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

We are proud to present two new EPs from De Bons en Pierre, the duo of Beau Wanzer & Maoupa Mazzocchetti. Beau Wanzer spends the majority of his days sifting through paraffin embedded animal tissues and reading old issues of Fangoria, occasionally breaking his monotonous routine to record in various fits and bursts. As well as solo material, he is also in numerous projects including Streetwalker, Mutant Beat Dance, Civil Duty, and Corporate Park. Maoupa Mazzocchetti is the pseudonym of Florent Mazzocchetti, a French producer based in Brussels. His sonic vision is one which constantly straddles the line between wild experimentation and rhythmic compatibility, drawing influence from early concrète, 80′s tape scene and Birmingham school techno.

After working together on the ‘Crepes’ EP that we released in 2017, De Bons en Pierre reunited for a two day recording session in Brussels. The duo recorded 13 tracks that we’ve split across 2 EPs with 6 tracks on ‘EP No. 1’ and 7 tracks on ‘EP No. 2’. Beau says, “We hooked everything up and just pushed play. We didn’t really discuss much about the process….it was very ‘spur of the moment’.” The equipment set up included a Roland TR-808, TR-606, SH-101, CR-78, CR-8000, two Syncussions and effects. Each EP contains 25 minutes of dance floor perversions that tackle an array of rhythmic forms. Sludgy synths, serrated percussion and viscous distortion goops over leviathan rhythms.

EP / Digital Album

We are honored to release ‘Dualism’, the sophomore E.P. from contemporary Montreal-based duo, Solitary Dancer. They released an eponymously titled debut E.P. on Midland’s label Graded in late 2016 after their track ‘Desire & Apathy’ was featured in his Essential Mix. They are known for their elegant, richly-sculpted sound design and knack for propulsive club rhythms that eschew rigid 4/4 drum patterns.

‘Dualism’ opens with “Anything”, equal parts Drexciya and Dopplereffekt — full of low-end bass stabs, blipping synths; swelling and washing to a cinematic close. For the first time on a Solitary Dancer record, vocals make an appearance in the guise of a male companion who’s lamenting a lost lover. “Losing Touch” takes a classic electro beat, and through the use of elegiac pad washes, distorted bass and menacing vocals, morphs into persistently engaging shapes. The B-side’s “Emails 2 Myself” is a suspenseful corralling of intriguing sonic elements. Its fractured 707 beats combine with melancholic strings and features vocals by Marie Davidson, another core member of Montreal’s creative electronic scene. “I can’t turn off my brain”, she delivers with deadpan accuracy about head games in the age of computer communication, before harmonizing octaves into majestic elegance. Also included is the instrumental version of “Emails”, accentuating the bass drum, snare, hi-hat and melodic synth tones, sailing into the subdued evening sun of the future.

EP / Digital Album

Photonz is the alias of Marco Rodrigues a DJ, producer and driving force of Lisbon’s underground scene. For little over a decade now, he’s been crafting his own deeply personal style of Portuguese house and techno for labels such as Créme Organization, 20:20 Vision, Don’t Be Afraid, Skylax, Unknown To The Unknown and his own One Eyed Jacks. As a DJ, Photonz grew a reputation for deep crates and intensely euphoric sets and in 2017, together with Violet (co-founder at his Radio Quantica) and Lisbon’s own Rabbit Hole collective, he started the now infamous Mina parties – a monthly, sex-positive, queer and intersectional-feminist techno party aimed at using the dissociative potential of intense raving to create a temporary space of suspension away from patriarchal expectations.

Etheric Body Music is Photonz’s debut 6-track EP for Dark Entries and a simultaneous reference to hermeticism and EBM (Electronic Body Music). Marco loves that “aesthetic when 80s industrial and EBM bands split up and start to make trance in the early 90s and all the ritual magick pushes them to zen stuff and they do ecstasy.” There’s this concept in theosophy and hermetic philosophy of the Etheric Body, which is an energy body superimposed and connected to the physical body, similar to the acupuncture idea of an energetic body. That idea manifests itself as six primal club cuts, which also channel early techno, Drexciyan rhythms, balearic & old school jack. Raw arpeggiated synth lines and bass blast jut against metallic stabs and highly percussive shakedowns to create mournful atmospheric warped house.

EP / Digital Album

Reclaiming her original moniker of Kittin, electroclash pioneer – formerly known as Miss Kittin – presents Cosmos, a continuous twelve-track LP of organic, leftfield electronica. Throughout her illustrious career, Kittin has carved a considerable niche for herself, assimilating references from New Wave and 90s techno to form an inimitable sound that resonates with electronic music fans the world over. Despite being most recognizable with ‘Miss’ before it, Kittin was in fact her original artist name – the prefix often added without her consent at promoter’s will and eventually becoming the norm.

Cosmos is her most spiritual release yet, influenced by her time in the French countryside after a bout of touring exhaustion. She gives up any formulas from her past; verses/chorus, pop or club beats, to come to the essence of chords and textures, peeling away the non-essential to find joy in music yet again. In retrieving her chosen name from more than 20 years ago, Kittin also returns to the essence of her musical journey. By liberating herself from the constraints of formal structure she opens the door to a new set of aesthetics, exploring her influences without restraint. Sonically, the voice acts a central instrument, whilst the album drives continuously forward with no breaks, paying homage to her love for ambient and electronica whilst wandering calmly into the unknown. “With Cosmos everything is energy. We go back to the core with curiosity and freedom.” – Kittin

LP

Cute Heels is the solo project of Victor Lenis, a contemporary artist living in Barcelona, Spain. He grew up in Bogotá, Columbia during the 1990s, surrounded by the radial punk scene. Over the years, Victor’s passion and fascination for synthesizers and drum machines to produce and compose resulted in various digital-only releases as well as his debut album “Spiritual” for Dark Entries in 2014. Cute Heels has been called ”the new blood and spirit for the next step in techno music” by Electro/Techno pioneer Juan Atkins.

“Third Skin” is a 4-track EP that connects the dots between Detroit techno, early Chicago house and Belgium electronic body music. Inspired by equal parts Liaisons Dangereuses, Drexciya and Black Devil Disco Club. On the A-side are two fresh compositions recorded in 2015. “Third Skin” kicks things in a metallic EBM funk with a pounding bottom end. “Lipstick Information” takes the listener on a dark, psychedelic and twisted journey through thrillingly intense arpeggiations. On the flip we present two remixes. The first is from Steffi, House and Techno DJ and producer born in The Netherlands and residing in Berlin. She picks up the pace for an uplifting, percussion-driven, DAF-eque dystopian stomper. The second remix comes from Michel Amato aka The Hacker, French born DJ and producer and frequent collaborator with Miss Kittin. His early musical influences of bands such as Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle and Front 242 shine through on this pumping and sophisticated remix ready for any dance floor.

12″ / Digital Album