving. All this in just 3 tracks + outro. I'm stunned. This is close to perfection, and I wonder where the full-length cd (just recorded, with the addition of cello and upright bass) will carry them.

Knifeladder's full-length on their own label Operative, after their split cd with Shining Vril on C.A.P.P. and some compilation appearances. KL is John Murphy (drums, percussion, loops and vocals), Andrew Trail (electronics, samples and vocals) and Hunter Barr (bass and electronics). Members' backgrounds consist of names like SPK, Current 93, Death In June, Der Blutharsch, Kraang (Murphy, now also active with his ritual-ambient project Shining Vril), Infant Skull Surgery and Altered States (Barr), Inertia and Ministry of Love (Trail). "Organic Traces" opens with the breath-taking assault of "Red Drum", immediately delivering some of Knifeladder's trademarks: pounding bass, hypnotic electronic loops and samples, raving vocals, heavy tribal drumming… Reminding of past greats like early Swans or God, it was surely the best way to start the cd… While keeping these main elements as the sound canvas of the whole work, KL skilfully avoid repetition by dosing different nuances and atmosphere, from subtler ambiences like the half-whispered "Faultline" (with some Coil and early Clock DVA resemblance) to obsessive magmas ("Dervish"), often shifting within the same track: listen to "Scorched Earth", beginning with enthralling string loops and solemn vocal lithanies and evolving to a hail of percussion and frantic sax laments. A really individual and accomplished work, standing out with a sound of its own and not really fitting into any easy underground niche or sub-category… I just hope it gets the attention it deserves.

The day "Night Works" hit the street, Sept 10th 2002, I was in London, the very city where Layo Paskin and Matthew Benjamin (aka you figure out who!) are based and launch their worldwide sonic attacks from. The End, Layo's legendary club and also their record label, is home base and you can go see them spin when they are not touring the world or working as residents in Ibiza or in Brazil. These two talented young men have totally different backgrounds: Layo grew up in a liberal and wealthy North London family and started organizing parties even before he turned 18 - Matthew studied music and studio engineering in West London and toured Italy at age 13 eventually becoming a Dj for the Rat Pack club and the Radio Rental pirate station Sunrise FM. They served London's and Europe's underground scene with loyal devotion and with the right spirit and are rewarded today with thousands of fans who highly acclaim them and who once even sit down instead of dancing as a mark of respect.
Unfortunately I never had the pleasure to listen to their 1998 debut "Low Life", so their nicknames made me think of some Jamaican motor-mouth speaker blasting rhymes over techno tunes crossfaded by some other wild dude (which I would have nothing against), but I must say what I found was different than what I expected, yet even more rewarding! I rarely listened to a quite delicious blend of acid house, techno, jazz, acid-jazz, breakbeat, blues, electro, dub and trip-hop... Transparently segueing lucid and well thought-out sets of killer tunes and crossfading the shit out of it, the array of sonorities give life to well-painted soundscapes that live a life of their own according to a higher design made of cutting-edge technological music with a real vibe to it, a vibe you can feel even without the 2000 watts subwoofer (of course that would help the experience...).
The eclectic sound sculptures portrayed in "Night Works" make me wanna fly over there right now, but I guess I'll have to wait for my next London immersion to get down to business. The fourteen tracks went by so quickly that I had to re-listen to write a detailed review cause I was so entranced by the complex distillation. This is a truly great album indeed and I suggest ya all get down the dancefloor and break it down!

In a time where the British wave is not catching up in the US anymore (thank god for that!) somebody did make it all the way over here (strangely enough, apparently without the help of some major record company pushing it some way), and as far as I can tell, this time it's because they deserved it, as opposed to just because they dress like losers, don't shave for a couple of days in a row and plagiarize Oasis and Blur. All the way from UK and Japan, here comes Cribabi (pronounced Cry Baby): well known producer/musician Andy Cox (formerly with Fine Young Cannibals and The Beat) and Yukari Fujiu (formerly with The Groopies, besides releasing two solo records on Pony Canyon records), who, let me tell you, is nothing like your average Japanese front-girl!
Although "Volume" is not your average Chain D.L.K. material either, it is an innovative piece of art, where genre-bending eclectic funky mixtures of pop, rock, electronica, ambient, blues, trip-hop convey with the eccentricity of a great female vocalist that sings totally catchy tunes ranging from hypnotic and moody to melodic and sophisticated and that can sound like Garbage, Imbruglia, Bjork, Etheridge, Portishead and so much more... you wouldn't tell she is a Tokyo's underground gem for that matter... She went to London to work with Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and ended up eating and drinking fish and chips in a pub, studying Cockney rhyming slang and getting sonically involved with Cox in his lo-fi Studio Zero (somewhere around Covent Garden's market, where the all street artists are...). Things like that only happen in London and in New York City...
This is an extremely multifaceted and changing album where dynamism and crossovers are an every-song occurrence. You really have it all here, lots of electronics, distorted guitars, acoustic guitars, Hawaiian guitar, bass, trumpet, sitar, harmonica, gamelan, metallic and wood percussions. Of course many of these acoustic instruments may happen to be sampled, but you get the picture! Of course Cox's presence makes sure that the rhythmical body of the opera is solid, consistent and un-compromised, even when it just comes down to a shaker, an egg and a splash... Of course the most thrilling and coolest beats to me remain the dirty r'n'b-vibe samples or the fast pace drum'n'bass-driven break-beatz...
The seventish-psychedelic folding cover comes in a never before seen plastic case that looks like a wallet plus the CD comes with an appetizing Macromedia/QuickTime PC/Mac presentation of the band, also including 2 video-clips (of which one in both English and French version), a bio, pictures and a taste of other Fidela releases.
The song "I'm the One", backed with "Beautiful Mistake" (which has also been garage-remixed by Dj Bad Cop), have been choosen as Cribabi's single, also available on Fidela records.
Next time you are in London and you are walking by a lake, be on the look out for a short Jap girl with a blue-white walking toy dog that responds to the name Oishi (I know a piano player from Tokyo with the same name!)...
This is global pop for the future (hopefully! ...'cause personally I am sick of the Manchester crap of the past years!)...
PS: Look out for a Cribabi givaway on Chain D.L.K. for your chance to get a free CriBabi CD!!!