Hey pals! You may have heard some rumblings over the weekend regarding our stage at Kinetik, and we’re here to give you the lowdown, straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. We’re pleased as punch to announce the first eight bands that will be gracing our stage at North America’s #1 industrial festival, all acts we like a lot and think will be awesome additions to what is already shaping up to be a wicked good line-up. We still have four more bands to be announced, but we’re super proud to let you know that MEND, for all the emptiness, Volt 9000, Apriorism, Gentleman Junkie, Wychdoktor, Worms of the Earth and Antigen Shift! You may know a few these acts from reading about them here and some may be entirely new to you, but rest assured, we’re planning to make sure you know exactly what you’ll be missing if you don’t make it Toronto in May 2014! Such excite! Let’s cool off by checking in with some other cool bands we enjoy, new music Mondays are go!
Early dayz: Catching Ascii Disko at the first Kinetik!
Encephalon, “Desertopolis”
Encephalon were one of the first bands we ever truly fell in love with after discovering them through the blog, so you better believe we’ve been (anxiously) waiting for something new from them. Lo and behold, Dependent’s venerable yearly label comp brings us something new from Ottawa’s finest, and boy howdy is there stuff to talk about. Matt’s vocals are diving into new territory with some harsher barks paired with his reliable singing, and the song is stylistically right in the sweet spot they’ve carved out between accessible club EBM and classic electro-industrial sounds. Hopefully there’ll be more news soon, but if you aren’t familiar, you could certainly do worse than to check out our 2011 album of the year The Transhuman Condition.
Blush Response, “America (Zex Model remix)”
We have it on good authority that homeboy Joey Blush is working on follow up to his 2013 album Tension Strategies, in between providing live keys for metal act Scar the Martyr that is. Before the door gets completely closed on 2013 he’s opted to release a few remixes via Soundcloud, including this lil’ rework by Russian industrialists Zex Model. A Soviet artist adding samples and synth squelches to a song enumerating the Great Satan’s many ridiculous flaws? Glasnost is still a thing, ladies and gents.
Nova Spire, “Incito X mg”
We introduced readers to Ottawa’s Nova Spire a couple of months back, and his new EP Atlantis also serves as an excellent showcase. Just about every track we’ve heard from this cat thus far carries its own aesthetic and genre signifiers: some super acid/funk influence on this beat-heavy EBM workout.
Aesthetic Perfection, “Big Bad Wolf”
Okay, we liked “Antibody” and “The Dark Half” okay, but it really does feel like “Big Bad Wolf” is the first time Daniel Graves has really dialed in the sound he’s been circling for a while. Think of the previous two singles as proof of concept/prototype deals and this as the production model: synthpop with a dark edge, not too far from something like Blaqk Audio say. Hate it or love it, you gotta admit this is catchy, we could hum the chorus after hearing it once, and that kind of stickyness is the key to the style.
BlakOpz, “Long Live The New Flesh”
New bouncy aggro from Arizona’s BlakOpz! Released as part of a comp/magazine type dealie DWA’s releasing, this is (we believe) the first taste we’re getting of sophomore LP As Nations Decay. Without reinventing the wheel, Blood Sweat And Fear delivered a lot of fun and it’ll be interesting to how much or how little things have changed when we check in with Alex King again.
Bartel, “Shadows”
Finally, while Bartel’s moody water-colour IDM is a little bit outside of our purview here at ID:UD, his Shadows LP has the sort of “rainforest in autumn” feel that only a fellow Vancouverite can tap into. This is slickly produced but understated stuff, and well worthy of your weekend chill-out listening as the leaves turn in Cascadia or wherever you happen to hang your hat.
