An atmospheric concoction of electronic and guitar-sounds characterizes a unique style of floating elegies and driving post-punk. Caution: addictive!
That Belgium has been an epicentre of alternative music production for years, has hardly remained unnoticed to the experts, but still only few bands have managed to let ascend their hits to sustainable evergreens. Not THE ARCH, who for years have been well established on dark-wave-events with their hits “Babsi ist tot” and “Ribdancer”.
With their style THE ARCH create an unmistakable blend of energetic post-rock guitars, atmospheric, electronic dark-wave-elements, dynamic EBM basslines and touching vocals; an interplay of different ingredients, that are capable to truly mesmerize the listener. But the band is able to excite their fans not only out of the studio. The Belgians confidently present their catchy tunes on the international stages, such as the M'ERA LUNA FESTIVAL, BLACKFIELD FESTIVAL, WAVE GOTIK TREFFEN, and on tour with icons such as PETER MURPHY, THE MISSION or CLAN OF XYMOX.
THE ARCH are finally back with their highly anticipated album "Fates", which contains 13 new songs, which show the versatility of the band. "Fates" takes us on a journey to the alternative music-culture, in which the power and intensity of the interaction between guitar-driven and electronic music is once again made visible!
The album is released:
- as a 4-sided Digipack
- with a 12-sided Booklet
Bill & Murray is a Tel-Aviv based trio, consisting of David Blau (guitar, vocals), Stella Gotshtein (keyboard, vocals) & Ran Jacobovitz (drums).
What started as an experimental collaboration between songwriters Blau & Gotshtein, quickly turned into an active, performing and recording band, with Jacobovitz joining the band’s lineup in 2013.
After 2 years of activity, which included, performances all over Israel, participation in international music festivals in North America and Europe, an East European tour and the pleasure of being chosen to be the opening act for legendary synth pop artist, Gary Numan, Bill & Murray are releasing their debut album, “A New Kind of High”.
“A New Kind of High” was written, performed, produced, recorded and mixed by Gotshtein & Blau over the course of two years in all sorts of locations from pro-studios to home studios to semi-pro bedrooms and ultra pro living rooms.
Classic artists such as Joy Division, The Cure, The Stone Roses, Gary Numan, My Bloody Valentine and Bauhaus, and of course life itself provided B&M with great inspiration for the album.
Though the album combines synth-pop and post-punk influences, the bands personal touch and their non-conventional choice of musical instruments and pedal effects create a unique and distinct Bill & Murray flavor, Taste it, and experience a new kind of high.
"Darker, deeper, hotter" - going down and danger is lurking! "Vagina dentata", the teethed cavern, the gate to hell, the lethal femininity is an ancient myth, reintroduced and reinterpreted by the famous psychoanalyst Siegmund Freud as fear of castration… and also the title of the fourth album by Aranea Peel's "Grausame Töchter", that constitutes another significant artistic advancement of the band.
All of the 15 powerful tracks on this album revolve more or less clearly around that subject; the lyrics are in parts homicidal, sexual, obsessive, sadomasochistic and sometimes nightmarish, but also implicitly offer the hope of liberation, of sensuality, self-determination and lightness. Aranea Peel seems to take quite a liking to water as evident in the presence of the sea with all it's sometimes bizarre creatures that are featured in many songs as symbols of freedom and lust. In "Wie eine Krake" (Like an Octopus) for example the sea creature lives in freedom, lust and chaos while the sailor on the surface anxiously tries to get across this chaos but of course is doomed to fail. This song is probably most representative of the general spirit of the album.
Stylistically this album like the previous albums of the girlgroup offers an amazingly wide array of styles: electropop, electropunk, EBM, industrial, electrorock and even chanson, tango and bizarre circus music. E-Guitar and baritone-guitar, often with a 1960s style band echo, are much more present in "Vagina Dentata" than in previous albums. Accompanying bass guitar player Era Kreuz is the Berlin based guitarist Valeria Ereth who recently joined the band and already has been touring with them across Europe for a few months now.
The most extraordinary tracks musically would probably be "Die ganz Welt ist ein Zirkus" (The entire world is a circus) and "Nordsee-Tango" (Northsea-Tango) where a lot of guest musicians with brass and percussion instruments joined the band, probably a result of Aranea's love of chansons. The most catchy tunes however are the more danceable tracks like "Annika ist tot" (Annika is dead) and "Ich liebe meine Vagina" (I love my vagina). On this their fourth studio album, Grausame Töchter prove themselves as a band that has developed it's unique style with intelligence and freshness, confidently going their own unique way in a world of otherwise interchangeable commercial music, which gives these girls their own distinctive image.
Following the announcement at the end of 2015 for seven shows celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the MANIC STREET PREACHERS fourth album ‘Everything Must Go’, the band have now confirmed there will be a very special reissue box set of the album which will feature vinyl, CD’s, DVD’s and a book. The band’s 21 song performance at the Nynex Arena in Manchester to over 20,000 people on 24th May 1997 has been fully restored will be available in full for the first time both on CD and DVD and long-time collaborator BAFTA Award-winning director Kieran Evans (Kelly & Victor) has shot a new film to accompany the album. There will also be a double CD and both formats will be released on 20th May 2016, exactly 20 years to the date of the original album. 2016 also sees the band celebrate the 30th Anniversary of their formation in Blackwood, South Wales.
The live shows will see them play the album in full for the very first time and then after an interval, returning to play some of their greatest hits, new songs and some seldom heard nuggets from their twelve album history. Editors will join the band as special guests for the tour, excluding Swansea where Super Furry Animals and Public Service Broadcasting will support. Prior to the UK shows they play dates in Europe and headline the Victorious and Truck Festivals later in the summer.
Originally released in spring 1996, ‘Everything Must Go’ was the band’s first massive commercial success. The record was certified triple platinum in the UK and went on to sell over a million copies and bag multiple Brit awards. It features four top ten singles (‘A Design for Life’, ‘Everything Must Go’, ‘Kevin Carter’ and ‘Australia’). Touring the record, the band played an early show in the tiny basement bar of the Haçienda to headlining to 20,000 people at Manchester’s Nynex Arena in less than twelve months. Although some songs from ‘Everything Must Go’ are still cornerstones of Manic Street Preachers gigs, several of the album tracks haven’t been played live since ’96.
On August 19th Marius Lauber AKA Roosevelt releases his stunning, self-titled debut album via Greco-Roman / City Slang records.
To mark its launch Roosevelt unveils this video, which features two tracks from the album - ‘Colours’ and ‘Moving On’. This double-bill approach gives more insight into the album than the usual standard one song video format, but the intention was creative as much as it was practical. With a surreal sensitivity akin to his previous videos, ‘Colours’ stars Roosevelt alongside various characters in an abstract exploration of the five senses (touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing). The segue into ‘Moving On’ then follows the protagonists’ walk from their dream-like state into an everyday street scene, where they find themselves lost in the sensory overload of real world modern life.
Roosevelt’s signature hazy sound which ascends ever skywards is still present and correct on the album - but this time it’s honed, crafted and less loop based. ‘Roosevelt’ showcases Lauber as a fully developed recording artist, with an instinctive synthesis of different soundscapes. This is a record with a deep affinity to the dance music world unified with sophisticated, classic song structures.
The glistening and gently undulating disco of ‘Night Moves’ features uplifting layers of delicately constructed guitars atop propulsive beats and expanding acid synths lines, whilst ‘Moving On’ utilizes Balearic slo-mo percussive grooves to mesmerising effect. The Tangerine Dream-esque ’Belong’ is pure euphoria, ‘Heart’ is a bright and breezy airborn anthem, and the stunning sunrise instrumental hypnosis of ‘Daytona’ blends seamlessly into the sublime, cooly life-affirming ‘Fever’.
Influences span continents and decades - from a pinch of French electro pop, a smattering of LA yacht rock, the hypnotic repetition of German pioneers like Ash Ra Tempel/Manuel Göttsching and Neu!, to classic floor-friendly 80s pop from Chic, Talk Talk and New Order. Nu school figureheads like Floating Points, Todd Terje and Metro Area are also partially audible - all weaved into his own unique sonic tapestry.
Roosevelt’s growth was catalyzed by an early DJ residency at Kompakt’s Total Confusion party alongside Superpitcher & Michael Mayer, with the label also releasing an early remix of his for COMA. These experiences helped Lauber realize how dance music connects to its audience in a different way to what he'd experienced from earlier days spent performing in bands. “What I really enjoyed about DJing was that you could see the results immediately - there was feedback and interaction from the crowd”, he explains.
The darkness hinted at in the title of ’Night Moves’ is also a nod to the energy you can get from a well-timed crowd climax. “It's about the situation at night in a club when the energy is created as the night comes to an end,” he says. “The later the night gets there's this peak of energy and people are having the illusion that there's no end to it, and that power is incredibly strong.”
Following this nightclubbing baptism, his career as an electronic artist gathered momentum. With praise from a selection of taskemaker media, mixes for Boiler Room, Electronic Beats and i-D, support tours with Hot Chip and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and a litany of high-profile festival slots around the world, Lauber steadily built up a dedicated following.
Written, recorded and produced by Lauber over a period of two years. ‘Roosevelt’ the album is a pillow-soft hallucinatory dreamscape of nocturnal reveries and a lilting sense of melancholia, where sounds build and swell like waves.