After several years of intense world wide touring, the post-punk duo She Past Away returned to the studio. The haunting 2024 single İnziva stirred anticipation of the next chapter in the band’s kinetic journey. Mizantrop is the eagerly awaited seven track LP. Mizantrop is indeed a solitary and reclusive listen.

She Past Away maintains its signature atmospheric melancholic post-punk sound driven by a nimble bass motor. The somber music and wistful Turkish lyrics on Mizantrop bring forth the human condition’s darker corners. The contemplative opening track İçimdeki Düşman and the vigorous title track set the mood of introversion and reflection. Later titles Sessiz Orman, Kaygan Kayalıklar and Kuyu Mezar translate to “Silent Forest”, “Slippery Cliffs”, and “Rock Tomb”, all places evocative of isolation and loneliness, places one might visit for withdrawal and seclusion. İnziva is the self determined retreat.

Like the previous She Past Away albums Belirdi Gece (2012) and Narin Yalnızlı (2015) Mizantrop closes with an instrumental İçe Kapanış III, the most hopeful closure in the series.

LP / Digital Album

After nearly five decades of relentless innovation, Truus de Groot’s Plus Instruments project shows no signs of slowing down. The ninth album, Unnoticed, finds the dutch Pioneer diving deeper into the experimental synthesiser palette than ever before, delivering 12 tracks of minimalist, analogue noise and her signature vocals.

Cassette / Digital Album

Darkwave / post-punk band from Bologna, Italy.

CD / Digital Album

Solo synthwave project from Bilbao, Spain.

Digital Album [free download]

Ile de Garde isn’t just a clever pun paying homage to the blessed German mystic and jack-of-all-trades, Hildegarde Von Bingen. It’s the name chosen by three women freshly signed to Born Bad/ Carpaccio Cathédrale, who came bearing gifts : six synth-wave tracks based on a drum/keyboard/spoken word line-up. It won’t be for everyone, and that’s just as well.

More of a narrator than a singer, Klara Coudrais performs the lyrics, embodies characters, and puts on a show, in french and in english. Controlled and clinical anger, putting facts in order, whether it’s settling scores with some violent bloke or scrutinize a couple on the path to a breakup…Sylvia Plath meets Diamanda Galás, heckling the audience gently. It sometimes flirts with singing, with reinforcement coming up as backing vocals. We’re eager to see where it takes them.

Neither John nor Karen Carpenter, Cécile Aurégan layers synths to produce dense, enveloping soundscapes. It’s a full starter-main-dessert, but the trio has a strong stomach.

Morgane Poulain peacefully taps away at her drums, you want fills and breaks, you got it. Drums have been slightly undermixed to achieve rich colors overall on the EP, nice move. Track after track, no-frills post-post punk for your ears, with a few surprises such as « To Death”, nice plea for free dance galore when it’s the end of the world and you know it. Ile de Garde takes the floor, body-wise. Rage Blossom is a beginning, you have to be there.

LP / Digirtal Album

Words And Actions is an Italian synthwave/darkwave band currently located in Berlin, Germany. [Discogs]

Cassette / Digital Album

EMB project from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Digital Album

Solo coldwave / minimal synth / darkwave project from Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Digital Album

Bits and pieces recorded in several different locations from 2021-2023. Things forgotten by time and revisited due to a necessary data clean up.

Digital Album

A new source of minimal wave music has emerged from the concrete and wires of Warsaw. Meet the solo project At-risk. It’s the dark side of minimal wave, cold, yet strangely romantic at the same time.

Casette / Digital Album [free download]