The Stricken, a new project featuring Claus Larsen (Leaether Strip) and Ian Donaldson (Bronski Beat)... Dark electro meets industrial!
The newly formed dark industrial band's debut album is being released 1st March 2018.
One best describes the album as a journey into a dark abyss of bombastic industrial sounds with aggressive yet poetic lyrics. Created out of love for the dark and fear of what is to come. It can best be compared to bands like Skinny Puppy, Delerium & Throbbing Gristle
Claus Larsen (Vocal, Lyrics) - Leæther Strip / Klutæ / Am Tierpark
Ian Donaldson (Music, Production) - Bronski Beat / Sordid Soundz
The story:
Two musicians meet online by chance - both finds out that they are both fans of each others music - a month later they collaborate and create art. A match meant to be!
Ian and Claus became The Stricken.
Ian Donaldson who moved from Glasgow, Scotland to London in the late 1980s, was making music in a couple of unsigned bands when in Scotland. He met up with Steve Bronski in the early 90s and worked on a couple of projects together before becoming a full time member of Bronski Beat, touring the world and recording! After Bronski Beat took a long break Ian began Djing as Sordid Soundz and played in all the top London clubs as well as gigs in Russia, Brazil and Europe. 2016 saw Ian & Steve reunite and recruit Stephen Granville, reworking the classic Bronski Beat album "The Age Of Consent" now called "The Age Of Reason" featuring new & old material, a remix album is coming with a new album planned for next summer!
Claus Larsen was first signed with his band Leæther Strip by the German Electro Label Zoth Ommog in 1989, LEAETHER STRIP quickly built a buzz as one of the most exciting emerging acts in Europe in the early 90s. Leæther Strip has been and still is a big inspiration to many of today's younger acts and is still one of the most productive and busiest live acts in the scene. Leæther Strip concerts are always highly energetic and aggressive and 2018 will mark the 30th anniversary of Leæther Strip. Claus is also the mastermind behind Klute - now Klutæ, and a half part of the Synth-pop band Am Tierpark.
The album is available as limited edition CD and digital download.
Tracklist
Remains
A Doom With A View
Havoc
The Chase
Men of My Blood
Endeavor
Tools of Hate
You Asked
Give it to me
Meet My Master
Hole in the wall
Strangers
All new Front 242 sideproject Lederman (The Weathermen) / De Meyer (Front 242) launched!
LEDERMAN / DE MEYER is the amazing and unexpected artistic fusion of two prominent figures from the cult Belgian electronic music scene.
Talented and humble musician and producer, Jean-Marc Lederman, was not only a member of FAD GADGET and GENE LOVES JEZEBEL but also founded the electro-pop project KID MONTANA and THE WEATHERMEN (known across the world with their interstellar hit "Poison"). He also composed lots of music for movies and video games under various pseudonyms and collaborated with a plethora of artists including Alain Bashung amongst others.
On the other side, author and performer Jean-Luc De Meyer, started his career with UNDERVIEWER before joining FRONT 242 from 1981 and then successively forming C-TEC, COBALT 60, MODERN CUBISM and 32CRASH and collaborating on record or on stage with many other artists (IMPLANT, HAUJOBB, PUNISH YOURSELF…). His unique and characteristic voice is unmatched and instantly gets recognised by any true self-respecting EBM-industrial-electronic music lover.
Watch the livecast video replay on Facebook.
On their “Eleven Grinding Songs” debut album, Lederman's keyboards are, as always, raspy, melodious and absolutely unpredictable, making it hard to imagine what direction each title will take. Songs starting with peaceful atmospheric intros grow into thick and exciting cuts (“Atoms In Fury”, “Heartbeat”…) while other straight binary dance tracks gradually morph into complex and rich tunes widening the stereo image spectrum to the maximum (“Back To Nature”, “Tout Me Fait Rire”…).
These quite eclectic and uncompromising song arrangements appear to be the perfect fertile ground allowing De Meyer’s dense and inhabited voice to unfold across different registers going from pure icebreakers to boiling volcanoes through melancholic whispers and other poetic grunts. The texts are dark and introspective, punctuated by sarcasm and self-mockery. And the care given to the lyrics definitely sets this project apart, miles away from the overused “first-degree” universe of standard alternative electro / EBM bands.
Among the album highlights we can definitely mention “A Tribe of My Own”, “Flowers and Birds and Bees” and “Not Really There”, three dark, oppressive yet very danceable tracks all bound to become new anthems in the best darkwave clubs.
“Eleven Grinding Songs” pushes the human in front of his anxieties, his deviances, his obsessions, his beliefs, his hopes and his defeats. A poignant and fascinating mechanical deconstruction jointly orchestrated by two artists reaching the top of their art. Play it loud!
Today it’s exactly 32 years since Siouxsie and The Banshees released their second single from their seventh studio album Tinderbox. The single Candyman was released as 7” and 12” on 28 February 1986 and is about child abuse. It became Siouxsie and the Banshees' 13th top 40 hit, peaking at number 34 in the UK single charts.
The 7” has the track Lullaby on the b-side, the 12” also featured Umbrella on the b-side.
Transformation is at the core of Chris Corner’s music and outlook. Ever since leaving wildly successful 1990s trip-hop group Sneaker Pimps, Corner’s process of becoming IAMX, beginning in 2004 has been theatrical, transcendent and communal. Androgynous and visceral, IAMX has metamorphosed from small-town blue-collar kid to international pop star in the 1990s to creator of raw art that disrupts gender and genre in the 2000s. Fueling electronic experimentation with punk energy and confessional lyricism, Corner’s goth and industrial sound, fashion, performances, videos and persona are larger than life, iconoclastic and shockingly intimate.
In addition to his success as a songwriter, producer and touring artist, IAMX is one of the most licensed musicians on ABC TV’s runaway hit show, How To Get Away with Murder. By the end of 2017, IAMX had synced 16 of his songs to its soundtrack, becoming one of the most recognisable composers on television thanks to the show’s creator Pete Nowalk, being a superfan of IAMX.
Another superfan turned collaborator is postmodern tattoo and makeup powerhouse, kindred spirit Kat Von D, who sings on four songs on the brand new album Alive In The New Light and shares IAMX’s avant-garde fashion and design sense, epic stage theatricality and gender-bending proclivities. IAMX’s provocative aesthetics are not limited to his music and fashion. As a video artist, he crafts IAMX’s stunning live visuals and most of their music videos, as well as videos for other acts, most notably his close friend Gary Numan.
IAMX isn’t clear where this newfound liberation will lead him. Rising from a humble working class background to capitalistic celebrity, then down to the depths of despair and back into a new light, IAMX’s armour is now more permeable and his imagination more stimulated by Los Angeles’ unrelenting optimism. For Chris Corner, turned IAMX, the transformative journey that began in his bedroom as a young kid in the North East of England and found its way into the California desert continues. The I AM in IAMX may imply stasis, a fixed state of being, but the X signifies the variable in mathematics, and IAMX the person is in no way done evolving.
IAMX is currently on tour presenting his new album Alive In The New Light and will perform at De Casino (St-Niklaas, Belgium) on Thursday March 1st.
Annex, without a question one of the best Goth/Postpunk bands from the growing Texas scene in the US, has just released the new LP "Melu". The album contains 11 killer tracks and it can be streamed in full via the band's Bandcamp page, and purchased on vinyl from the Her Corrosion web shop.
