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10 years of musical discoveries THANK YOU!! Digital Album [free download]
The creation of ‘Chrysalis’ was a retreat from a seemingly endless string of unfortunate events, a cocoon from which Zanias could weave hope from hopelessness. In each of its eight songs she has engineered unique worlds to express alternate facets of the modern human experience, from burnout and the toxicity of capitalism to processing death and the inherent isolation of personal trauma. Written and recorded between Berlin and the rainforest of Queensland, Australia, the sound design of ‘Chrysalis’ reflects the rich biodiversity of the latter environment, where she drew much of her inspiration. Her voice shifts and morphs into ghostly, alien forms between catchy hooks that plant this album firmly in the ‘pop’ genre, without losing the underground rawness and lyrical depth for which she is known. With her third full-length album, Zanias is expressing her truest form thus far, fusing her seemingly discordant influences into a genre-defying electronic artpop, as dark and evocative as it is ethereal and uplifting.
In the year marking their 30th anniversary, The Frozen Autumn is back with a new release featuring six new songs, and its title, The Shape Of Things To Come, already hints at the topics that are the closest to the band’s heart. Leimotivs such as dreamlike visions, parallel realities, recollections of past lives, unfold between rarefied landscapes, passions immortalized in a suspended time, crepuscular atmospheres where the promise of different possible futures, if only partially revealed, is dwelling. The Shape Of Things To Come resumes the narrative from The Fellow Traveller, yet it is brought to new sound horizons, where layers of electronic sequences merge with rhythmic weaves and pulsing energies, in the unique style that’s been the trademark of the band for these last three decades.
Gegenwelt (Parallel World) is the second LP by CEL, a duo Kubin and Zemler formed. More melodically-evolved than their eponymous 2020 debut, it is an even more explicit example of the syncretic impulse that impelled these guys to form the band. Their basic notion was to explore the juncture between two streams of German underground sounds — the Motorik 4/4 rhythms first posited by Can’s Jaki Liebezeit and Kraftwerk’s Klaus Dinger, and the sequencer-driven brain loops of early, experimental pioneers of the NDW, such as der Plan.
Rozz Williams (November 6, 1963 – April 1, 1998) was born into a Christian Baptist family in California. In reaction to his strict religious upbringing, he formed Christian Death in 1979 in Los Angeles, then left his own band in 1985, leaving Valor and Gitane Demone the only masters on board, thus creating a schism among the fans that continues to this day. Fallen angel of the American death rock scene, Rozz embarked on various projects with Eva O’ (Premature Ejaculation, Shadow Project, Daucus Karota, Heltir, EXP) then released records under the name “Christian Death featuring Rozz Williams” between 1992 and 1996. We wish here to pay tribute to a great underground artist who chose an intermediate path between the glam spirit of David Bowie of the 70s and the punk energy of Iggy & The Stooges “Raw Power” era by bringing his own gay sensibility. Rozz Williams was also an underrated queer icon and a musician with a rare aesthetic of provocation. Many of us were fascinated during our youth by his musical universe. This deep sepulchral voice, of which the old goths of my generation are fond of, and a haunted poetry evocative of lost souls, are the common point of these people too sensitive to live in a world like ours. It was time to pay him the true homage he deserves. |
