Privet tovarisch! Just one week from the three year anniversary of this site, and we’re as busy as we’ve ever been listening to records, digging up new songs for these Tracks posts, setting up interviews and otherwise keeping the ball rolling in the HQ. We’ll be taking off Friday this week to head to Terminus in Calgary, and next Tuesday to celebrate Canada Day (okay fine, to drink beer and watch 80s wrestling cards on the internet) but we will have a special anniversario post up for Monday on ID:UD’s actual birthday. In the meantime, rest assured that we have a bunch of fresh content for your eyes and earholes, starting with the songs below.
Esoteric as all hell
Mr.Kitty, “Black Truth”
Out of the friggin’ blue (well okay, there was a hint on our last podcast), it turns out Mr.Kitty has a whole album of new material dropping July 8th via our pals across the pond at Juggernaut Music Group. With the recently re-released version of last year’s Life still making the rounds and the upcoming tour with Alter Der Ruine to kick off after both projects rock Terminus Festival this week we aren’t sure when or if this train is gonna stop or even slow down. The vibe on this number is somewhat indicative of the style of the new tracks, a little darker, a little more synthwave influence. If you’re a fan of MK you should def get on the pre-order for the limited CD, at only 200 copies it’s instantly in danger of selling out.
Spark!, “Mittsommernacht (feat. Blitzmaschine)”
After some breakup/dissolution/reactivation confusion, it sounds as though we’re still on pace for another record of hard-hitting yet pop-friendly EBM from Swedish ultras Spark! later this year. Mattias Ziessow timed the release of the first taste just perfectly, offering up this ode to Sweden’s midsummer night festivities. We’re sure there are all manner of cultural gags and in-jokes being made at Swedes’ own expense in this vid, but we just have to take it at face value and assume that such ribald festivities which straddle the modern and traditional are par for the course. Skol.
Kevorkian Death Cycle, “Distorted Religion”
Another band we’ll be seeing this weekend is venerable American electro-industrial outfit Kevorkian Death Cycle, who have conveniently just released a new single this last week. As much as we enjoy KDC’s balls-out full of rockers (here’s hoping we get “Death to the Flesh” in the setlist) we’re feeling the menacing tempo and mechanized grooves on “Distorted Memory”, probably doesn’t hurt that it was mixed by Ken “HiWatt” Marshall, a name synonymous with industrial-records-that-sound-good. Solid stuff that presages new album I Am God, presumably a follow-up to last year’s solid God Am I.
Automelodi, “Lendemain acide no2”
Montreal’s Automelodi do coldwave right, just like their French predecessors. Plenty of End of Data vibes on this hushed yet swinging tune, which appears on a comp featuring several of our other favourites (Silent Servant, Soft Metals, Cosmetics).
Click Click, “Rats in My Bed”
We haven’t yet had the opportunity to check out the new album Those Nervous Surgeons from long-running Brit EBM project Click Click, although this single has certainly piqued our interest. This actually plays as something of a callback to CC classic “Yakutsa” in some ways, a simple arrangement of bass and drums supplemented with ghostly fanfare, but given a modern production twist and a video heavy on the animal rights themes we love so well. Have to make a point of hearing this LP, like Portion Control they’re a living connection to more than one era of this music, and it’s always interesting to note how they’ve both changed and stayed true to their sound a few decades on.
Celldöd, “Pulsdisco 1.2 (Dirty House Mix)”
Extra-strength instrumental acid and EBM styles courtesy of friend Anders Karlsson of The Pain Machinery fame! This is the kind of deep genre exploration we can get behind, reaching back into the history of body music to explore the area where techno and Our Thing were still total sweethearts. Recommended for those feeling the recent releases from Haujobb’s Basic Unit Productions and those who enjoy a little pulsed-up meanness in their disco.
Spirit Horse, “Oh Shapeshifter”
This is maybe a little bit out of our wheelhouse, but our boy Brandon Muir’s a little bit out of everyone’s wheelhouse, as a quick perusal of his growing portfolio of seriously fucked up original animated gifs indicates. On a druggy ambient trip which should appeal to fans of Coil and Fostercare alike, this woozy bit of hypnagogia is a good nightcap for summer nights.
