Christmas waits around the corner and along with it goes the search for the perfect gift. With a festival experience like E-tropolis 2019 up your sleeve you're always well equipped especially as our final band update adds two more artists to the E-tropolis Festival 2019 line-up, who couldn't possibly be more legendary: DIE KRUPPS and VELVET ACID CHRIST!

Half electro-steamroller, half steelram, Jürgen Engler & company, a.k.a. DIE KRUPPS, roar up their apocalyptic hotrod to unleash an impressive wall of sound, full of iconic hymns about past, present and a not so faraway future many of us are still succeeding to ignore!

VELVET ACID CHRIST undoubtedly belong to the group of scenegems that shaped the course of the EBM and industrial-scene of the early nineties to a significant degree. While exploring the possibilities of electronic music, mastermind Bryan Erickson always went a unique way that lets "VAC" stand out even today - outside the box and even harder to put into one! Playing at E-tropolis Festival for the first time, we are very happy to welcome another interesting artist, who more than earned the state of a real legend.

Herewith the E-tropolis 2019 stands complete and finally features the following selection of artists:

APOPTYGMA BERZERK
SUICIDE COMMANDO + DIE KRUPPS

SOLAR FAKE + WELLE:ERDBALL + [:SITD:]
VELVET ACID CHRIST + [X]-RX + CENTHRON + PRIEST
FUTURE LIED TO US + SYNTHATTACK + ES23
RROYCE

Still to be announced: the DJ line-up for the pre- & after-show-parties. More info on this matter will follow at a later time!

The E-tropolis Festival 2019 takes place on 16 March, beginning 1:00 pm at Turbinenhalle Oberhausen. The pre-party kicks off on 15 March at 10:00 pm at Turbinenhalle 2. The party will be free for all visitors with a festivalticket.

TICKETS & INFO

Info: www.etropolis-festival.de & www.facebook.com/etropolisfestival
Original tickets / 5+1 & combi-tickets (worldwide shipping): www.amphi-shop.de

www.etropolis-festival.de

Today 78-years ago the greatest musical-innovator of the twentieth-century was born, Frank Zappa.
(°21.12.1940 / + 04.12.1993)

"The Modern Day Composer Refuses To Die"
Frank Zappa made that quote about Edgar Varese, but so many could have made it about Zappa.
Reasons abound as to the importance of this genius, one might be his output, between ‘Freak Out!’ released in June 1966 to his last album ‘The Yellow Shark’ in 1993, Frank Zappa released 102 albums, some live, some studio and live intercut and some out of these were other-worldly instrumental albums made up purely of guitar solos.

A lot of fans were guided to his ‘Hot Rats’ release first, almost totally instrumental apart from the mesmerising ‘Willie the Bimp’ with his old friend Captain Beefheart, their paths were intertwined so much throughout Zappas career, ‘Bongo Fury’ the only proper duet to speak of.

One of the best stories about Frank Zappa surrounds an album that was not released until long after his death,
‘Lather’.
A triple disc set, some had been heard before on ‘Live in New York’ and ‘Waka Jawaka(Hot Rats 2)’ but there is a legend as to why a few years after his death it was finally got released in its original form.

Frank prepared the release of the quadruple set ‘Lather’ by the mid 70s, after setting release dates etc for Halloween 1977.
Warner Brothers, his then label, refused to release it in its Intended state.

Zappa managed to get an agreement with Phonogram to release ‘Lather’ in its original format, and test pressings were made, but of course Warner stepped in and put a claim to the music and so blocked its release.
What Frank did next defines the man, he responded by appearing on the Pasadena, California radio station KROQ, allowing them to broadcast ‘Lather’ over the six sides while all the same time encouraging listeners to make their own tape recordings of the album.

Frank Zappa had the power, not driven by money, greed or chart positions but rather his art and getting it out to his fans regardless of how.

The Cure face into 2019 with what may be their most exciting year of recent times whilst giving the fans everything they have wished for.

“I think people admire us, even if they don’t particularly get the music”.-Robert Smith

On the back of this year’s successful fortieth-anniversary show with the very well received Hyde Park concert in London, which presented the band with a new leash of life as they blasted through a twenty-nine song set.

At the time however news slowly filtered through surrounding the band booking studio time, which has now been confirmed, The Cure will release their first album in over a decade in 2019.Since the start of October with the string of European dates were announced by The Cure to peak excitement, some, including the Dublin show at Malahide castle sold out within three-hours, showing the fan base for the band which is still as strong as ever.

This month though things took a twist as all Cure fans got an early Christmas present. It was announced on December-13th that the band are being inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for 2019 in March.

With this announcement, frontman Robert Smith used it as the launch pad to break the news that The Cure are returning to the studio in six-weeks to put the finishing touches to album number fourteen, the follow up to 2008’s “4:13 Dream”. Of course there is another factor to get excited about, this will be the first album to feature Bowie-sideman Reeves Gabrels who will bring his unique, ambient-blast of screaming guitar to proceedings. The pairing of Gabrels and Smith should make for a very interesting album indeed.

To wet your appetite, the 40th anniversary show set list from the eight-of-July;

“Plainsong”
“Pictures of You”
“High”
“A Night Like This”
“The Walk”
“The End of the World”
“Lovesong”
“Push”
“In Between Days”
“Just Like Heaven”
“If Only Tonight We Could Sleep”
“Play for Today”
“A Forest”
“Shake Dog Shake”
“Burn”
“Fascination Street”
“Never Enough”
“From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea”
“Disintegration”
Encore:
“Lullaby”
“The Caterpillar”
“Friday I’m in Love”
“Close to Me”
“Why Can’t I Be You?”
“Boys Don’t Cry”
“Jumping Someone Else’s Train”
“Grinding Halt”
“10:15 Saturday Night”
“Killing an Arab”

Check out the below clip which shows Gabrels in full feedback mode.

Kevin Burke Dec 2018

If you had some doubts, now it is sure: The Arch is back on a roll! Quick reminder: early 2018 the band from Breendonk started to release each month a new song along with a video, which should then form around the end of the year a new album with 12 tracks. It seemed a bit ambitious. The intervals between songs got longer, but the quality has been impressive. The last single 'Yoga Noise' was released early November, and look: one month later we're surprised again with 'Joan's In Prison'. Again you'll hear a nice combination of guitars and electronics, and again there's a beautiful video where the band asked some common friends and acquaintances to sing the song in front of the camera. (xk)

Last week The Arch also proved to be in great shape live at our Dark Entries Night. Anyone who wants to see the band live in the coming months can do so at the following locations:

• 19/01/2019: met Clan of Xymox, Garagesound, Bari, Italië
• 19/04/2019: Wol'n Bak Festival, Jeugdhuis De Schakel, Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe, België
• 27/04/2019: met Clan of Xymox, De Cacaofabriek, Helmond, Nederland
• 28/04/2019: Wavefest, Baroeg, Rotterdam, Nederland
• 18/05/2019: New Waves Day, Oberhausen, Duitsland

Read our interview where The Arch speaks about the first six singles of 2018

PiL used to sing back then 'This is not a lovesong'. Now guess who's imitating them... Before Rammstein there was Oomph, the pioneers of what was later called the Neue Deutsche Härte. This mix of electro and guitars has not gone unnoticed and the band experienced one success after the other in the 90's. They've kept being active and will come back early 2019 with their 13th album. It will be released on January18th but a first extract is already available. And so let's get back to 'This is not a lovesong', as the song is called 'Kein Liebeslied'. The song's not about love, but about the evolution of mankind and the question about what we have already achieved after all this 'progress'. The new album promises Oomph grand cru! (xk, Dark Entries Magazine)

Oomph: website / facebook