Brought together by a shared enthusiasm for bleak UK punk and a history of playing in hardcore bands, Berlin based Diät have created a sound that they have described, perhaps not entirely seriously, as ‘tough new wave’. Fans of Crisis, Killing Joke and The Mob should be pleased by the band’s unlikely synthesis of depressive drift and cranked, accelerated energy.
Their debut LP, Positive Energy, will be released this week on Iron Lung Records in the US and Adagio830 in Europe.
Recorded last Winter while huddled in a practice space overlooking the industrial landscape of frozen East Berlin, the album finds Diät reining in the threads of malignant enthusiasm still peppered throughout their earlier recordings to focus on the cynicism and dejectedness that binds them as a band.
Intending to create an album that showcases each song individually and plays out like a mixtape, Diät have boldly attempted to create a sound of their own - the sound of checking your account balance to see if you’ve been paid yet…but you haven’t.
The band is streaming Positive Energy in its entirety below, they will be appearing at Toronto's Not Dead Yet Festival, as well as the Five Wretched Years Of Blackest Ever Black party at Berlin's Berghain club.
Alien Vampires launch video teaser new album featuring guest appearances from Ministry, Mayhem and Psyclon Nine members
Out of the blue the dark electro hit machine Alien Vampires have released a 2 minute and a half long video teaser for their upcoming album "Drag You To Hell" which will be out later this Fall on Alfa Matrix.
Nysrok and Nightstalker spent the last couple of years at The Old Truman Brewery studio in Brick Lane (Shoreditch) London (UK), conceiving the newest Alien Vampires chapter.
More details on the new album will be announced soon, but we already know that the album will feature guest appearances by Sin Quirin (Ministry), Attila Csihar (Mayhem,Sunn O), Charles Edward Alexander Hedger (Mayhem) and Nero Bellum (Psyclon Nine)!
In a period of governmental and cultural transition, former The Pipettes front-woman, GWENNO SAUNDERS, releases a political concept album inspired by an obscure 1970s Welsh language sci-fi novel, subtly disguised as a blissful kraut-pop record.
Written by Gwenno and produced by Rhys Edwards, Y DYDD OLAF (The Last Day) turns its back on predictable commercial aspirations and lifts a defiant middle finger in the direction of the mainstream.
Taking its cue, and title, from Owain Owain's 1976 novel about a dystopian future where the robots have taken over and are busily turning the human race into clones through the use of medication, Y DYDD OLAF blends big themes (including patriarchal society, government-funded media propaganda, cultural control, technology, isolation and the importance of, and threat to minority languages), great tunes, and a real sense of revolution to produce a powerful, politically-charged concept album.
After years on the peripheries of the mainstream - firstly as a professional dancer, then as a singer and musician – Gwenno returned to her home town of Cardiff in 2011 to produce music that's free of industry expectations, sales targets and commercial shackles.
First with Peski Records, where a limited edition pressing of the album sold out in weeks, and now signed to Heavenly Recordings, she has found the perfect home for her brand of left-field electro-pop. And with the parallel world of 1980s underground - and ground-breaking - Welsh-medium music by artists including Malcolm Neon, Llwybr Llaethog, Datblygu and Ectogram, not forgetting the German Krautrock movement of the 1970s, and early electronic music pioneers Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire inspiring her music, outlook and aspirations, Y DYDD OLAF feels at once retro, contemporary and futuristic.
The album, which is sung entirely in Welsh, apart from one song in Cornish, is a cultural document and a celebration of what is unique about life in modern day Britain.
The song is taken from the group's upcoming debut album, I, released on September 25 via Laser's Edge.
The group is led by former Crippled Black Phoenix members Karl Demata and Chris Heilmann alongside singer Keith Gladysz of Diet Kong and Typical Reptiles, keyboardist Elisa Montaldo of Il Tempio Delle Clessidre and drummer Mattias Olsson, formerly of Anglagard.
Demote says of bandmate Montaldo: “The first time I heard Elisa play, I knew we had to be in a band. Her innate melodic approach and instinctual understanding and knowledge of ‘anything prog’ is simply remarkable.”
Montaldo adds: “Karl asked me to join the project at the very beginning. My idea of prog is somehow more vintage, more typical 70s Italian style. After various experiments on arrangements and sounds, I went to Karl’s studio to record most of the keyboards, where we found the right balance.”
Read here our interview with the band.
Already primed following the release of the transitional ‘Sunne’ and ‘Murasaki’ EP’s earlier this year - Cheatahs return with their second album ‘Mythologies’ on October 30th.
Culled from North America, Germany and the UK, this multi-national quartet continue their journey following 2014’s acclaimed self-titled album. Ever evolving from their inception, ‘Mythologies’ is witness to a band that has developed in the interim - attributed in no small part to a touring itinerary that traversed the US in three-pronged aural attack with like-minded sonic souls Wavves and FIDLAR. Meanwhile, no less busy this side of the Atlantic saw triumphant dates with No Age and a seemingly never ending European jaunt with Metz which brings us to….’Mythologies’
Recorded over the past year and in hand with their debut, ‘Mythologies’ takes in a vast array of influences whilst taking its name from Roland Barthes’ 1957 collection of essays on semiotics and myth. A rollercoaster of sonic thrills - the cinematic widescreen brilliance of ‘Channel View’, the motoric rhythms of ‘In Flux’, the cascading sonic beauty of ‘Freak Waves’ or the scintillating beauty of ‘Seven Sisters’ and ‘Signs To Lorelei’ before the seismic surge finale of album closers ‘Mysteci’ and ‘Reverie Bravo’, it’s a marked and ambitious departure….
As the band says: “We had no permanent base whilst making this album and creating it in so many varied locations undoubtedly influenced us in a positive sense. We felt very nomadic and the sense of freedom inspired us to experimentation.”
The newfound sense of freedom has inspired and certainly influenced the self-produced ‘Mythologies’. Recorded at various locations in London, Marc’s studio home, a monolithic high-rise next to MI5 headquarters overlooking the Thames (one floor above offices that once housed anti-terrorist units in the 60’s), a converted church in Ramsgate and the fabled environs of Chemikal Underground’s Glasgow studio Chem19.
Mythologies is
1. Red Lakes (Sternstunden)
2. Channel View
3. In Flux
4. Freak Waves
5. Signs To Lorelei
6. Hey, Sen
7. Deli Rome
8. Colorado
9. Su-pra
10. Seven Sisters
11. 紫 (Murasaki)
12. Mysteci
13. Reverie Bravo
and available on double LP, CD and digitally (WEBB440)
Cheatahs are
Nathan Hewitt - vocals, guitar
James Wignall - vocals, guitar, keyboards
Marc Raue - drums, keyboards
Dean Reid - bass,vocals, keyboards
