Is it really Terminus time already? Seems like just last year we were banging around Calgary, watching hella bands from Our Thing and enjoying the community that has risen around the now venerable Canadian festival. Will you be there? If so, come and join the Senior Staff at our annual beer get together on Sunday the 28th. We’d love to say hello, share a brew and a chat with y’all. With days left on the countdown clock, lets check in on this edition of Tracks.

Sixth June in July

Sixth June, “In Dreams
The last LP proper from Berlin’s Sixth June was a slow-burn masterpiece – Virgo Rising‘s twilight darkwave and impeccably tasteful grooves proved irresistible to us at the HQ and on club floors. After some side and archival work, Laslo Antal and Lidija Andonov are returning with Virgo Rising‘s follow-up, Trust this fall, and have a video up for the first taste of it, “In Dreams”. An elegant and slowly emerging piece, it frames Andonov’s vocals in lush darkwave pads and summery beats and seems to carry the duo’s urbane elegance forward.

Hello Moth & Glass Apple Bonzai, “Lucid Dream (Mothmix)”
One of our absolute favourite songs from last year was Hello Moth & Glass Apple Bonzai’s electro-pop anthem “Lucid Dream”, an inspirational bit of make-out fodder (seriously, check the video) that highlighted the strengths of each artist. Turns out there’s a new remix EP on the horizon, featuring the original, and new mixes like this one from Hello Moth themselves. Adding some funky synth soul touches to the original’s melancholic melody works beautifully and reminds us just how many times we listened to the original cut. Hint: it was a lot of times, and we’re happy to have new versions to binge on.

Silent EM, “Wraith”
New York’s Silent EM (aka Jean Lorenzo) have been around for a couple of years, popping up with both self-releases and working with labels like Detriti. New record The Absence comes to us courtesy of New Orleans’ Disko Obscura, and the record fits perfectly into that label’s dark underground synth music mandate: pulsing synths and drums, menacing vocals and shimmering leads in a modern darkwave style that touches the 80s without being a boring retread. Nice full-bodied production work from Inhalt’s Matia Simovich and an impressive video for “Wraith” that highlights the rare sight of an empty New York are just the icing on this particularly cake.

Night Sins, “Annihilator”
Night Sins’ third LP was a textbook exercise in pure goth rock, taking the moody post-punk of their early work to its most formalist and fog-laden conclusion. But if “Annihilator” is representative of it, forthcoming LP Portrait In Silver will be a radical departure. Guitars (Gary Marx-like or otherwise) are scuttled for the sake of pure body music grooves, straddling the EBM/dark synthpop boundary. Will we get a full record of club-styled numbers like this, or some combination of dancefloor concerns and classic goth rock? We’ll keep you posted.

Krate, “Confidence Man (feat. Cardinal Noire)”
Scene stalwart Chris Shortt returns to original music with new collaborative project Krate, whose debut Swarm of Voices is available now via audiotrauma. Produced in collaboration with Roland Zwaga (Acidrodent, Construct), the record was originally intended to be a more ambient and textured affair; the addition of rhythms and electro touches in the programming led the duo to seek further collaborators, including Cardinal Noire, Corlyx, Monolog and Ectasphere amongst others. Check the embedded track below for a taste of pitch black dark electro in a pleasantly modern style.

Angels Of Liberty, “Son Of The Serpent”
Speaking of pure goth rock, it simply doesn’t get any purer than Angels Of Liberty. The duo of hardcore UK traditionalists cleaved to an unapologetically classic style of goth rock for the duration of their tenure, which was sadly cut short by the passing of Voe Saint-Clare two years ago. A posthumous release of music Saint-Clare and partner Scarlet Powers were working on before his passing’s just come out on Secret Sin Records, and tunes like this show just how committed to his native aesthetic Saint-Clare remained until death.