Candida Kandinskij is a one-man-band by Giovanni De Benedetto from Udine. The project falls under the big umbrella of 'industrial rock'. On his website, Giovanni De Benedetto cites many influences, such as Nine Inch Nails, Placebo, Death in June and Einsturzende Neubauten. 'Premature' is self-released and it is a 11-track album. I have to be honest'¦this album is pretty bad. All the tracks are sloppy and boring, except for Obliquium, Dobermann and Hill. But why exactly is this album so bad? First, the rhythmic section is sloppy, uninteresting and the single sounds selected by Giovanni De Benedetto are pretty bad. I know how it is difficult to find nice drum sounds, but doing something more than the sounds of this album should be mandatory. Second, the voice. The tone is coarse, sometimes inappropriate to the music. However, one may say that such a tone could be a stylistic choice, so that my remark may sound a little bit out of the line. But there is a bigger problem with the voice: the English pronunciation. As pronunciation sounds really bad to me that I'm italian, I cannot imagine how this may be perceived by a native speaker. I think it is important to cure this aspect because the voice sounds really really botch. Synths (except for Dobermann) are badly arranged (if arranged at all), and I am also skeptical about the choice of sounds. The only decent aspect of the album are probably guitars, but this is not enough to save this piece of work. I'm afraid Candida Kandinskij has still to find its own way.

Orange Dust is a breakbeat/dnb project from Australia. The work ( 'Always under attack' released by Vermin Street) is a 6-tracks album plus a remix by Hitori Toke. The album seems, paradoxically, both a little bit wimpy and a little bit contorted. For instance there is a track ('Drive of unloving things') that is full of useless samples effected in a very messy way, and the structure of the song is completely misleading. One may say 'well, this is a feature of the genre'...but it is not the kind of messiness that you may find in, for example, Venetian Snares. I mean that it is difficult to make sense of all stop 'n' go, samples and strange rhythmic part. Another example is 'Wizard eyes' that, although it is a very good track (the melody is amazing and the voice sample is finely tailored), sometimes samples and insertions are overused and they make no sense at all. In 'Dead Broke' there are plenty of scratches and my impression is that they are out of time. But I see where the guy wants to go and actually 'Salvador and the knife' is a fantastic track, in which the messy aspects and more melodic parts are arranged finely. There are then some track a little bit wimpy. This depends on the mix, in the sense that the drum section is not captivating, although the guy has a good command of rhythm. However, drum machine does not impact on the listener as it should in this genre. I'm not a native speaker, so I don't know how to explain this concept as a native speaker would do: I say that it is not powerful. Examples are 'Moth' that, after a short intro with (I suppose) cello, it explodes in the usual dnb manner, but the drum sounds doesn't do its job. It is the same for 'Misunderstood Machine': the drum machine is quite flat and the song is pretty boring. I think there is a lot of potential in Orange Dust, because the guy has a really good command of softwares. However (in my opinion) he has to improve substantially the mix part and (just sometimes) to 'lighten' a little bit songs from samples and insertions.

Kline Coma Xero is the solo project of Tony Williams, who is member of the IDM project DRIL. This is a debut (self-titled) album produced by Medical Records, and it comes in a LP format. The project is influenced by very early industrial music, a certain kind of EBM and minimal synth/wave. One can clearly distinguish markers that date back to artists such as Front 242, Cabaret Voltaire, early Depeche Mode and Club Moral. Lyrical contents are inspired by Ballard. As music composition and instrumentation are concerned, Kline Come Xero has a peculiar philosophy. Tony Williams employs only analog synths, hardware drum-machines and hardware sequencers. Tony Williams explicitly doesn't follow the trend of contemporary electronics music that is based (especially in amateur projects) on computers, virtual synth and digital instruments in general. The quality of sounds is amazing. Tony Williams wisely manages all the knobs of his synths and he is particularly skillful in arranging layers of sounds. He is most of the time able to build a hierarchy of sounds in which all the important parts can be clearly distinguished: bass lines, leads, pads. Voices are mostly monotones but they are equalized according to the specific 'sound environment'. For instance in the first track Left Behind the voice plays a pivotal role and it is put into the foreground, whereas in Silent Call the voice is wisely lost into a layer of reverb, following the whole trend of the song. While some songs are minimal, others are more elaborated without being 'baroque'. An example is Mannequins, which hosts an interesting and complex melody. The best song of the album is by no means Darkroom in which all the layers are organized professionally. The only flaws of the album are the instrumental songs (quite useless and meaningless to tell the truth) and the rhythmic sections that sometimes (see Rewind and Photo Falling) are a little bit boring and not properly tailored to the songs. Despite these negative aspects, the debut album of Kline Come Xero is overall pretty good. I'm sure that the project has a shining future.