Manic Depression Records: Dead – Voices

Dead - Voices

What more can you say about a band called DEAD that hasn’t already been made abundantly clear at first glance? The fact that these French mercenaries of noise can conjure up such a powerfully dark aesthetic before even hitting a note is impressive, but when they finally do, they unleash a far more potent beast entirely. If DEAD aren’t already mapping out the future destruction of the planet, they’ve sure as hell written the soundtrack.

Bleak, confrontational, but with a firm command of rhythm and deep grooves, this might be the dancefloor antidote we’ve been waiting for.

Digipak and vinyl edition.

Posted on July 6th, 2016 under Releases, ,

Manic Depression Records: Bootblacks – Veins

Bootblacks - Veins

Since the group’s founding in 2010, Brooklyn-based Bootblacks’ sound has been described as a balance of contradictions: both pensive and buoyant, referential and modern. Fitting, as the Bootblacks name is derived from novelist William Burroughs’ description of the dark underbelly of glitzy New York City.

Vocalist and frontman Panther MacDonald lists an eclectic set of influences: Depeche Mode, New Order, Simple Minds, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division, early U2, as well as the Beatles and David Bowie for lyrical inspiration.

Bootblacks released their first EP, Narrowed, in the fall of 2012, recorded with Brian Scott Herman, after previously collaborating with Jim Sclavunos (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds). Songwriters MacDonald and Gorman describe the collaboration with Sclavunos as a “life-changing” one that informs Bootblacks’ music to this day.

Panther describes Veins, the newly-completed Bootblacks album, as the most recent step in the band’s evolution from punk to post-punk. Fans can expect a more textured, atmospheric and “bigger-sounding” Bootblacks than before.

Listen and download here.

Posted on May 9th, 2016 under Releases, ,

Manic Depression Records: The Spoiled – Ironshell EP

The Spoiled - Ironshell

The Spoiled is an Italian solo project founded in late 2015 by main producer, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Giovanni Santolla. Its musical framework is a mosaic of darkwave, noise rock, dark ambient and industrial combined with a deep love for surrealist and horror movies and Decadent literature.

Glacial drum machines, tribal percussions, chorused basses, distorted synths and ethereal vocals portray a claustrophobic yet melancholic journey through the deepest and darkest feelings of human being.

Listen and download here.

Posted on March 8th, 2016 under Releases, ,

Manic Depression Records: Ascetic – Everything Is Becoming

Ascetic - Everything Is Becoming

Ascetic is the post-punk project of Saxon Jörgensen, August Skipper and Andrew Jigalin from Melbourne, Australia, now located in Berlin, Germany.

Second album ‘EVERYTHING IS BECOMING’ is the distillation of a slowly evolved sound stemming from the long writing collaboration between Jörgensen and Skipper, a carefully collated sonic vocabulary that along with the main instrumentation of guitar, bass, voice and electronic drums, includes found sounds, voice memos, field recordings, sampled synths and resampled guitars woven into the texture of the record, lyrics that embody a poetic restraint in exploring what it is to be human in a moment in history through both darkness and redemption.

Listen and order here.

Posted on March 2nd, 2016 under Releases, ,

Manic Depression Records: Schonwald – Between Parallel Lights

Schonwald - Between Parallel Lights

Formed in 2009, the Italian duo crossed Europe in every way to deliver its ethereal and sensual post-punk, all in hypnotic, minimalist, strained atmospheres.

After 2 LPs sold out within months, Schonwald returns this fall with its third album “Between Parallel Lights”. We hear echoes of noisy Suicide, and synthetic melodies of the great 80s New Order. Beyond the darkwave, Schonwald invites us to dance dark.

Listen and order here.

Posted on January 6th, 2016 under Releases, ,