Chums, as much as it pains us to admit, we made a mistake the last couple of weeks in Tracks. Two mistakes actually, and while we don’t want to dwell on our fuck-ups any more than we already do, we thought it best to acknowledge that yes, we accidentally threw a couple of older songs in with the hot batch of new goodness we bring you every week. Folks weren’t shy in pointing it out, and to be honest, we feel like we let the side down a little. We promise to be more diligent in keeping Tracks features more focused on the current and very recent pass, and hope you generous readers will forgive a momentary (okay fine, two momentary) slips. New leaf starts now!
Koban's tea parties skew towards the conceptual.
Absolute Body Control, “Take A Deep Breath”
There’s oh so much to recommend Sleepless Records’ new Not So Cold compilation, with outings from Winter Severity Index, Schonwald, Inhalt, and Lola Kumtus among loads of others. But we’d be burying the lede if we didn’t tell you that things get kicked off with a new and downright funky cut from none other than Absolute Body Control. It’s been over five years since Ivens and Van Wonterghem reconvened for Shattered Illusion; hopefully this is a sign that there’s more to come.
Fixmer/McCarthy, “So Many Lies”
Techno-EBM crossover material is very au courant in 2016, which we guess makes it a perfect time for Terrence Fixmer and Douglas McCarthy to drop a new single. Fixmer’s compositions have always had some body music DNA in them, but it was in the early 2000s when he started collaborating with Nitzer Ebb frontman McCarthy that the real stylistic connection became concrete. Now some thirteen years into their collaboration they’re still making weird, whirring electro that hails from each genus, distinctive and undiluted.
Koban, “We Run Red Lights”
Koban played a show last Friday celebrating the release of their new vid, and we were lucky enough to catch the Vancouver duo’s set (along with plenty of other local luminaries). Watch the clip and get a sense of where things are headed for the moody post-punk act on their second LP, Abject Obsessions, releasing this week on Avant! Records.
Decoded Feedback, “Waiting for the Storm”
A new one from long-running Canadian electro-industrialists Decoded Feedback, whose most recent album Dark Passenger either just dropped or is just about to drop depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on. DF have always had a touch of the grandiose and imposing in their approach, and this new track would certainly seem to continue in that vein. Dig those big pads and Marco’s grave delivery. Always nice to see a deep scene act like Decoded Feedback still kicking some 20 years since their debut album was released.
mangadrive, “A Machine Known as Phantasma”
Gosh it’s hard to pin mangadrive down, especially when homeboy keeps wheedling new and interesting angles on the stuff he’s already known for. B. Teknofiend has been making high-speed trance influenced electronic music with elements of industrial and chiptune for a minute already, but his latest Botrun includes a healthy dose of synthwave and outrun in the mix. The result, as you might expect, is on some retro-futuristic Robot Jox in Thunderdome steelo. Rev up your Voltron Lion, pop this in the tape deck and ride.
Vortex Rikers, “All Dark Everything”
If I Lose You Tonight, I Lose You Forever, the new LP by German witch house producer Vortex Rikers shows just how spread out (and arguably now useless) that genre tag’s become. You’re getting everything from pure ambient to big rave-ups like this, with only a slight muffled distance (as if the party’s happening on the other side of a thin wall) to mark it. Good stuff.
