We talk on the podcast a good deal about getting long in the tooth as DJs (“Losing My Edge” doesn’t lose its own edge even after 20), but damned if we haven’t both been having a whole lot of fun behind the decks at our regularly scheduled residencies at Coffin Club in Vancouver. We’d like to think there’s a back and forth dynamic between seeking out new music specifically for ID:UD and doing the same for the club, but regardless of how you’re finding them sometimes the right tunes for the right moment are right at hand. Whether in the club or just on your headphones at work, we hope weekly Tracks posts like this offer you those moments from time to time.
Dame Area
Verttigo, “Fade Into You”
Have you ever wondered what Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You” would sound like if it were a Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me era Cure song? Wonder no more, as Edmonton’s Verttigo brings their live set staple to recorded form, a gambit that once you hear it feels totally natural but is also executed with enough class and charm (thanks in no small part to the vocal chops of vocalist Karimah) to win over in the most cynical skeptic. A band on the come up for certain, keep your eye on them.
Dame Area, “Si no es hoy cuando es”
If the last record we heard from Spain’s Dame Area saw them softening the rhythmic focus of their work for some cold and minimal wave iciness, the first taster of its forthcoming partner/sequel LP is as violent and furious as anything we’ve ever heard from them. This cut roars forward with Suicide-like synthpunk simplicity and aggression, ratcheting the hostility and violence up further and further without any catharsis or release.
Trauma Phase, “Expects”
Trauma Phase just keeps trucking along with the fifth in a series of numeronymic EPs the Polish producer has released over the past three years. Savvy, club-friendly gloss keeps being added to numbers like this, and the lines between electro, EBM, futurepop, and techno new and old continue to blur in lithe and fluid tracks like this one.
Lana Del Rabies, “Tender Creatures”
When we declared Lana Del Rabies’ Strega Beata our favourite album of 2023, it was because we felt nobody in music was making music that felt simultaneously so raw and emotionally fraught, achieving a kind of catharsis through frank self-excoriation. The smattering of new material we’ve had since continues that trend, like new single “Tender Creatures”, a wave of ugly noise sweeping through wide open reverbs, with LDR at the center, bending it to her will even as the effort bends her to the point of breaking.
Eva X, “Fiction”
New one from Eva X really highlights what we’ve been seeing from the Vancouver artist’s most recent stage shows; “Fiction” reflects a fuller, more realized version of the project, with thicker production, stronger songwriting and more of Eva X’s personal charisma showing through in recorded form. While still very much synthetic in nature, much of what we’re hearing is reminding us of the kind of full-band material that the Birthday Massacre deals in.
Louis De Tomaso, “Game Over”
Don’t tell Louis De Tomaso that the italo body music moment is over. The UK based producer’s new EP for Polari (surely the label with the best artwork going right now) is full of bright flourishes of italo, acid, circuit house, atop an EBM foundation. Should appeal to those who enjoy the Ritmo Fatale catalog and like to imagine their Civic is a Testarossa while cruising and playing tunes at sunset.
