One of Texas’ premiere industrial acts Curse Mackey (PIgface, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Evil Mothers) has just shared a video for ‘Smoking Tongues’, the lead track from new LP Immoral Emporium.
"Smoking Tongues" is an industrial love song for the ages combining dance club appeal, sublime synth work and Mackey’s perfectly on point poetics magnified by a beautiful mix by album co-producer Chase Dobson (Rufus Du Sol, Tycho, Neon Cities). For the video production, Mackey teamed up with Austin,TX based filmmaker Kyle Cooper of Jackalope Studio(Austin/LA)
“The music video for Curse Mackey’s ‘Smoking Tongues' is a neo-noir, fire and brimstone fueled, surrealist short film that encompasses the past, present and future of Curse Mackey’s music and art.' says director Kyle Cooper. True to form, the video is indeed a strangely psychedelic, dustbowl psychodrama, filmed on location in Tarantula, Texas during the peak of the scorching 100 plus degree Texas summer of 2022.
Part ghost story, part noir nightmare, part love story, part religious allegory, the video sees Mackey at his most compelling, conjuring the hallucinatory experiences of life growing up in South Texas.
While the video smolders, smokes, and erupts to a whip cracking conclusion the song itself is a quintessential study in Mackey’s artistry riding a razor sharp line between synth pop perfectionist and avant-garde, dark wave destructionist.
Curse says, ”I wrote this song as the final piece of the new album. I wanted to speak to the listener directly, more than I may have done in the past. The phantasmagoria of my first album, Instant Exorcism may have shrouded my feelings but “Smoking Tongues” opened a portal. I don’t think I have felt this vulnerable within a song before and the sound is also reaching into new areas of exploration.
Mackey continues "The lyrical dialog is as much about me as it is about the listener and I clearly question our collective future. I know this song is a departure that industrial music purists might find out of frame but if you stick with me, we’ll get to the delicious delirium hidden within Immoral Emporium. I empathise with the feelings of alienation and loneliness. Our experiences, “our scars like constellations” get us through these moments until we can again be seduced by the vast potential that exists in the world even on our darkest days.”
"Smoking Tongues" is the second single from Curse Mackey’s new LP Immoral Emporium which is already receiving tremendous response from the press and the fans.
Curse Mackey will take his energetic "one man and a rack of synths" show on the road in support of darkwave legends CLAN OF XYMOX, this November, a long-awaited continuation of their 2020 tour that was cut mid-way by the pandemic.
Curse Mackey Fall/Autumn Tour 2022
As Special Guest Of Clan Of Xymox
11.2 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger
11.3 – Dallas, TX @ Gas Monkey
11.4 – Austin, TX @ Exysium
11.5 – Houston, TX @ Numbers
11.7 - Albuquerque, NM @ Launch Pad
11.8 – Denver, CO @ Oriental Theater
11.9 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
11.11 – Seattle, WA @ El Corazon
11.12 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre
11.13 – Portland, OR @ Star Theater
11.16 – San Francisco, CA @ August Hall
11.17 – Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
11.18 – San Diego, CA @Music Box
11.19 - Los Angeles, CA @ Regent Theater
The 7” single Baby Turns Blue, by Irish band Virgin Prunes, turns 40 ! It was released on 9 October 1982 and was the preliminary single for their iconic upcoming album … If I Die, I Die, also released by Rough Trade Records one month later. The single as well as the whole album were produced by Colin Newman of Wire. The remixed 12' version was retitled “The Faculties of a Broken Heart”.
Baby Turns Blue (UK 7' single RT 119)
- 'Baby Turns Blue' – 3:43
- 'Yeo' – 2:17
Baby Turns Blue (UK 12' single RT 119T)
- 'The Faculties of a Broken Heart (What Should We Do If Baby Turns Blue)'
- 'Chance of a Lifetime'
- 'Yeo'
Baby Turns Blue
Mary be so proud, things like that are'nt allowed,
To take your own life, stab it with a knife.
They put you in a box, they send you to heaven, heaven.
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Give me money, give me sex,
Give me food and cigarette.
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
What should we do if baby turns blue?
You broke my heart, it came in two.
The faculties of a broken heart.
I go out on Monday, looking for a Tuesday.
Nothing ever makes such sense.
You don't seem to make much sense.
Shooting out in someone's dream.
Shooting out in something else.
It was an accident, I didn't mean it.
It was an accident, I didn't mean it.
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
What should we do if baby turns blue?
John had a bomb and he lit his head,
Went to bed for seventeen weeks,
Took too many drugs, now he don't eat.
They put you in a box and send you up to heaven, heaven.
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Give me money, give me sex,
Give me food and cigarette.
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
Oh what to do, not to feel and who are you?
What should we do if baby turns blue?
Today it’s been exactly 35 years since electro-industrial band The Klinik released their second full album Plague (Antler 065 - Release date: 25.09.1987). Originally released as a gatefold vinyl it was re-released again by Antler Records as a bonus CD with the release of the 1991 Time (Antler 5040) album.
Plague, with menacing sounds and engaging songs, can be seen as one of the darkest albums released by the band. Marc Verhaeghen’s uncompromising and unpredictable programming, sampling and synth manipulation revoke apocalyptic visions while the typical, sometimes hissing, sometimes shouting, vocals of Dirk Ivens complete the dark atmosphere perfectly.
Plague (Tracklist)
A1 World Domination
A2 Murder
A3 No Time To Win
A4 Outside
B1 End Of The Line
B2 Pictures
B3 Into Deep Water
B4 Plague
DIE KRUPPS members' side project, DIE ROBO SAPIENS, launches debut album in October!
After a couple of teasing EP and video clip releases, the Belgian Alfa Matrix label today announces the full length album by Die Robo Sapiens, the ultimate EBM project by the members of Die Krupps. “Robo Sapien Race” will be released by the end of October on a fan edition vinyl (with lots of extras such as a DJ turntable slipmat), as a limited 2CD box set pressing and as a download.
Behind Die Robo Sapiens we find Die Krupps members Jürgen Engler plus Ralf Dörper and Marcel Zürcher.
The 10-track “Robo Sapien Race” album offers a blend of minimal, vintage and powerful synth music with harder, stronger and angrier EBM assaults made of fat and ripping basslines, powerful German vocals and upbeat synth sequences. The artwork was rendered by the talented Japanese designer Tomoki Hayasaki.
Jürgen Engler: “The idea for us was to have an outlet for songs that couldn’t be used in a Die Krupps context. The use of guitars in Die Robo Sapiens music being taboo, in a way, it’s a return to our electro roots but with a twist. Imagine the Duesseldorf sound of Kraftwerk mixed with hard Die Krupps EBM. This combination of styles has been spooking around my brain for a while and it was time to put it into action.”
The album’s first pressing comes out as a limited deluxe double CD Digipak containing a bonus disc featuring each album song remixed by an impressive list of electro artists such as Sebastian Komor, Orange Sector, Plastic Noise Experience, Metroland, Aiboforcen, Ad:Key, Implant, Aesthetische, Kant Kino and Cubic.
The album also gets released on vinyl format as a fan edition pack limited to 333 units worldwide including the 10-track album on black vinyl in a deluxe gatefold packaging (with full lyrics) with a bonus DJ turntable slipmat, a page marker and a numbered postcard, plus the new 20 track “Sounds From The Matrix 023” label CD compilation which, for now, is exclusive to this release.
Videos:
Dark electronic artist SINE addresses alternate reality with new EP, Mantis 2
Austin, Texas artist, SINE, announces the release of their new five-song EP, Mantis 2; the second in a trilogy, “Mantis 1, 2 & 3”. Mantis 2 is released by Austin-based record label eMERGENCY heARTS and is available now!
Mantis 1 and Mantis 2 were produced by SINE founder, Rona Rougeheart in collaboration with esteemed audio engineer Charles Godfrey at Scary American Studio in Austin, TX. Godfrey, in his two decade plus career, has been engineer/producer on over 75 recordings, including the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It’s Blitz! and Mosquito, The Black Angels' Indigo Meadow and notable work for…Trail of Dead, SWANS, among so many more.
Mantis 2 opens with a circus in the distance, swirling backwards into a blasting march that leads into a cutting, electronic bassline. “Virtual Realitease” is the first track on Mantis 2. It sets the theme of the EP as a study of life going from real to virtually real and the pains of adapting to a life forced apart from one another.
The new EP also has a cover of The Glove’s song, “Sex-Eye-Make Up”. Rona Rougeheart tells us why she chose that song to do a rare SINE cover.
“The Cure is one of my all time favourite bands. When I was growing up, I loved Robert Smith and followed everything he did musically, which led me to Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Glove. When I found out that The Glove was Robert Smith and Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, I had to get it! It’s still one of my favourite albums - the song “Sex-Eye-Make Up” is one of my favourites on the album, so it was a natural choice. I don’t usually do covers but oddly enough the only other SINE cover is of The Cure song, “Like Cockatoos”. I guess all roads lead to The Cure!”
In discussing the recording process, Rougeheart said, “I worked with producer Mark Pistel (Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto). He took my bare demo and added more instrumentation and those super cool, dreamy vibes you hear. When I heard our final mix, I felt like I wanted to cry tears of joy! I’ve imagined doing this cover for years, so it was an absolute thrill to have Mark help me with it.”
Mantis 2 is a ride into a virtual world of satire and dream-state realities that ends with a melancholic, piano and string piece called “Soundtrack of a Wasted Recovery”. The vocals are in a spoken word style with lyrics that evoke the sadness, loneliness and feelings of inadequacy that we often get consumed with. It’s a touching track with hopes for change.
