FDS media continues with the re-issue of Contrastate's back catalogue and this "Handbags & Dada" compiles some of the band's striking live performances covering different moments in their (too short!) career. Fearlessly integrating subaquatic drones with (ironic?!?) speeches and abstract sounds, Contrastate's tone blends dry post-industrial soundscapes with a wriggling analog haze. When I first listened to their "Seven Hands Seek Nine Fingers" I thought that they are one of the great coulda-shoulda been industrial acts of the end of the 80s. Forget all the art-damaged posers or the legion of clubheads that in the 90s called their music industrial: true industrial is mind-challenging but still with a strong physical impact and Contrastate are one of the last of that aural breed. Total support for the old school.

This is the cdr sampler of this new mysterious Pharmafabrik label. The music captured here ranges from Seed's Steinklang inspired industrial to Glaxprism's IDM pastiche with some weird highlights like Richard Dunlap's quirky sonic extravaganza. From the first look at the artwork the drug factor is always evident and maybe the only point in common of the artists in this way too eclectic sampler (sorry but I don't appreciate bands, labels or in this case compilations covering so many different styles). Anyway some of those artits have a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to hear further progressions.

After meeting at the MUTEK Festival in 2002, sharing the bills on various festivals all over the world and a previous collaborative effort in 2003 along with Radbound Mens and Timeblind ("Quality Hotel" out on the Mutek label), Stephan Mathieu and Janeck Schaefer decided to spend some days together in the home of a classical composer in the English countryside and there they recorded a huge amount of material that they later reprocessed and assembled in York Music Research Center. Basically Mathieu plays all the instruments and Schaefer does all the field recordings and in most of the tracks you can recognize both artist's distinctive trademarks but sometimes the symbiosis works so well and results in a new, unorthodox glitch-psychedelia. The highlight here is the sixth track called "Quartet for Flute, Piano and Cello", where you can hear pops and crackles of a worn-out vinyl over a complex sound patchwork somehow resembling Ehlers' "Plays" series. Due to its amazing sound quality it surely sounds better through loudspeakers rather than headphones. Recommended.

Itto is the collaboration between Ian Holloway and Neil Rowling respectively from Psychic Space Invasion and Directive 4. A long drone that shifts in pitches is just a prelude for the unexpected core of the work where field recordings of various sources intertwine with a dismal guitar plucking. Maybe the only point against this one is that when you start to get comfortable with the difference it suddenly ends leaving you longing for more. Sound On An Empty Road is surely at its best when it's at its gloomiest. A good display of creative verve, worth checking out for both the Die Stadt & co. fanatics and the lovers of the darker side of the Kranky label out there.

Milan's Luca Di Mattei Aka Leeza is out on the Afe label with the new "Living on a Pixel". Slightly out-of-fashion laptop-based IDM but extremely well executed. Leeza's trademark are the keen and intricate synthlines almost recalling the ones on Bola's Soup (my all-time favourite in IDM) but there are more Autechrish ("Amber"-era) tracks like "Dav_Home" or "Phonetic Boot" that show a good display of more schizoid rhythms and breaks. "LOAP" is a record that would fit perfectly in the Skam back catalogue. A more recent reference point would be the rosters of the Toytronic and Merck labels. A well-crafted record not to be missed by IDM diehards and nostalgics.