Hey y’all. It’s sweaty as fuck up in the HQ, and while another cleverer writer might use that as a segue into talking about having some “hot” new songs to share, or some “icy” brooding material to cool us down, but we’re just not that clever. Metaphors are a beast f’real. How about we skip the formalities and note that this is a particularly good week for trad scene stuff of a few different stripes, and we hope that you will give each song a quick one two as you start your week. Off we go, another edition of Track is ready to jump off.
Didier from Liquid Newt got that brooding down pat
Human Performance Lab, “Acetone”
The new Self-Aware comp from Berlin’s X-IMG label looks to be absolute fire. Representing the new wave of Deutsch-Nordamerikanisch freundschaft we’re seeing across techno, EBM, and new beat frequencies, you’re getting cuts from Dolgener, Halv Dröm, SΛRIN, and Human Performance Lab amongst others. Icy, hypnotic, and as dirty as a porno theater bathroom, this tune from the latter is a filthy gem.
Coldkill, “Invisible”
Not content just with whupping cancer’s ass, your boy Rexx Arkana’s been forging ahead in realizing his long-latent synthpop ambitions with Coldkill, his project with Interface’s Eric Elredge. The duo’s second single just dropped, with a remix from Dan Gatto to sweeten the deal. There’s a hint of the bricked out funk of “Boiling Boy” here, but it’s cool to hear Rexx finding his way to a new vocal style that’s all his own.
Boar Alarm, “Discontent”
Swedish EBM/noise maven (and temporary Vancouverite) Fredrik Djurfeldt has his fingers in an awful lot of pies these days. Not content with splitting time between Severe Illusion and Analfabetism, he’s launched a new project, Boar Alarm. Details are sketchy at the moment, but this first taster suggests we’re going to be getting slow and grinding rhythms which should appeal to fans of Dive.
Out Out, “Look Up, Hannah!”
If you came up in the nineties the name Out Out is probably at least a little familiar to you; the long-running industrial project of Mark Alan Miller was active through the decade and were an early Metropolis roster acts. Although they’ve released three albums since the turn of the millenium, “Look Up, Hannah” is the first new music is roughly 8 years, a solid slice of guitar accented electro-industrial in the classic American style. Artoffact will release the new LP Swan/Dive? later this year, an unexpected but not unwelcome return.
Controlled Collapse, “Lust (Decoded Feedback remix)”
Controlled Collapse’s 2013 LP Babel was a lot of fun if you dig on dark electro executed by and for devotees. We only have this remix of their new single “Lust” by Decoded Feedback to go by, but we’d be willing to guess not much has changed in the last three years: this is still music that sounds dedicated to classic genre enthusiasts, albeit with a nice modern sheen on the programming.
Liquid Newt and Frank M. Spinath, “Walk With Scars”
Hard to believe something new with ol’ Professor Frank on the mic has been out this long without us posting it, but here we are. Almost a whole month has passed since Liquid Newt (aka Diskonnekted keyboardist Didier Salvatore) released this really chill number as a debut single: a nice clean synth vehicle for Spinath to deliver one of his trademark emotional performances. We’d listen to a whole album of stuff in this vein, such is our love for pretty much anything FMS does. Hook us up please.
