This month it's 31 years since Canadian industrial band Front Line Assembly released their first official album The Initial Command (December 1987) on the since discontinued Belgian cult label KK Records. In fact it was also the first KK record release bearing the catalogue number KK001.
Before this album the band released only two demo tapes called Nerve War and Total Terror. The music on this release was mainly composed by Bill Leeb, but also with help from his future partners in crime Rhys Fulber and Michael Balch on some tracks.

On The Initial Command we can hear a very dark and deep EBM sounding Front Line Assembly which may remind you of the sound of Cabaret Voltaire during their Crackdown era but even more deep and dark. The tracks Black March and No Control are certainly a sort of forecast of the harder tracks they were about to release in the following decades.

Since the 1987 release of The Initial Command, the album has been re-issued twice. The first re-release, in 1992 by Third Mind Records, contained no changes. The second re-release, in 1997 by Cleopatra Records, contained two new tracks and new cover art.

The Initial Command (1987)

The Initial Command (1997)

DISCOGS

SLOVENSKA TELEVIZA are a minimal electronics duo from Valladolid and Barcelona. Wladyslaw Trejo and Lunademayo stay close to coldwave then expand to avant-garde and experimental approaches. In a permanent exploration to achieve a proposal that is both strange and fascinating, our commitment extends beyond the musical to other artistic disciplines that allow not only to complement but also to create a more complex and coherent work.

SLOVENSKA TELEVIZA is not about doing things in the usual way, they go against any commercial criteria and choose an instrumental song. This one is titled the same as the band's name, 'SLOVENSKA TELEVIZA', since it's the one that best collects the spirit of the project, a study on nostalgia and that strange melancholy of unknown origin that inhabits everyone and that goes back to the advent of these sensations in very first childhood.

The video-art piece has been produced by YANNET BRIGGILER, illustrator and animation director born in Argentina, although she lives in São Paulo (Brazil), where she works. Yannet Briggiler manages to amplify the mood with such a level of beauty and sensitivity that it even hurts. The animation has a narrative construction by means of ellipses. The viewer who articulates the fragments can create/observe/read/find a plot that connects the scenes. There are also elements that cause a strange impression, because they invite to travel through ambivalent territories. In this sense, montage is based on intuition and the displacement of cognitive patterns by the mechanics of the illusion of the traditional 2D-animation technique.

Enjoy the minimalism!

Black Nail Cabaret informed us they arrived at a very important moment in their lives, with the release of their 4th studio album.

"Pseudopop" is a turning point for Black Nail Cabaret. We have crawled out of a box we were so attached to, but we are heading towards a goal that we always wanted to achieve. We don't want this record to be labelled, because genre labels are equivocal and arbitrary at best. We believe that pop music can be meaningful and avant-garde, and that alternative music can reach a wider audience and not just a group of people. Nowadays some genres overlap each other, giving a chance for something new to be born - and we think this is exciting as there is so much to learn!

"Pseudopop" is a summary of all the music that had a huge impact on our lives. We couldn't exactly tell which melody or sound comes from which influence. We just emptied our brains, dropped the genres and let it loose. It is a nice hybrid of the chaos inside both of us and we like to think that it's avant-garde contemporary pop with dark alternative roots.

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Time is running, the Early Bird tickets are only available for not even two weeks, so it is time for some announcement, and Out Of Line is especially happy to bring you the third headliner because it finally worked out:
ESKIMO CALLBOY is well known for beeing a megablockbuster on every stage without any compare.

But of course that is not all: The legendary Electro rockers and heroes A SPLIT-SECOND will be the band for all EBM fans. BLIND CHANNEL will bring their Violent Pop Revolution in the tradition of Hollywood Undead to Berlin and make the audience dance.
That is also the job for THE JUGGERNAUTS – pure electro and hardstyle.
FEAR OF DOMINATION are also electronic, but supported by a solid guitar wall and live they're just spectacular.
XENOBLIGHT will enthuse the headbanging fraction with their willful mix between Death, Black and Thrash Metal.

Additionally there will be bands such as DARK TRANQUILLITY, KIRLIAN CAMERA, HOCICO, DIE APOKALYPTISCHEN REITER and many more, and till November 30th you can get all this for 54,90 € including fees.

You can have a listen to the line-up on SPOTIFY by clicking here!

Out Of Line Weekender 2019, that will take place from April 4th to 6th at Astra Berlin.
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As debut albums go, Soft Cell hits the ground running, in November 1981 the duo of Marc Almond and Dave Ball had released the ground-breaking, synth-wave ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’, an album which gained a cult-following in its own right, at the same time defying the boundaries of taste in early nineteen-eighties.

This was an album strewn with the stench and sin of the nighttime jungle (Entertain Me), porn theaters (Seedy Films) and prostitution (Sex Dwarf), the single that should have been;
“Luring disco dollies
To a life of vice”.

What we have is an examination of the reality under the microscope of Almonds soulful delivery and Ball with his electronic wizardry.
In the midst of these themes was the classic track “Tainted Love” the song that gained them a number-one and introduced the world to them. This obscure Gloria Jones track was perfect to sculpt a creature with hit making material, however there is more to
‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ than one song and the downside of that massive hit was the over-shadowing of what Soft Cell had on offer.

The track “Bedsitter” was released in conjunction with the album, breaking the top-five single charts, this was a self-penned track, making all the more worthwhile and laced with the flamboyant-sleaze that was part of the band’s makeup.

The final track and final release “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” again broke the top-five, proving the talent of the duo not just for the electro-experimentation but as songwriters in their own right.

Bedsitter;
Sunday morning going slow
I'm talking to the radio
Clothes and records on teh floor
Memories of the night before
Out in clubland having fun
Now I'm hiding from the sun
Waiting for a visitor
But noone knows I'm here for sure.
Dancing
Laughing
Drinking
Loving
And now I'm alll alone in Bedsit land,
My only home
I think it's time to cook a meal
To fill the emptiness I feel
Spend my money going out
I've nothing left, I'm left without
Clean my teeth and comb my hair
Look for something new to wear
And start the nightlife over again
And kid myself I'm having fun.

Original 1981 Track List;

1.”Frustration'
2.”Tainted Love'
3.”Seedy Films'
4.”Youth'
5.”Sex Dwarf'
6.”Entertain Me'
7.”Chips on My Shoulder'
8.”Bedsitter'
9.”Secret Life”
10.”Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”

Kevin Burke November 2018