It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times at Terminus Isolation this past weekend. While Saturday night’s installment of the virtual fest featured some incredible acts from some of our favourite acts across the scene, it also featured more than a fair share of tech gremlins. Bandwidth issues are the blown-out monitors of 2020, we guess. In any case, it sounds like a lot of the sets were recorded for posterity’s sake and will be making their way online in smoother forms soon enough, and one already has! In case you missed it, we cannot recommend watching Seeming’s set strongly enough. It’s a tight and bracing distillation about everything that makes Alex Reed one of our favourite living musicians, regardless of style.
Celldöd
Hallowed Hearts, “Shatter”
Another teaser for the forthcoming LP Into the Fire by Hallowed Hearts, a collab of Andrew Sega (Iris) and Alex Virlios (Blue Images). Like the previous songs we’ve heard, this fits nicely into the strain of new goth-influenced darkwave that includes acts like Drab Majesty, Cold Showers and She Past Away. Deep baritone vocals, subtle electronics and some very tastefully deployed electric guitar come together on “Shatter” to deliver some smooth late night darkwave of the tragic romance variety.
Maenad Veyl, “Moving Heat”
Maenad Veyl’s Onto Duat EP was a slamming year-end treat, with Thomas Feriero grafting some classic industrial rock grind overtop his already well-hewn rhythms. New LP Reassessment looks to cast a wider net, perhaps like his debut LP Body Count. In any case, this tune in particular’s jumping out at us at a first pass, adding some spastic EBM-adjace bass to bricked out yet undeniably funky kicks.
T_ERROR 404, “Higher Source”
New beats from Moscow, given a signal boost by Emad Dabiri’s X_IMG label. Despite having released material for over a decade T_ERROR 404 is a new name to us, but X-IMG’s curation has been such that just about every tape or 12″ the label puts out merits an automatic buy from us at this point. This number sounds like it might be heading in the techno-body-music-by-numbers route but takes a sojourn into surprisingly warm and melodic territory which recalls classic dark electro more than anything else.
Dreams Burn Down, “The Way Back”
Did you check out the Caustic Grip track we posted last week? Hope so, because this week we’re featuring something from CG’s Scud Viney, specifically the new darkwave project Dreams Burn Down. If you dig Caustic Grip’s take on EBM, then hold on because DBD welds that rhythmic approach to minimal melodies, big atmospheric reverbs and clean vocals with a few compositional curveballs. It’s a very developed aesthetic for a brand new endeavour and has us intrigued to hear what else the project will have in store.
Celldöd, Infamia (feat. RADKO)
If you’re familiar with Celldöd, than you know that despite making this project’s bones in the world of techno industrial, Anders Karlsson has a lengthy history in EBM and dark electro circles. You can hear a lot of that influence on this new track – pulled from the excellent looking Drøne M3 7LW compilation – a collaboration with Italian act RADKO. Scathing textures, wounded vocals and rusty percussion add up to big atmosphere, and is the perfect antidote to the sterility of so many modern tracks in the crossover style.
Entre Mentiras, “Ultima Noche”
From Mexico, here’s a quick flurry of minimal synth instrumentation crossed over with EBM and synthpunk energy and aggression. The result? Surprisingly close to Welle:Erdball, though likely entirely by accident. Peru’s Infravox Records continues to earn their rep for not only ferreting out hitherto unknown promising acts from around the globe, but also finding acts approaching classic synth sounds from legitimately new perspectives.
