In the 90's synthpop was trying to evolve from the Depeche Mode/Erasure sound and while some decided to include in their music a bit of e.b.m. and others were turning themselves into pop wannabe, bands like Thee Hyphen, decided to push the pedal on the icy/robotic side and produced from 1994 to 2004 four albums. Since 2021 BOREDOMproduct started a reissue campaign and in December the third one, titled "Organique", saw the light. Solo project of Celluloide's keyboardist aka Member U-0176, Thee Hyphen with "Organique" brought to electronic music fans an interesting album where he didn't care to offer classic verse/refrain songs and on some of them, see the eight minutes long "Operating System" and "External", experimented with rhythms and sounds. While the rhythmic parts could remember the e.b.m.'s energetic approach, vocals and the general atmosphere don't: bleeps, drum beats and detached vocals create a sort of isolationist synthpop which is less immediate but worth discovering. This reissue, along the nine original remastered songs, contains also four remodeled songs ("Internal", "Seeing Blind", "Dual Compound" and "Signal") which Member U-0176 recorded in 2002, when he thought to record an updated version of the album using different sounds. Personally I prefer the original takes, because I think that the "sharper" sounds used on the old version more helping creating the cold amosphere which charatcterize the album. That's a nice bonus which makes this reissue an even nicer release!

I don’t think Thurston Moore needs any introductions and that wouldn’t even be possible in a review, given that it took 650 pages of his “Sonic Life” to unravel his interests and his past life with Sonic Youth and his ex-wife Kim Gordon or his beginnings with Glenn Branca’s noise guitar orchestra in the late seventies. The new album "Flow Critical Lucidity" is the ninth of his solo career and perhaps the one that best embodies everything Moore has been musically: dissonances, exploration, tension, melodic interweaving… This time alongside him we find his new wife Radieux Radio a.k.a. Eva Prinz, who helped him write almost all the lyrics of this new album, Deb Googe of My Bloody Valentine on bass (as happened for the album By The Fire), Jon Leidecker of Negativland on electronics, James Sedwards of Nøught on piano/guitar/organ, Jem Doulton on percussion (he plays with Róisín Murphy), and Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab on backing vocals.
Flow Critical Lucidity takes its name from a verse of the single “Sans Limites” and its cover features the work “Samurai Walkman” by Jamie Nares, a helmet adorned with tuning forks. Nares (born in Great Britain) has been a longtime friend of Thurston Moore since the No Wave days in New York and the two have often collaborated artistically and musically. The work represents the sounds that are around us and that pass through us, and it is a perfect concept for a musician who has made sound exploration one of the focal points of his life. The album consists of seven pieces that I would describe as inspired. It starts with the piano and percussion of “New In Town” where the guitar dissonances create ambient tension (the lyrics also mention Minor Threat, Teen Idle, Bad Brains, Red C, Youth Brigade, GIs, and Fugazi). “Sans Limites” starts as a suite during which piano and multiple guitar arpeggios seem to duet with a slightly jazzy feel, then turns into a beautiful ballad. “Shadow” is perhaps the piece that reminded me most of Sonic Youth with those quirky chord exchanges between the guitars and bass: it is described as the continuation of “New In Town,” where the protagonist roams the places where creativity finds a home and strong bonds are created, enchanted by everything he experiences. “Hypnogram” is also a beautiful ballad with a melancholic atmosphere but with underlying tension. The drums, so far, are only hinted at, there are no gallops, it is like the slow pace of a train that leaves time to think about one’s life. “We Get High” slows the pace even more to create a psychedelic atmosphere (as suggested by the title) with guitars creating vortices to get lost in. “Rewilding” is a piece that, like the previous one, is based on the contemplation of nature and its allies (it refers to groups in England that move to restore the natural and original conditions of a territory). “The Diver” is the piece that convinced me the least: with its eight-minute length, it is the track where the guitar melody is more static. The piece is inspired by a true story of a diver lost in Lake Geneva, an event that happened while the recordings of this album were taking place in 2022. The album closes with a final reflection on life and nature. I liked "Flow Critical Lucidity" and I recommend listening to it taking the time to do so, without doing anything else…
P.S.: The vinyl version includes a flexy with an extra track, “Isadora.” This is the most “pop” track of the lot and also the most rhythmic. It is almost a mid-tempo reminding me of Dinosaur Jr and Jesus And Mary Chain. There’s even a solo!

Described as the bad twins of Stereolab (after opening for them on a European tour), the Memorials land at Fire Records with what is defined as their debut album, "Memorial Waterslides". In reality, the duo formed by Verity Susman (active with Electrelane) and Matthew Simms (member of Wire, Better Corners, It Hugs Back, Uuuu, and Fitted) has already released three records ("Music For Film: Tramps! Pt. 1", "Music For Film: Tramps! Pt. 2", and "Music For Film: Women Against The Bomb"): being soundtracks, some might not consider them on par with an album. In my personal opinion, they can very well be, given the quality of the material they contain. The music of the Memorials can be described by dividing their repertoire into three macro categories: 60s psychedelia, 60s pop, and jazz improvisation/experimentation. Each album includes more or fewer elements of these categories in varying amounts. Among all the band’s material I mentioned, I prefer "Music For Film: Tramps! Pt. 2", which limits the pop component to a minimum and gives free rein to the desire to experiment with different atmospheres, using a lot of electronics. This is a much less present factor in this "Memorial Waterslides", which starts with 60s pop ballads with some experimental turns and then, towards the end, finds its darker side. Listen to the effects used in the eight-minute-long suite “I Have Been Alive”, which are then mixed with jazzy insights in “False Landing.” The pop songs with the almost whispered female voice, which refer more to Stereolab, intrigue me less: I find the more experimental or nearly folk ones (like the final “The Politics Of Whatever”) more personal and engaging.

Three years have passed since the latest ProdutctionB's release. For 2024, they decided, after "Télévision 1945 I" and "Télévision 1945II", that it was time to dig in the Novocibirk's vault to find other treasures. This time, please welcome "The Vasarely Project". Originally released on CD-R by Boredom Product in 1997, "The Vasarely Project" contains ten analog experiments that Hervé Isar recorded in the late 80s and early 90s, here restored and remastered. These tracks have been improvised and recorded directly to tape, without changing anything and without the help of MIDI. The main track is an experiment per se: Hervé Isar converted the color codes of a paint he did into voltages sent to three different sequencers without knowing the possible outcome and the result, surprisingly, was melodically and chromatically coherent. Later, the whole set was played in front of a live audience in the Vasarely Foundation in Aix-en-Provence in September 1993 and recorded on audio tape, now available on CD, limited 12" LP and digital. Musically, if you like the first two albums surely you'll love this one as the tracks have more melodic/rhythmic changes and, generally, they sound ready to be used as Sci-Fi soundtracks. If you don't know who Novocibirsk was and what music he did, well, as I mentioned in my first review, expect echoes of Klaus Schulze, Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and Telex, or generally, all the minimal synth experimenters of the 70s... Be sure to check this out!

It was 2004 when Celluloide released their second album, ‘Words Once Said.’ Now, to celebrate its twenty-year anniversary, nine tracks have been selected to compile a special album of ‘remixes.’ To be honest, the term ‘remix’ in this context might evoke thoughts of dance versions or radical departures from the original tracks, but that’s not the case here. Instead, the tracks have been reprocessed using the original sounds, sometimes blending live background recordings with the original vocals (as seen in ‘Two Fridays A Week’), and then remastered. Four tracks were reworked back in 2003 and 2004 (‘Two Fridays A Week,’ ‘Show Me The Way,’ ‘I Stay With You,’ and ‘Syncronisiert’—the latter being a German-sung version of ‘Synchronise’ available on the German edition of the album released by Major Records). An additional five tracks were revisited in 2023 (‘This Aching Kiss,’ ‘At School,’ ‘Another Life,’ ‘Talk To Me,’ and ‘I Missed You’). The fundamental structure of the tracks remains largely unchanged, but now they can be enjoyed with a more consistent and powerful sound. If you appreciated the original album, you’ll likely find even more enjoyment in this updated version. For those unfamiliar with Celluloide’s ‘Words Once Said,’ imagine a colder take on Depeche Mode’s ‘Speak & Spell’ with a French twist. If this description doesn’t resonate, perhaps you’re reading the wrong magazine…