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Following the hibernation of nskstate.com, welcome to sonocentric redux. Old articles from the nskstate version will gradually appear here along with new material.

2008 Selection

[First published on nskstate.com/sonocentric, original post date retained]

Ancient Methods – Second Method (Ancient Methods)
Berlin dub techno with heavy, crypto-industrial textures.

Antichild League – The Father (Hagshadow)
Unexpectedly atmospheric, heavily textured misanthropic noise.

Autechre – Quaristice (Warp)
Not uniformly excellent but there will still enough fresh-sounding tracks to make this a welcome return.

Autopsia – Radical Machines, Night Landscapes (Illuminating Technologies)
A really surprising and impressive development of the Autopsia sound, moving further into austere modernist textures while flirting with harsh breakcore textures. The perfect soundtrack to imperfect times.

Gas – Nah und Fern (Kompakt)
All the Gas albums re-mastered and re-presented. Monumental Teutonic classical disco ambience.

Geistform – Pro Analogic (Hands)
Another welcome return, one of several excellent Hands releases this year.

Interrference – Lost Minds 2 (Atlantikwall)
Vinyl-only Den Haag acid techno re-release madness: too much is never enough!

Maschinenkrieger KR52 vs. Disraptor - Audio-Phobie (Hands)
Brutally efficient rhythm and noise release. Well worth seeing live.

Miss Kittin – Batbox (Nobody's Bizzness)
A much stronger and more charming record than I.Com with a few real electropop classics.

Mono No Aware – Ketoujin (Hands)
Dynamic, severe and exhilarating.

MS Gentur – Final Chapter (Hands)
Following the first live shows in a long time MS Gentur delivers a suitably ferocious sign-off.

Portishead – Third (Island)
Perhaps their bleakest but also most dynamic work. At times Swans-like, a real revelation.

Satori – Kanashibari (Cold Spring)
CD issue of the previously Japanese vinyl-only release. Nightmarish, harshly textured dark ambient.

Severed Heads - Adenoids 1977-1985 (Vinyl on Demand)
Some of the earliest and darkest material by the Australian legends, much of it sounding far ahead of its time. If you only know their later electropop this will be a revelation.

X-102 Rediscovers the Rings of Saturn (Tresor)
The 1992 dark Detroit techno classic re-mastered and extended.

V/A – Wilde Jaeger (Percht)
Yes, it’s Neofolk!, the style self-appointed censors believe they can prove their worthiness by attempting to suppress. Extensive survey of the scene released in a lavish package. More consistent than many compilations of the controversial style with interesting responses to the theme of Alpine rituals. Some excellent and surprising music to be found amongst more average tracks. For anyone capable of listening to music and retaining their own political perspective.

Live Review: Oramics The Life and Work of Daphne Oram. Purcell Room, London. 27/6/2008.

[First published on nskstate.com/sonocentric, original post date retained]

This curious event was motivated by a worthy intention: to redress the relative obscurity surrounding Daphne Oram, a co-founder of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop described in the programme as ‘one of the unsung musical heroines of our time’.

Technologically and aesthetically, Oram is an almost ‘pre-historic’ figure whose covert influence or antecedence haunts much electronic music from the eighties onwards. As my friend pointed out, some of the percussive sequences that unfolded resembled the work of Esplendor Geometrico, while what we now call ‘dark ambient’ passages brought to mind Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Two. She and her better-known contemporary Delia Derbyshire are ‘vanishing mediators’ who laid down sonic precedents for much of what followed.

The specific pretext for this day of events was the opening of the Daphne Oram Collection at Goldsmiths College. Goldsmiths is known for a tendency towards arrogance but creating a resource dedicated to Oram’s life and works is certainly a worthy project and the college’s work on electronic music is undeniably important. This was an all-day event with an academic symposium followed by two concerts. There was something slightly forced about the programming of the events and the inclusion of formalistic symposium abstracts in the joint programme accentuated this. Her work certainly deserves attention and the symposium topics seemed worthwhile, but from and audience perspective the presentation of the evening ‘concert’ was problematic.

There was a brief spoken introduction listing the items, but otherwise no interval or commentary between the different elements. It commenced and ended with two short films with Oram soundtracks and featured two very different live performances interspersed between CD or digital playback sessions in the darkened auditorium. This was an interesting idea but completely sapped any momentum from the evening and many people left early. The Purcell Room’s sound system is on the quiet side and really not impressive enough to justify leaving an audience sitting in the dark listening to playback staring at an empty stage for up to twenty-five minutes. That said, there were some intriguing pieces were in the playback sessions and it was good to hear them, although it was unclear just exactly who the audience were applauding – the person who put the CD on?, the memory of Daphne Oram, Goldsmiths?, themselves? The first playback item was one of her demos for commercial clients, featuring her received pronunciation commentaries (her regal speaking voice now sounds as exotic as some of her music and makes a welcome change from contemporary Blair style mockney). So we heard extracts of film music, sound effects for pressure cooker and washing machine adverts and much more. It was of varying quality and definitely more appropriate for home listening. The playbacks of her tape pieces Four Aspects, Episode Metallic and Pulse Persephone were much more impressive. The final playback session was of a so far unreleased demo of sound effects prepared for Kubrick’s 2001. These were bleak proto-industrial sounds in the Radiophonic style and it was tantalising to imagine which scenes in the film they might have accompanied and how they might have enhanced it.

In between the long, audience-testing playback sessions there were two very different live performances. From One to Another I was a piece for live viola and tape, a co-composition with Thea Musgrave. The viola player was extremely but perhaps disproportionately expressive: the piece didn’t seem to quite deserve such enthusiasm. Some of the electronic textures were interesting, as was the interplay between live and recorded viola but not as interesting as similar electronic/string pieces by Kaffe Matthews or Boulez. After another eighteen minutes of playback (during which a gradual audience exodus began), Andrea Parker took to the stage. She was playing an Oram-esque old school synth with laptop and was supported by an un-credited video mixer. Parker is well known for her hefty trademark bass sounds and these were well to the fore here, but in keeping with the tone of the evening they were relatively muted and subdued. The effective black and white visuals were a mixture of abstract pulsing patterns mixed with re-processed photos of Oram and her equipment. In the first section heavily filtered Oram sound samples swam against the bass waves producing an interesting effect that perhaps ran for too long. Eventually the pace increased to a mid-tempo noir electro groove flecked with brief Oram references. This was a really interesting and well-executed experiment that could have been five minutes shorter but still saved the night from being little more than a post-symposium listening session. There was a free concert in the foyer to follow featuring the ubiquitous People Like Us, who was presenting a montage of Oram audiovisual samples. Yet given the energy-sapping tempo of the evening and the fact that PLU comes dangerously close to being a curator-lauded novelty act we followed much of the audience and went in search of more dynamic diversions.

Post-Maschinenfest Playlist, November 2007.

[First published on nskstate.com/sonocentric, original post date retained]

ADULT. - Why Bother? (Ersatz Audio)

Even bleaker yet also more dynamic than their last LP, this set of high energy electro-punk dirges delivers a concentrated dose of suburban misery that’s perversely euphoric and says much about our times. The trademark ADULT. visual design and despairingly elegant track titles help make it one of their best releases.

Heimstatt Yipotash - Perpetual Beta (Hands Productions)

Crunchy precise beats with intricate digital effects: force and complexity interwoven.

Nullvektor – Electrophrenique (Hands Productions)

Stays within a strict dancefloor-oriented template but combines harsh technoid textures with strange voice samples, IDM fragments, rave and quasi drum n’ bass elements. Mangled trance patterns mutate into noise-scoured darkwave club anthems. A unique combination that doesn’t always quite work but which at its best is spectacular.

Pia Burnette & Felix Kubin - Detached From All Objects (Gagarin Records)

Unusual but subtly addictive noir electropop collaboration.

SleepResearchFacility* - Deep_Frieze (Cold Spring)

Antarctic themed, subtly powerful suite of five tracks with beautiful artwork.

TenHornedBeast - The Sacred Truth (Cold Spring)

Dark ambience from a member of Endvra. Veers between quasi-classical passages sometimes reminiscent of Autopsia and heavier guitar and choral dronescapes.

Tonal Y Nagual - The Unseen Deserts (Ritalin Aktif/UMB)

Hard to classify vocal led project on Thorofon’s label. Some tracks have a definite early eighties/post-punk atmosphere, includes the unsubtle but intriguingly raw track “My Girlfriend is A Car.”

Various - Artists Anonymous #2 & #3. (Bunker)

Two more compellingly dirty, brown and miserable compilations of dark electro by mostly obscure and unreleased artists.

Various - Forms Of Hands 07 (Hands Productions)

Limited edition compilation giving an overview of the current Hands sound.

Various - Maschinenfest 2007 (Pflichtkauf)

Perhaps the finest in this series of annual compilations with several superb tracks by Skin Cage, Greyhound, Eva 3, Ahnst Anders Ambassador 21 and more.

Unknown Artist - Ugandan Speed Trials (Downwards)

Another obscure but essential dose of Birmingham techno.

EBM Defiance

Terence Fixmer – Danse avec les ombres (Citizen)

At some point in the early nineties the first wave of EBM began to ossify into cliché. Once the most dynamic and forceful variant of electronic dance, it was far outdone by the harsher new sounds of techno and gabba and retreated into conservatism. Vocals and guitars predominated and the whole form seemed tired. Critical opinion almost never referred to it except as a strictly historical phenomenon and in some ways it became a niche scene. In fact, many of the techno producers (including those in Detroit) had grown up on a diet of Front 242, Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy et al. and at some point in the late nineties it became acceptable to acknowledge and even to re-incorporate this sound. Belgian producer Fixmer was in the vanguard of this movement but more “fashionable” figures such as DJ Hell have also championed EBM and its textures have bled into electroclash and the work of many contemporary producers whose work seems to have no conceptual connection to EBM. The rediscovery of EBM (and other recently repressed and rejected sounds of the eighties) seems to be an acknowledgement that EBM (and also New Beat) stalled prematurely, and that its full potential was never fully realised. With the quantum leaps in technology during the nineties and the pushing back of the limits of force by techno it has now become possible to take the EBM template much further. However, much of this does not explicitly call itself EBM and certainly does not originate from within the defined EBM scene. Fixmer acknowledges his influences openly (even recording an album with Nitzer Ebb’s Doug McCarthy) but operates primarily within the techno/dance scene. Danse avec les ombres is one of the finest pieces of what could be called the neo-EBM sound and sets a standard even beyond the best of Fixmer’s previous tracks. Starting with what sounds like a reversed Stuka sample, it is joyfully strict, linear and harsh. It has the classic EBM spirit but is backed by a massive, previously unimaginable techno punch. B1, Impulsion, is rawer and bleaker, scoured by primitive sci-fi sound effects but still sustained by a massive kick and far beyond the majority of similar tracks. Only the O.Kaiser remix of Danse disappoints with its guitar-led electroclash populism. Yet if it attracts some new listeners and infects them with the EBM virus it may be no bad thing. Even with the remix this is a classic single, one of Fixmer’s finest. Unashamed “eighties industrial diehards” need look no further for a re-injection of the EBM spirit. Colossal.

Disko Stalemate?

Savvas Pascalidis – Disko Vietnam (Gigolo 134)


[DJ] Hell’s Gigolo label is extremely polarised. Many of its artists are torn between producing more heavy-duty dancefloor tracks and the kitsch outrages loved by the most superficial electroclash followers. This often results in strange hybrids and uneasy compromises between sleaze and force. The Gigolo aesthetic is based on a type of revolt against taste – a refusal to rule out stylistic options that are generally seen as just “too much.” Given some of the outrages for which Gigolo artists have been responsible, an album called “Disko Vietnam” doesn’t seem that remarkable or offensive. In any case, it would be wrong to single out Gigolo in this respect. Vietnam long ago became a systematically over-exploited pop cultural presence and connecting a vaguely hedonistic soundtrack to the war is much less tasteless than the myriad ‘Nam TV films. Even at its most tacky, the neo(n)-retro sound promoted by Gigolo and related labels and acts is only a more honest reflection of the generalised tastelessness of our contemporary kleptoculture. Even if only unintentional, there is a certain illustrative value in such defiant tastelessness, which has actually produced some extremely memorable electronic pop tracks that also work well as documents of their time.

Pascalidis’ first Gigolo album was one of hedonistic day-glo excess that also contained a few more stylish (though still sleazy) neo-EBM tracks. Disko Vietnam looks and sounds more serious, but only up to a point. The darker track titles and blood-stained artwork suggest a conscious attempt to move on from the more naïve mode of presentation seen previously. The album as a whole illustrates the unresolved tensions of the Gigolo style, which only its most talented producers such as Hell or David Carretta combine fluently. Here, everything seems to have been muted and even slowed down and neither of the Gigolo extremes dominates. The sequencing on “Move Your Body” could make it a dynamic neo(n)-retro classic yet it’s pulled back to ordinariness by the knowingly cute vocoder vocals. “Saigon Nightmare” has some dark Depeche Mode style chords but is not nearly aggressive or dark enough to symbolise what the title suggests. In fact, it doesn’t suggest anything worse than a reasonable album that could be much stronger. “U Can Do It” and several other tracks feature what are (presumably) knowingly ironic American voice samples that again spoil tracks that would be much better as instrumentals, free of these cheap clichés. Most tracks seem curiously slow, or in some cases not slow enough – “Vanishing Point” might actually sound more distinctive as a slower New Beat style track. That said, it is worth persevering with the album, at least for the triad of “Paranoia”, “The Formula” and “Acid Cock.” These are functional, dark, EBM-disko classics that leave a mark and come close to the dynamism of the finest Gigolo tracks. Overall, it seems as if the more “serious” instrumental tracks need a little more macht, while the more tacky tracks are not quite offensive or tasteless enough, so that neither aspect of the Gigolo sound is fully present here and devotees of either extreme may be disappointed by an inconclusive engagement.

Serious Electro

Various – Nobody’s Perfect Mixed by Andrea Parker (Touchin’ Bass)

Andrea Parker’s Touchin’ Bass label is gradually defining a new template for contemporary electro. Gathering friends and collaborators, she has released a series of vinyl-only singles, the highlights of which are gathered here. Her mix is typically tight and seamless. Like the vinyl releases, it tends towards the more brooding, moody side of electro. DJ Assault and DJ Godfather provide some electro ‘booty party’ clichés, but these are (comparatively) restrained, if slightly out of place within a fairly dark, serious and minimal mix. It’s hard to pick out individual tracks from such a tight mix, but the (post)-industrial electro sounds of Manasyt’s Scornfinger is very impressive, as are the Andrea Parker/David Morley tracks. These and some others have a subtle sense of drama and the Touchin’ Bass sound tends to reconfigure electro as a cinematic listening music - Hydraulix’s Zero One has some very dark, filmic sci-fi samples. There is a serious bass undertow running throughout the mix, so although it only really becomes ‘full on’ near the end, it still creates the desire to move (though relatively slowly). Overall, this tour through 21 tracks in under an hour is an excellent overview of the label and its contribution to the development of the genre.

First In/First Out

Current Late Winter Sounds:

The Hacker - Electronic Snowflakes from Reves Mechaniques (Different/PIAS France)
David Carretta - Let The Sunshine from Kill Your Radio (Gigolo)
Autopsia - Rosarium Moris from The Knife (Staalplaat)
F.R.U.I.T.S. - Palace Of Youth 96 from Forbidden Beat (Laton)
Alva Noto - Remodel from Transvision (Transall Cycle Part 2) (Raster Noton)

More soon...