This month it's 35 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

This month it’s 38 years ago Canadian industrial act Skinny Puppy released their very first EP Remission, a six track record, on Nettwerk Records (December 1984). In 1986, after their first full album Bites was released, Skinny Puppy released a cassette version of Remission with additional tracks expanding the release to a full-length album. In 1987 both albums Remission and Bites ended up together on one single CD album called Bites And Remission containing 17 tracks while the European PIAS version named Remission & Bites had only 14 tracks on it.

Besides the already recognizable and typical Skinny Puppy style the EP is filled with vocal samples taken from, amongst others, the 1943 Hitchcock movie Shadow Of A Doubt and even a sample of president Ronald Reagan’s speech about pornography as art.

The original release already contained some of Skinny Puppy’s classics songs like Smothered Hope, Far Too Frail and Solvent, tracks that still can be heard at many underground parties today.

Remission (original 12" vinyl version)

Back (Side A)
A1 Smothered Hope
A2 Glass Houses
A3 Far Too Frail
Side B -

Forth (Side B)
B1 Solvent
B2 Sleeping Beast
B3 Brap...

DISCOGS

"Elemental Cry" is the third single release from dark electronic folk band, Hem Netjer and appears on their upcoming album The Song Of Trees, scheduled for release at the end of February 2023.

"Elemental Cry" features themes of struggle, facing your fears and releasing your inner warrior to overcome odds. The song speaks from two different points of view; the verses from the warrior's view and the chorus from the general’s view. The warrior will have to fight in a battle they know they can’t win while the general's job is to support the clanmates so they can do the right thing even though they will not survive in the end.

The atmosphere, fueled by the lyrics is one of finding the strength within to be a part of something bigger. It's the realization that there are no divides between those who work and call themselves family.

Lines such as “we are the land and the flame, the air and the waves speak our name” speak to how your spirit and soul lives on in nature and the community around you when you are physically gone.

"Elemental Cry" is available on all major digital platforms including Bandcamp.

www.facebook.com/hemnetjer

On this day, 52 years ago, Kraftwerk released their self-titled debut studio album (1 December 1970). The album was produced by Konrad "Conny" Plank and is often refered to as 'Kraftwerk 1'.

On this album Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider used two drummers, Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Their drumming provides the album a rock-ish edge, making it sound quite distinctive from Hütter and Schneider's previous work. The album contains instrumentals only.

The cover design, credited to Ralf Hütter, is a curious nod to the influence of Andy Warhol and the then contemporary pop art movement, featuring a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone drawn in a Warhol-esque manner.

No material from this album has been performed in the band's live set since the Autobahn tour of 1975 and, to date, the album has not been officially reissued. The band is seemingly reluctant to consider the album a part of its canon and in later interviews, Schneider referred to the first three Kraftwerk albums as "archaeology".

In 1971 the album peaked in the German album charts at position 30.

KRAFTWERK

All tracks are written by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben.

Kraftwerk (1970)

• Ralf Hütter – organ, guitar, tubon, cover design
• Florian Schneider-Esleben – flute, violin, percussion
• Andreas Hohmann – drums on "Ruckzuck" and "Stratovarius"
• Klaus Dinger – drums on "Vom Himmel hoch"

DISCOGS

Gothic/occult wave duo Raven Said has just unveiled their new EP, Chants To Dissolve.

Chants To Dissolve is about the spiritual essence that represents a certain alchemical phase of Solve (a transitional process between the Nigredo and Albedo phases in basic Alchemy).

On the abstract, the EP represents the invisible and inaudible fluttering of a butterfly's wing to the deafening roar of the inescapable wave of the coming future. Physically, it's an effort aimed at changing the composition, without an exact result in a philosophical context. This means that the future is not defined and there is only the possibility of one or another existence; a certain point of polyfurcation, a set of evolution.

With pulsing vibrations of guitar and synths transformed into elegant canvases in cold tones, Raven Said is the flexible fusion of darkwave / goth rock / post-punk; the musical expression of symbolic mysticism and psychology.

Chants To Dissolve is available NOW on CD and digital formats via Bandcamp.

www.facebook.com/RavenSaidBand