The ID:UD team had radically different Canada Day long weekends. Bruce played it chill by listening to neoclassical records while working through the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests in Skyrim; Alex, on the other hand, went into a DJ frenzy, playing a couple of massive gigs for Van City’s Restricted Entertainment, with all the tomfoolery, questionable decision making and potential liver damage that entails. In any event, we both closed the whole thing off by checking out the El-P show last night (sadly, no guest appearances from Zola Jesus were to be had), but still got our ducks in a row in time to bring you half a dozen new tracks. Enjoy!

Like all acts with an italo influence, Gatekeeper keep their mustache game strong.

Gatekeeper, “Tree Drum (Pre-Gen Exo Mix)”
Everything we’ve heard from Gatekeeper’s long-awaited debut LP has been a radical departure from the instantly arresting blend of dark electro and classic synthesizer soundscapes they dropped on their Optimus Maximus and Giza EPs. Exo seems to be an entirely different beast, far more impressionistic and structurally experimental. Perhaps the video game being released with the record will clear up matters somewhat, but in the meantime, here’s a moody and squelchy take on one of its tracks.

To Travel Without Any Certain Destination, “By No Means (Of Transportation) Necessary”
It’s an exciting time for our pals at Signifier. They’ve just announced the release of the first new Antigen Shift record in six years (with Jairus from Ad·ver·sary joining Nick at the decks), as well as a collaborative record from Pedro Peñas Robles of HIV+ and Anthon Shield Usher of Norma Loy (cannot wait to hear what that’ll sound like). They’ve also recently released a cool LP by Manos Chrisovergis’ (Libido Formandi, Last Days of S.E.X.) new project, full of dusty, breaky tracks like this. Give it a listen!

In Death It Ends, “Evoke”
Dayum. We’ve been tracking and chatting about Porl King’s (miserylab, Rosetta Stone) new side project a fair bit, but the sound of this cut from In Death It Ends’ first LP is not at all what we’d expected. A brooding, heavy face-kicker, it bears a nice resemblance to The Soft Moon and just generally rocks our socks. Also, hooking up with Aufnahme Und Wiedergabe, home of some of the best and most forward-thinking young dark acts (Die Selektion, Lebanon Hanover, La Fete Triste), is a savvy move by Porl. Can’t wait to sink our teeth into the full release in more detail. (Wait, he’s already got another EP on the docket? Slow down, old son!)

The Pain Machinery feat. Robert Lane of //TENSE//, “There Will be Blood”
We’re camped out by our respective mailboxes anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new LP (on fancy blue vinyl even) from SwEBM mainstays The Pain Machinery. Although we’ve avoided the temptation to check out the whole thing on Bandcamp while we wait, we couldn’t resist checking out the collab the TPM boys did with Robert Lane of //TENSE//, and hoo boy is it hitting the spot. The Pain Machinery have been blending classic EBM and acid sounds effectively for a minute now, and if the rest of the album sounds like this we won’t complain. Hurry up mailman!

Ikon, “Azkadelia”
We were just listening to some Ikon the other day and chatting about what a shame it is that their classic 90s darkwave album This Quiet Earth has gone out of print. Speak of the Australian devils and they shall appear apparently, the band have released a video for their forthcoming single “Azkadelia” and if you’re in the mood for some classic goth rock in the second wave style it should set you right. Consistency, thy name is Ikon; these cats have been at it for over two decades and haven’t slowed down at all in that time, we’ll always give whatever they’re up to a listen.

Attrition, “The Head of Gabriel (XP8 remix)”
It was super hard to pick a song to feature from the recent CRL Studios 3 volume compilation The Third Wavelength. After all, between each of the volumes (“Life”, “Motion”, “Death”) it features plenty of notables including *deep breath* Known Rebel, Society Burning, Access to Arasaka, Displacer, Anklebiter, Millipede, end.user, NXV, Lexincrypt, iVardensphere, Psykkle, C/A/T, Tokee, Torrent Vaccine, Virtual Terrorist, Psykkle and basically a million other groups. Did we mention it’s a pay by donation deal? Y’all should get on that, and while you do, enjoy what happens when Marco & Marko massively modify Martin (Bowes) with a mesmeric makeover.

If you know of any cool new songs or records we should be up on, leave ’em in the comments or hit us up at contact@idieyoudie.com!