 Hailing from the UK, The World Is Getting Colder is the debut LP from Lebanon Hanover, a duo formed of William Maybelline and Larissa Iceglass.
It came out in February as the 5th release from Fabrika Record. Before that, you might have heard Kunst that appeared on Monosynth and they also released a split cassette with La Fête Triste on aufnahme + wiedergabe, in September 2011.
The first song, Die World, starts up with an harmony from Bauhaus’s classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead, to quickly bring us into the mood for the bewitching ambiance that follows up.
In its whole, Lebanon Hanover are using distorted guitars, bass guitars, sporadic synthesizers and a drum machine to create a cold and minimal aesthetic, all structured in a very shiny way. Their haunting vocals highlighted in wide reverberations, which didn’t fail to rock my guts more than once, are adding a nice touch of warmness. Mixing a bunch of efficient elements from the past into their sauce, I think Lebanon Hanover still innovated with a very distinct sound.
Just listen to Totally Tot where things are getting pretty mad with this earth shaking rhythm and deep pounding bass line. I have no doubt it is going to hit the dance floors like a ton of bricks!
The World Is Getting Colder is still available on Fabrika Records store.
 You might have heard about the Berliner duo Bloodygrave & Die Lust!, but before these synth punk rockers met in a night club and soon started playing together, they were also making music on their own.
Surprisingly, only 3 months after their latest release on Aufnahme + Wiedergabe, Die Lust! came out in December with Saga Elettrica, containing 10 songs on CDR, DIY style, on the Italian label La Statua Sommersa Produzioni. LSSP has been around since 2006, where Bloodygrave also released a demo in 2009 and Bloodygrave & Die Lust! released their first EP in 2010. As some people said, the best things in life are free, just like having sex, going skinny dipping or downloading LSSP records!
Released in December, this is already the 8th release from Die Lust! Each songs are quite different, using a very wide palette of sounds, combining different atmospheres and styles resulting in quite a crazy trip.
Colonna Sonora Per Una Poesia gently opens on a smooth and trippy ambiance, with spoken words in Italian over gorgeous synthesizer arrangements. Later in Wild As The Wind, we can hear the same Italian vocal, but singing in a very suave way on a slow tempo over some more beautiful synths.
On other songs like Trasformazione and Captain Of My Soul, we’ve got plenty of spastic electronics for lots of fun! Think of Devo meeting DAF with a touch of early Suicide. On Captain Of My Soul, one of my favorite tracks, sweet female vocals are also adding spices into the mix.
Then we’ve got instrumental tracks, like Devo and Saga Electtrica I, where the synthesizers are getting even more wicked. Hidden at the end, there is even an 11th track where the machines are totally getting out of control.
But Saga Electtrica doesn’t only contains electronics. On Arno, it gets a bit wilder with distorted guitars and a real bass over a slow rhythm for a darker outro lasting over 9 minutes, also featuring another Italian back vocal.
Saga Elettrica is definitely a wild and tangy record. It will fit perfectly for any crazy parties, as background music for having wild sex or even for going berserk, dancing alone and banging your head into the walls.
 Here’s the debut LP of HNN from France. Limited to 500 copies, it was released on October 1st by La Forme Lente.
HNN was Gregg Anthe’s solo project, until it was announced Martin Dupont joined to form a duo. The acronym stands for Hsilgne Nekorb Ni, which makes In Broken English if you read it backwards. This lead me to discover Gregg is also the singer of In Broken English, an interesting rock band with a nice touch of electronics.
Face A opens with Life X-Press, the most upbeat and pop song on the album. The rhythm then slows down with Renouveau Ordinaire, an instrumental song featuring a female vocalist humming over nice vocal pads and analog sequences, followed up by Mono, driven by an hooking bass line on top of warm strings and beautiful melodies.
Then face B starts with Iris, an instant classic and my favorite title, followed up with Exhibition, another pure instrumental synthpop tune and A Step Outside, that makes a big wink to Kraftwerk, proudly claiming its synthpop influences by borrowing the air of Computerlove.
Even if Piece Radiophonique, as its title stands, would be pretty enough to play on mainstream radios, it think it is rather dedicated for true synthpop lovers. The organic tone of the synthesizers and the elegant arrangements left me very impressed; these throbbing melodies, delightful sounds and the overall emotions are really speaking to me.
After delivering excellent pop songs, each side is nicely ending with ambient and experimental tracks, and I have a feeling the next release with Martin Dupont will be exploring new musical grounds…
You can still order Piece Monophonique on Discogs.
 This is the first release from Fabrika Records, a new label from Greece, limited to 500 copies and featuring no less than 15 artists.
I already knew some of those that have been around for a while like Dolina (France), Sickdoll & The Nuclear Shades (Berlin), Martial Canterel (NYC), Led Er Est (NYC) and Velvet Condom (Berlin); I was very glad to find more recent acts like Gertrud Stein (Germany) and Bloodygrave & Die Lust (Berlin); and I’ve been greatly surprised to discover projects like Lebanon Hanover (Berlin), Jemek Jemowit (Berlin), Die Skeletion (Germany), Human Puppets (Greece), Petra Flurr & El Modernista (Germany), Selofan (Greece), Alienphobie (Germany) and Phoenix Catscratch (Greece).
It came out on September 1st for the Drop Dead Festival in Berlin. As about half of these artists where in the lineup, I find it did well represent the spirit of this memorable event, being just as worthy of the great performances I’ve seen there. I must admit this record is now priceless to me, as the perfect souvenir I brought back from this crazy-ass-festival that I now remember like a bizarre dream I wish had never ended.
In its whole, the spirit stays on a darker note with no pop nor anything that could please the masses. Every single song I found here is right in my bag–exactly what I am digging for the most: I Can’t Dance of Gertrud Stein makes me wanna dance like a wacky man and bash everything around–the rhythm is so damn good; Du Rennst of Die Skeletion is cold as hell and using amazing soundscapes; Kunst of Lebanon Hanover is a yet simple but very efficient tune with such a pretty vocal and dreamy synth pad; Dolina added some contrast with a lovely sentimental ballad, nicely colored of spacey sounds; and Sickdoll & The Nuclear Shades brought up a track with catchy guitars aside of so many freaking weird sounds that got packed into the same mix, leaving me anxious for their long awaited album.
There is not any weak song on this compilation, but I’d say Shadows from Martial Cantarel–probably the most cited artist of the minimal wave scene–could be the weakest one, just to say how much we’ve got hot stuff here…
There is so much more to say about this release but I’ll try to talk about other gems from these individual artists in upcoming posts.
Luckily, there is still some left for sale but this shouldn’t stay very long.
 Even thought I only discovered //TENSE// last year with Sin Reality (Memory – 2010) that totally blew me away, this is already their 7th release since 2008.
What first came to my mind when discovering this Texas duo were the strong Front 242 and early Ministry influences. As I was really astonished by their work, I immediately pre-ordered this EP from Mannequin (limited to 500 copies) before it came out in April.
On the first listening, I got at a little confused as I was expecting the raw sound of Sin Reality, but I quickly grew to understand how they had evolved and I was not disappointed. To simply describe this sound evolution, the recording might be a little more polished with cleaner vocals–using different effects–and a cleaner sound in general. That said, the marginal madness and energy is still authentic while the whole record was made with some kind of futuristic esthetic.
The first song starts off with the sample of a man getting diagnosed by a psychiatrist saying: « So your official diagnostic is schizophrenic psychosis »–a common consequence of hard drug abuse–and the poor guy goes «No, it can’t be ». This introduction is a good representation of the global theme with lyrics expressing a fear of society, paranoia, social isolation and subliminal suggestions of recreational drugs usage.
I especially enjoyed the Pulse Beat lyrics, treating of an evil side of today’s internet connectivity. Nowadays, as we can see the masses heavily using social networks owned by private corporations without thinking any further about the inherent ethical issues, we can at least say these lyrics were not based on irrational fears after recently seeing social networks turning into public hubs of mutual surveillance, sadly reminding us of Orwell’s fiction. As some already said regarding Phillip K. Dick masterwork: paranoia is a gift.
Unmanned Cars is perfectly ending the album with an ambient song using smooth soundscapes with terrific effects, leaving me dreaming of dystopic science fiction scenes…
This is an excellent release that should please many EBM fans as well as other electronic music lovers out there. I am surprise to see it is not sold out already!
|
