Morning, gang! Hope our fellow Canadians had a solid Canada Day, and more salient to this site, I hope our fellow Terminus goers are home safe and feeling at least half as sated and elated by the whole weekend as I am. We’ll probably do a more detailed breakdown shortly, but thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone involved on the organizational end: Chris and the crew at Dickens went above and beyond, even going so far as to ferry a couple of stinky, glorified jukeboxes like Alex and myself to and from the airport, and staying rad even when one of us (okay, me) forgot to pay his tab on the first night. There were far too many amazing performances to enumerate here (again, details forthcoming), but suffice it to say most attendees had their minds blown by at least one band they weren’t super familiar with before, and that’s what these whole affairs should be (in part) about. To friends new and old, some of whom we’ve come to know through our work here and got to meet in person for the first time this weekend, we love you, we miss you already, and we hope to see you all next year in Calgary or Montreal, or (Nyarlathotep willing) both. Onward!
Principe Valiente, “Take Me With You”
Longtime readers may remember I found some promise in this Swedish outfit’s blend of dark post-punk and modern radio polish. This is shifting a bit more towards the latter than I usually skew, but it’s a solid tune, and perhaps tighter than their first work. Will keep an ear open for the sophomore effort…
Die Selektion, “Gottes Wille”
Berlin’s Die Selektion have been cranking out gold tunes like this (from a forthcoming white 7″) at such a heavy clip for the past few years that it’s downright frightening to think of how young they still are. They’re slowly but surely finding new ways to refine and add to their (pretty characteristic at this point) sound. Europe has figured out how rad horns over dark dance beats are; time to join the party, North America. Do you need an adorable photo of them with Rummelsnuff? Fine.
Jenn Vix & Dirk Ivens, “Burn”
Gothy minimal wave from a Providence artist who’s flown under our radar thus far despite having several releases. You’d think that collabing with Dirk on this new two-track, as well as Reeves freakin’ Gabrels previously, and being from HPL’s home turf would have alerted me to Vix’s work via oscillations in the aether before now, but I’m making up for lost time. While not as aggro as the A-side (“Fuck, Rinse, Repeat”), I like how the solemn tone on this tune allows the natural differences between Vix and Ivens’ voices to take the spotlight.
ѦPѺLLYѺN’S ▼ISѦGE, “Esoteric Order Of Dagon”
Hey, more Lovecraft references! (I swear I didn’t plan this.) Given that we were just in the anonymous duo of Ѧ▼’s native Alberta, who’s to say that they weren’t lurking somewhere behind us while we were getting out ultra-slow headbang on to ∆AIMON? Okay: yes, we actually do know who is behind this scraping new project, yes, they were there, no, I’m not telling, that only saps their eldritch power. Don’t blame me: I don’t make the rules about oc/cult acts.
