Dark Entries’ resident scuzzmasters De-Bons-en-Pierre return with the Card Short of a Full Deck EP, featuring six tracks of their signature sludge. In 2016, Beau Wanzer and Maoupa Mazzochetti fused forces in order to infect the world with their mutant analog strain, a noxious hybrid of 80’s DIY cassette electronics and 90’s Birmingham techno.
Card Short of a Full Deck follows 2017’s Crepes EP and 2019’s EP No. 1 and EP No. 2, all released via Dark Entries. Their latest salvo features six tracks composed for a live performance in 2019. While a damaged sense of whimsy has pervaded their previous work, Card Short sees the duo ramping up the absurdity to obscene levels. Skittering rhythms dance over ghoulish basslines and haunting, rave-evocative chords on cuts “Le Râle du Mâle Alpha” and “Puddle Points”. Elsewhere, like on “Card Short of a Full Deck” and “Accidental Surgeries”, contorted vocals battle careening synths amidst post-apocalyptic waste.
This deck’s not just short, it’s also full of jokers The sleeve for Card Short of a Full Deck was designed by Eloise Leigh, and features a punk zine xerox aesthetic with playing card motifs.
12″ EP / Digital Album
Death Domain aka Adam Stroupe is a science nerd from Baltimore and, like me, wears it as a badge of honor. His sound is undoubtedly one of the most bewildering, disorienting yet magnetic and infectious slices of downright bleak takes on synth-based dance music. A one man all-live-analog electronic ice machine (who is also behind ‘SIDS’ – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). His sound is as cryptically raw as it gets – summoning the seminal Industrial/EBM sounds of early Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy, and The Normal.
7″ / Digital Album
This year marks the tenth of collaboration for Red Axes, the Tel Aviv-based duo of Dori Sadovnik and Niv Arzi. Informed by post-punk, new wave, and a plethora of club sounds old and new, they have cleaved a singular path with their hefty discography. To celebrate their anniversary, they reunite with Dark Entries for an eponymous 11 track LP brimming with jagged guitars, spacy arpeggios, and hypnotic vocals.
Although Sadovnik and Arzi have previously released LPs on I’m A Cliche and Garzen Records, Red Axes is their first effort written and conceived of as an album-length listening experience. This work flows effortlessly through a variety of stylistic detours, highlighting their ears as both keen listeners and skilled DJs. Opener ‘They Game’ is a grooving number that unifies the psychedelia of cosmic disco with the early 90s ‘baggy’ sound. The energy mounts further with “Shelera”, a guitar-driven acidic banger, and “Sticks and Stones”, a certifiable club hit fueled by sassy vocals courtesy of Adi Bronicki. Launching Side B is “Break the Limit”, an EBM-laced number that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Razormaid compilation. The following tracks wax moodier, with “Brotherhood (Of the Misunderstanding)” touching on darkwave territory. “Udibaby” and “Arpman” close out the album with their respectively dense and sparse takes on kosmische lysergia.
Red Axes was mixed by Steve Dub and mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. The album’s artwork starkly depicts the project’s name in blood-red smear. Also included is a postcard with full credits and album art. It’s rare one finds an album that so casually challenges classification while still being firmly rooted on the dancefloor.
LP / Digital Album
We are proud to release ‘Fortunate Isolation’ the sophomore album from Borusiade. Born and raised in Bucharest, Romania, Borusiade aka Miruna Boruzescu started DJ-ing in 2002 as one of the very few female DJs in the city’s emerging alternative clubbing scene. Influenced by a classical musical education, a bachelor in film direction and fascinated by raw electronic sounds, Borusiade first combined these universes in the construction of her DJ sets and starting 2005 also in her music production. A sound of her own has slowly crystallized, often dark with poignant bass lines, obsessive themes and by all means melodic. She has released EPs on labels like Pinkman, Unterton, Cititrax, Correspondant and Cómeme, who released her debut album ‘A Body’ in 2018.
‘Fortunate Isolation’ is perhaps Borusiade’s most personal release to date. Eight songs that capture a bystander witnessing the world as it undergoes drastic changes. We have disconnected ourselves from ecology, humanity, preservation, care for what surrounds us, for what is still alive. Borusiade adds, “| know that this place, our home has went through so many other extinctions, but | believe things will find their own way on this planet only once we are gone. Entropy creates a time-line but also a transformation – a new beginning.” The album’s sound is gloomy and powerful mixing sonic film sequences, rhythmic excursions and soothing yet obsessive vocals that touch one’s deepest senses. Lyrically the songs tackle themes of forgotten memories, spirituality, mortality, and destruction. All songs have been mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.
LP / Digital Album
Dark Entries continues celebrating our 10 year anniversary with ‘Preservation Bias’, a compilation of lost songs and rarities from Linea Aspera out June 28th. The group formed in London in November 2011 by Ryan Ambridge (Synths/Programming) and Alison Lewis (Vocals/Synths). Within the duo, Alison writes and performs all vocal elements, while Ryan is responsible for producing, recording and mixing the electronics. We released their debut self titled album in June 2012 that was followed by a posthumous vinyl reissue of their tour cassette “II” on Weyrd Son Records in 2013. For all recordings Ryan utilizes an analog synthesizer set up: Roland SH-09, Roland Juno 6, Vermona DRM MKiii, Korg Poly 800 and Analogue Solutions Semblance.
Linea Aspera’s sound includes clear influences from 1980s electronic body music, synth-pop, industrial and noise. Lyrically the band incorporates the sciences of osteology, neuroscience, and anthropology weaving a new medical language around themes of desire, despair and renewal. Linea Aspera is the muscle attachment on the back of the femur and translates to ‘rough line’ in Latin. ‘Preservation Bias’ features all three songs from the limited ‘II’ tour cassette EP, four songs from the 2012 self-titled limited cassette EP and one song from the Desire Records 2013 compilation ‘And You Will Find Them In The Basement’.
LP / Digital Album
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