The Book of Flowers is the new project of singer/songwriter and DKA co-founder J.A. Ford. Long-time DKA fans will be familiar with Ford’s work with the EBM/synthpop project Tifaret which featured on the first and second volumes of the DKA label compilations “Strategies Against the Body”. Ford struggled writing songs for a proposed full-length Tifaret record, and felt unable to fully express himself through traditional sequencer-based electronic music. Out of frustration, Ford taught himself acoustic guitar fingerpicking as a new songwriting tool during the initial COVID lockdown and focused on the more traditional songwriting forms present in American folk and country music. The resulting album, “Pastels”, was recorded in Fall 2021 in Ford’s home studio, and furthered the folk connection with inspiration from British folklore and horror films such as The Wicker Man and Midsommar.
Ford envisioned “Pastels” as feeling pastoral yet menacing, exploring themes of the supernatural and the strange as well as the natural and sensual. Pastels features Ford stretching out beyond the confines of Tifaret to incorporate elements of American and British folk, psychedelia, dreampop, post-punk, and krautrock.
The Book of Flowers’ debut album “Pastels” draws from Ford’s love of acid folk, mellotrons, and modular synthesizers to create a shifting tapestry of sounds evocative of a diverse set of artists including Current 93, Nick Cave, Amon Düül, Espers, Magnetic Fields, Silver Apples, Brian Eno, and Young Marble Giants.
Cassette / Digital Album
A dark, electronic and synth wave album, atmospheric or furiously danceable, resulting from a unique collaboration between three artists: Latvian poet Sergej Timofejev, Russian experimental electronic composer OID and synth wave artist and musician Stereovoid (Peine Perdue, La Chatte). Handmade record sleeves by Stereovoid, silk-screened in black and gold, laser-cut or painted PVC sleeves, 220 copies all unique. Or 19 Collector unique Sculpture-records. Each record comes with a booklet with the texts of the poems in Russian translated in English and French.
LP / Digital Album
The essence of Dame Area – the project of Barcelona-based duo Silvia Kostance and Viktor L. Crux – is formidable, volatile, unpredictable. Across two albums and several EPs, Dame Area have executed an eclectic, discerning form of contemporary industrial music, deploying compulsive minimal synth and primal polyrhythms, as well as uniquely reconstrued elements of post-punk & EBM. An artistic identity that embraces influence yet eschews compromise.
Upholding the assaultive intensity of their renowned live shows, Dame Area’s third album ‘Toda la mentira sobre Dame Area’ / ‘All the Lies about Dame Area’ nevertheless discloses unexpected developments, a work distinguished by innovation and classicism, discordance and melodicism, the grit of a basement club and the gleam of a radical discotheque. The first of two twin LPs, ‘Toda la mentira sobre Dame Area’ illustrates one world within the wider universe of Dame Area, an album of paradox, which finds the duo at their most explicit and emphatic, but which also sees them detour, into some of their most experimental material to date. Across eight tracks, Dame Area assert an original, seductive idea of pop, laced with avant-garde subversion.
Gridlocked minimal synth mechanics are riven with insurgent noise and dub echoes on ‘La Nueva Era’ (‘The New Era’) while the fierce hedonism of ‘Innamorata del tuo Controllo’ (‘In Love with your Control’) evokes striking alternative histories; Gino Soccio meets Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, the Italo years of Liaisons Dangereuses, Nitzer Ebb reworked by Bobby O. Conversely, the disarming finale ‘A volte me sembra’ (‘Sometimes it seems to me’) is dreamlike and winsome, the sound of an auspicious horizon, hitting the sweet spot somewhere between Chris & Cosey’s ‘October Love Song’, the Dorothy ‘I Confess’ 7” on Industrial Records, as well as the finer moments of Martin Dupont and early Human League. Yet throughout these highlights and beyond, Dame Area establish their own voice, as vivid derivation becomes transformation and inspirations are redefined.
Dame Area have been accurately described as purveyors of combat music – ‘Música de lucha’ – rather than producers of dance music. This holds true on ‘All the Lies about Dame Area’. However, their sense of contention here is expansive and dynamic. ‘All the Lies about Dame Area’ is a record of tension and surprise, where the distinction between melody and abstraction is thrillingly undetermined. A provocative record for the here and now, which proves Dame Area are never easily contained.
LP / Digital Album
FTR is a shoegaze / post-punk trio based in Paris, France.
LP / Digital Album
Couleur Brique, third album released by Born Bad for one-man-operation Usé, opens with a coughing fit spurting on a piano, while a guitar gently dies in the back of a hangar. The connoisseur will rekindle fond memories of his underground hit “ampheta-amphéta- amphétamine”, this time to warn us about the “chef d’é, chef d’é, chef d’é-tat”. We won’t know what he had to spit about to the president, but he’s got some left on his trousers.
Usé literally punches songs, beating the snare drum to celebrate a lover that bites and claws. It’s mostly about boy-meets-girl and tough love in these seven romances that taste like beer chasing uppers, and end up in the back of a van.
Praise be, to the melodic effort, supported by layers of sharp and bitter synths, and a straightforward vocal performance. It’s a ride in forsaken land, beer in hand, documenting horny guys at the fun fair, late evenings in a shabby pub, and dirty sheets. Here and there, when least expected, flashes of unpretentious drunken wisdom hit the spot.
The record is fueled by the broken drummer’s energy, but also a verified writing effort. Those songs will be sung, bonded in the wastelands, to fight against buzzkill.
Once active in local politics, Nicolas Belvalette settled down for acting, recently starring in “Tout fout le camp” where he plays his own role. But he’s at his best on his turf, small rooms and scroungy festivals, where the great romantic weirdo spits on his tits, crawling under a raving audience. You’ll have to buy the record if you want to get the lyrics, because at a gig, it’s hard to follow when you’re busy figuring out whether it’s sweat, piss or beer that’s connecting you to your neighbor.
A fine collection of autumn tunes to get wasted, start a bar fight with new friends, and fall asleep on the counter with no shame.
LP / CD / Digital Album
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