As Brixx’s second SYNTHICIDE release, the Australian-born, Berlin-based producer offers up The Psychic Tapes EP. The two new tracks are a return to her electro-EBM roots: severe and cutting for the dancefloor but with a delicate touch.

The Psychic Tapes EP captures raw, real-time recordings from psychic and tarot readings spanning nearly a decade (2013–2022). Swinging between rigidity and emotion, “Prophecy” is built upon a running, unstoppable bassline that pulsates through a fever dream. “Fate Decoder” vibrates with energy, a modulating pursuit between mysticism and a fatalistic beat.

Digital Album

“In the towering skyscrapers of downtown LA, psychologist Jennifer listens to the problems of the city’s wealthy and powerful. But despite her success, she feels a growing sense of disconnection from her clients until she meets the chanteuse, Scarlett. As their sessions progress, her infatuation with the singer intensifies and she becomes entangled in Scarlett’s hedonistic world of clubs, drugs, and sex. When Scarlett’s life comes to a tragic end, Jennifer becomes a prime suspect in the investigation.”

Brixx, the Melbourne-based producer, delivers a cinematic fantasy with her conceptual LP, “Erotomania.” The ten-track album (that includes two remixes) delves into the steamy erotic thriller genre, one where sexual prowess, desire and a flirtation with death have no bounds.

Digital Album

The Seattle-based artist Alfredo Lazaro, under the moniker Perdí La Luz, makes his SYNTHICIDE debut with the “Rusty Nail” EP. As a collection of four songs, the EP is a practice in hypnotic, sweltering grooves that merge house elements with the rigidity of EBM basslines.

Side A exemplifies this; the title track, “Rusty Nail,” is a spellbinding song that creates an alarming sense of dread with its steady beat and persistent, yet delicate, synth lines. Punctuated by the extremities of the classic industrial drum machine, the Kawai R-50e, the track reflects the psychotic inner world of Perdí La Luz as he sings, “I’m going crazy and I don’t know why.” The “Rusty Nail” remix by Texan EBM hard-hitter (and SYNTHICIDE family), Semantix, is energetic and unwavering as it adds a ferocious grit to the song’s innards.

Cassette / Digital Album

LLORA’s self-titled LP is flush with emotion. The Texas-based artist makes their SYNTHICIDE debut with nine songs that exude a spectrum of feeling: from heartbreak to mania, longing and sorrow. The album bleeds out to the genre edges of EBM and wave characteristics but is dreamlike pop at its very core—”LLORA” is the artist at their most vulnerable, a fantastical state translated into dance music.

Digital Album

Hewn from the lineage of 1980s EBM, Semantix’s “Caustic Motion” EP is a severe lesson in crunchy basslines and relentless beats from start to finish. The Dallas-based producer is known for his specific style of EBM, the kind that provokes head banging and fist swinging, will release his first SYNTHICIDE EP to coincide with the label and party’s tenth anniversary. Caustic Motion begins with “Facelift,” a track that festers in brutality: much like the cogs on a perpetually moving machine, it barrels into the bleak void. “Caustic Motion” writhes in aggression—its bassline a strict, unwavering force—while “Bootlicker” seemingly foams at the mouth, possessed by a debauched fury that cannot be restrained.

Side B begins with “Dopamine” that nods to the EBM genre’s progenitors Front Line Assembly, Leæther Strip and, more recently, the revivalist sounds of Sarin. The track simmers before ricocheting into a cataclysm of barbaric, grinding basslines. The slick agility of rising scene superstar, Alen Skanner, transforms “Dopamine” into a club ready EBM remix that builds and crashes in monumental waves. Finally, Spike Hellis’ remix of “Caustic Motion” pulls back the reins and adds a danceable, electro-tinged groove to the beat. Though it still possesses the chugging rhythm Semantix has coined, the atmospheric noise and running high hats add an icy coolness to the track’s swing.

“Caustic Motion” takes no time for pause—it’s about precision and control. The EP is not for the faint of heart but, in fact, the opposite: those calloused and broken. Those who are searching but have not yet found.

Digital Album

Fiero—the Colombian born, Бишкек-based artist—returns to SYNTHICIDE for his second EP, “Pulse Seductor.” The release will take you back in time, right into the thick of Belgium’s intoxicating mid-to-late 1980s new beat scene. “Wild Desire,” a mighty dance track (akin to the likes of “Acid Rock”’s anthemic melody), delivers punchy snares and a juicy, persistent bassline. While using the iconic “cocaine” sample, Fiero turns up the intensity with “Inhale.” Its rhythm swings and thuds towards the acidic breakdown—this is a track for peak club moments.

The only real difference between Fiero’s productions and the new beat sounds of the 1980s is the use of powerful, hammering kicks that underline the ferocity of his tracks. And “Queen of the Nile” is just that. It utilizes the classic new beat formula with vocal oohs and memorable samples—“You’ll be my slave”—as the accents whip the listener into submission. Finally, “Catching a Bid!” harkens back to the excitement of the Boccaccio dance floor with its daunting kick and overlying metallic bassline. Darlos Zeill’s remix of “Queen of the Nile” reinterprets the track into an EBM-fueled melodic rampage with acid-tinged elements. “Pulse Seductor” fits easily alongside the most evocative of Morton Sherman Bellucci hits—slick and cool, it is a true homage to the vibrant and short-lived scene.

Digital Album

Electronic body music duo from Portland, Oregon.

12″ / Digital Album

For the second round of the SYNTHICIDE split EP series, two projects merge together on a release that combine opposing perspectives on EBM music. Welcome Klack versus Inconscio Viola.

Side A boasts three tracks from the United States duo, Klack. Known for their aggressive and gritty productions (with a release on Berlin’s Detriti Records), Matt Fanale and Eric Oehler offer up bombast basslines and danceable, new beat-tinged compositions. “New Buildings” sets the mood of the split EP with its pure EBM brilliance that retains an old school mentality set to a strict beat, while “Frequency,” with its growling vocals and percussive elements, demand attention: it’s music made for stomping. Finally, the first side closes out with “Bleach White Sky” that hones in on melancholy elements that contain sorrowful synths under bellowing vocals.

Side B features the collaborative project of Italian producers Francesco Baudazzi of Violet Poison/Diana Berti (Veleno Viola) and Andrea Riberti of Unconscious (Detriti, X-IMG) under the moniker Inconscio Viola. “Rabbit on Tuesday” offers an off-kilter, tumbling bassline that is addictive in its unforgiving onslaught. It’s clear that the duo make a sensible pairing with their shared roots in vintage horror movies and nunsploitation film influences—this is especially emphasized with the final track, “The Exorcist III.” With ghostly samples and a slithering bassline, the track snakes between the recognizable aesthetics of both producers.

Digital Album

The term “industrial body funk” cannot be something used lightly—but the self-titled debut EP by Normal Bias is just that. As a collaboration by members of That Which Is Not Said (TWINS/DKA, 2MR) and Multiple Man (DKA, Fleisch), Matt Bias and Chris Normal create a humid, sleek atmosphere of dance music with a pop sensibility. As four tracks that spill over with seductive grooves, Matt’s silky vocals beckon as they slide over EBM-tinged basslines and 80s synth tones.

Normal Bias begins and ends with seduction. “Another Realm” is both mysterious and alluring as it slithers through its funky pulse, while the album’s single, “Embody Control” is charged with a tension found in Matt’s Gahan-esque singing style. The song “Kingdom Come” feels like if A Split-Second turned pop, a lush industrial production that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Finally, “Stuck in the Past” closes the EP with Matt’s croon that envelops both hysteria and melancholy—fitting, it seems, for such a duo who have separately perfected the art of weirdo dance music. And now, as a team, the synergetic productions of Normal Bias provide a distinctive sound we’ve been waiting for all these years.

Digital Album

Un Hombre Solo’s new mini-LP, Desilusion Total, is a work about the resounding sorrow of everyday life. Literally translating to “total disappointment,” the album by the New York City-based artist Fernando Jz (by way of Juarez, Mexico), continues on in the project’s theme of “loneliness and dissociation from the world.”

As a follow up to his 2021 tape release titled Rotundo Fracaso, the complexity of Desilusion Total sonically derives its brutality from classic EBM such as Leæther Strip’s 1992 Solitary Confinement LP and its fierce melodies from Alaska y Dinarma’s Deseo Carnal from 1984. “Based on self-experiences,” writes Un Hombre Solo, “the songs are lyrically written in an expressionist and not necessarily a linear way. Inspired by the work of many bands from the ‘80s Spanish Movida Madrileña—such as Alaska y Dinarama, Paralisís Permanente, and Decíma Victima (the project name comes from one of their albums)—they are presented by what appears to be two different characters, one representing the suffering and the other anger.”

The duality of characters in the Un Hombre Solo project are found within the six tracks of the mini-LP—in between the tenacity of the beat and the sorrowful synths that seemingly wail in torment. Desilusion Total begins with the song “Aportando de Nada,” which feels like an Angelo Badalamenti nightmare set to a forceful tempo. It’s followed by the album’s first single, “Oscuro y Podrido,” which is “a song that talks about being trapped in your own void.” Un Hombre Solo’s urgency in his work (especially profound in “Estoy Cansado” and “Desilusion Total”) is cauterized by the melancholy enveloped throughout the LP. “Comportamiento de Ratas” and “La Hora” cling on to the possibility of escape from the futility of the world—sadness abounds, but hope for reprieve remains in their melodic gloom.

12″ Mini-Album / Digital Album