Tomasz Lukowicz has already earned his stripes with his Fractal project, through which he has released a truckload of productions. With Replicant, he reveals another side of his skills, and on the debut album “Critical Point”, he delivers 11 compelling tracks.

Replicant sounds very different — more like an experiment in which the operator takes us deep into his sonic laboratory, completely unleashing his creativity in sound design. He supports these experiments with slow rhythms and broken beats. Lukowicz reveals himself here as a true sound architect, showcasing an impressive sonic landscape. I particularly enjoy the depth he creates in his bass lines, as well as some of the space-like electro arrangements. The whole album remains entirely instrumental. A touch of vocals or sampling here and there would not have felt out of place, but “Critical Point” already stands firmly on its own. The album even contains a few minimalist gems that are simply impossible to ignore. This is the kind of release that would have appealed to fans of the Tympanik Audio label back in the day, but which has now found the right home on Aliens Production.

Call it Experimental with a touch of IDM subtlety, or simply Electro freestyle — this debut album is certainly an intriguing discovery. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Depressing Fate Of Humanity”:

https://aliensproduction.bandcamp.com/track/depresing-fate-of-humanity

Industrial solo artist Staytus, the project of Sam Grundemann, has signed with the US label Cleopatra Records last month and now released the digital single and video “S + M” on May 29, 2026. The single is the first announced collaboration between Grundemann and Cleopatra Records.

Musically “S + M” mixes industrial, electronic and nu-metal elements. Thematically the track deals with separation, unresolved emotional connection and the idea of reunion within a “twin flame” relationship.

“This song lives in that space between losing someone and never fully letting them go,” Grundemann adds. “It’s about the kind of connection that doesn’t just end—it lingers, evolves and keeps calling you back. Signing with Cleopatra Records felt natural because they’ve always embraced music that carries that kind of emotional weight.”

“S + M” is accompanied by a video which was directed by Vicente Cordero of Industrialism Films known for his work for acts including Skold and Stabbing Westward.

About Staytus

Staytus is the solo project of Sam Grundemann, an Arizona-born musician, producer, songwriter and audio engineer now working from the Los Angeles area. Staytus began as “a personal project” and musically blends industrial, electronic and nu-metal elements.

We first covered the project in March 2022 when the project released three tracks from the debut album “Disease Of The Mind”. The debut album “Disease Of The Mind” was released digitally on September 9, 2022 and contains 13 tracks. Staytus followed it with “Wasteland Of Broken Hearts”, released on October 27, 2023 as an 11-track digital album.

In 2025, Staytus released several standalone singles and film-linked tracks. We covered “How To Be A Serial Killer“, the closing track in the “Twisted Frames” series, followed by “Headache“, “Heart Attack“, “Kiss N Tell” and “The God, The Artist, & The Creator“. Those releases involved collaborators including Matt McJunkins, Sean Beavan, Mikal Blue, Jeff Friedl, Anthony Laurie and Patrick “Embryo” Tapu.

The Slovak electro and minimal-wave project ImiAFan – aka 4mg Records founder Imrich Végh – has released a digital EP, “Elmúlt idő” (Passed Time), on Bandcamp, with a wider streaming release scheduled for early June. The EP pairs the original title track with a set of remixes.

Alongside the original title track – first issued at the end of 2025 – the EP features remixes by Bornia (Andy Dufter, ex-Staatseinde), Hadron Lundgren (Budapest) and Keen K (Berlin electro/italo), plus a MANASYt “Bigfoot Mix” of the older track “Stupaj.” The lyrics draw on a four-line fragment by Szenes Iván, taken from Kovács Kati’s landmark Hungarian electronic track “Kérdés önmagamhoz” from 1980.

About ImiAFan

ImiAFan is a Slovak electro, synth-pop and minimal-wave project led by Imrich Végh, active since around 1999–2000. The project describes itself as an “electro / synth-pop project producing probably the most microscopic hits based and forgotten in Slovakia.” Long-time collaborator Miki Bernáth (of Damolh33) handles mixing and mastering, while Végh also runs the 4mg Records label.

Side-Line has covered the band on several occasions, including a 2019 “Click Interview” with ImiAFan vs. 4mg Records, in which Végh described himself as “more like a music activist,” and a 2019 report on the project’s 12-inch release via Falco Invernale Records. The project also appeared in Side-Line’s coverage of the Synth Slovakia 2017 compilation.

The new digital EP, “Elmúlt idő” (Passed Time), was self-released via Bandcamp on May 29, 2026.

About 4mg Records

4mg Records is a dedicated non-profit underground music label, founded in 2003 in St. Catharines, Canada, by electronic musician Imrich Végh (aka ImiAFan). The label underwent a major geographic shift when it relocated to Slovakia in 2006. Operating out of Central Europe ever since, the imprint focuses on cultivating a tight-knit international network of underground artists, prioritizing artistic expression and cultural connection over commercial success.

Sonically, the label explores the darker and more experimental corners of electronic music, with a catalog deeply rooted in minimal synth, darkwave, ambient, and industrial sounds. 4mg Records has become a trusted home for both emerging acts and seasoned veterans of the avant-garde scene, featuring releases and collaborations with iconic names like The Legendary Pink Dots, Edward Ka-Spel, Isobutane, and Click Click. Their curated compilation projects, such as the Wave Earplug series, are wellknown for showcasing diverse, global underground talent.

4mg Records bypasses mainstream distribution models to focus heavily on tangible, collectible formats. The label routinely presses music onto high-quality vinyl, cassettes, and limited-edition compact discs.

Some of the band’s best-known releases include:

Albums & cassettes

• Edward Ka-Spel – A Carrington Event (2024): A highly sought-after cassette album from the iconic frontman of The Legendary Pink Dots, delivering trademark psychedelic and avant-garde ambient textures.
• The Legendary Pink Dots – Live At The Rave Milwaukee 20 June 2000 (2025): A curated archival live concert release preserved on limited-edition cassette for collectors of industrial and experimental music.
• IMIAFAN – Clearly Defined (2024): A minimal-synth and hardware-driven electronic LP from the label’s founder, Imrich Végh.
• Isobutane – – to 0: A release from Slovak electronic producer Isobutane, exploring intricate IDM and ambient landscapes.
• Click Click – Gelsenkirchen 1997: A documentation of the historic UK EBM/industrial band’s raw electronic energy.

Compilations

• Wave Earplug Series (e.g., Wave Earplug No. 7): The flagship vinyl compilation series from the label, showcasing an international roster of artists spanning raw electro, synthwave, darkwave, and pumping acid sounds.
• Vinylized Series (e.g., Vinylized Vol. 1): Co-released with Stroboskop, this compilation series shines a spotlight on Slovak electronic innovators, weaving together experimental synth-pop, acid, and IDM.
• 2023 – 2003 = 20 Years of 4mg Records (2024): A comprehensive anniversary compilation celebrating two decades of the label, featuring tracks from Edward Ka-Spel, Sololust, Click Click, and Isobutane.

You can check out these and other releases directly on the 4mg Records Bandcamp.

Los Angeles deathrock band Ex-VoTo has released “Laodicea,” an eight-track EP on their own Poor Alice Music label in an ultra-limited pressing of 100 copies each on vinyl and CD. The release combines four new studio recordings with rare and previously compilation-only material, including covers of Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Side A collects four new studio recordings: “Angel,” “Fear Me,” “I Want to Stop,” and “Say Goodbye.” Side B features “Emmanuelle,” “Resurrection Mary,” a cover of Bauhaus’s “Slice of Life,” and a cover of Siouxsie and the Banshees’s “Monitor.”

“Slice of Life” appeared on Bauhaus’s 1981 album Mask. “Monitor” appeared on Siouxsie and the Banshees’s 1978 debut album The Scream.

The new EP follows the release of the anthology “Don’t Look Back (1982–1990)” on Phantom Chord. The anthology compiled songs from Ex-VoTo’s original 1990 “Don’t Look Back” EP alongside rare recordings from the 1982–1990 period that had not previously seen official release.

The original “Don’t Look Back” 12″ EP was issued in 1990 on Poor Alice Music and New World Records, pressed on translucent blue, purple, and black vinyl, and recorded at Poor Alice Studios in Garden Grove, California.

Ex-VoTo ‘Laodicea’ California tour dates, June 2026

To mark the release, Ex-VoTo plays three California dates beginning June 5, 2026.

• June 5, 2026 – Queen Bee’s, San Diego, CA – Supporting Kommunity FK, with The Exile and Nervous Gender (Re-Loaded).
• June 6, 2026 – Klub Terminal at La Santa, Santa Ana, CA – Supporting Kommunity FK, with Gitane Demone + Paul Roessler and Ravens Moreland. The press release lists this show as Los Angeles; a confirmed ticket listing places the venue at 220 E. 3rd St. (Basement), Santa Ana, California — Orange County, not the city of Los Angeles.
• June 7, 2026 – Club Gallows, Los Angeles, CA – Ex-VoTo headlines, with Pilgrims, In A Darkened Room, Funeral Process, and Bizarron.

About Ex-VoTo

Ex-VoTo was formed in 1982 in Los Angeles by Larry Rainwater, David Rhine, and Linda Patti. Based initially in Orange County – where the prevailing scene was still dominated by punk rock – the band relocated to Los Angeles to build a following. Their early sound combined drum machines, synthesizers, and heavy guitars at a time when live drummers were the norm, drawing audience friction and, from fellow Deathrock bands, recognition.

In 1988, the track “Falling Apart” appeared on Bomp! Records’ “American Gothic: The Krypt Kompilation”, a compilation featuring bands from Los Angeles’s gothic club The Krypt. The placement brought the band to the attention of New World Records and XXX Records. The result was “Don’t Look Back” (1990), Ex-VoTo’s first official vinyl release, a four-track 12″ EP recorded at Poor Alice Studios in Garden Grove and co-released by Poor Alice Music – the band’s own label, which Rainwater has operated independently since then – and New World Records.

Throughout the 1990s, Ex-VoTo contributed tracks to several Cleopatra Records gothic compilations, including “The Goth Box”. “Anno Domini” (1995) collected studio versions of their earliest songs, including “Falling Apart” and “If I Never.” “The Light of Day” (2003) moved toward a darkwave electro direction. “Doloroso” (2006) returned to a guitar-driven deathrock approach, and “Antioch” (2009) was the first album Rainwater set out to write as a unified work rather than a collection of individual songs.

The band relocated from Los Angeles to New Orleans, and subsequently to Houston following Hurricane Katrina. The core of the lineup has remained Rainwater on bass and lead vocals, and Linda Patti on keyboards and backing vocals. The current lineup adds Heather “Spleen” Rainwater on keyboards and backing vocals and Patrick Midnite on guitar and backing vocals.

“Laodicea” is their first new recorded release since “Antioch” (2009), seventeen years on.

Australian musicians David Thrussell and Darrin Verhagen, working together as David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief, release “The Call of Cthulhu” on June 19, 2026 via Metropolis Records. The spoken-word album is a retelling of H. P. Lovecraft’s 1928 short story, issued as a deluxe 2xLP, with a digital edition to follow.

The album sets Lovecraft’s story to a soundtrack, narrated by Thrussell with music by Verhagen. It follows the structure of the original text in three parts: “The Horror in Clay,” “The Tale of Inspector Legrasse” and “The Madness from the Sea.” Thrussell has worked with Lovecraft source material before: in 2025 he released a Lovecraft-themed record with Flint Glass on Ant-Zen, as reported by Side-Line.

“The Call of Cthulhu” is released as a deluxe 2xLP on “crushed bone” colour vinyl, with original artwork by Richard Grant (I+T=R). A digital release will follow, with no date confirmed for it at the time of writing.

About H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Call of Cthulhu’

“The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft is a 1928 horror story that pioneered “cosmic horror”. It follows an investigator piecing together clues about a terrifying, ancient, octopus-dragon-human hybrid entity and its global cult, exploring the psychological devastation of humanity when confronted with unimaginable, alien powers.

The story is told as a nested mystery through the notes of Francis Wayland Thurston, and is broken into three main parts:

1. The Horror in Clay
The story opens in 1926 with Thurston investigating the estate of his late great-uncle. He discovers a bas-relief sculpture created by a local artist named Henry Wilcox. The sculpture depicts a grotesque, tentacled monster that Wilcox made while experiencing feverish dreams of cyclopean cities and monstrous monoliths. Thurston connects this artifact to similar strange reports and ancient voodoo cults, discovering that people around the world are sharing nightmares about this being: Cthulhu.

2. The Swamp Cult
Thurston learns about a New Orleans police raid on an isolated, swamp-dwelling cult in 1907. The police uncovered horrifying rituals and human sacrifices. The cultists worshipped “The Great Old Ones,” ancient, alien beings who ruled the earth ages ago and are now sleeping beneath the sea. They chant the infamous phrase: “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

3. The Sunken City and the Sea
The narrative shifts to a manuscript written by a Norwegian sailor, Gustaf Johansen. Months earlier, his ship was chased and attacked by a mysterious vessel. Johansen and his surviving crew landed on a bizarre, uncharted volcanic island in the South Pacific. They unwittingly discovered the sunken, geometric nightmare-city of R’lyeh. After stepping on the island, they accidentally awakened Cthulhu. The entity slaughtered the crew before Johansen managed to ram Cthulhu with his ship, temporarily breaking apart the creature’s formless, regenerating body long enough to escape.

About David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief

David Thrussell is an Australian musician and composer based in Melbourne. He co-founded the industrial and electronic project Snog in 1989 with Tim McGrath and Julia Bourke, and went on to run the related projects Black Lung, formed in 1994, and Soma.

Shinjuku Thief is the project of Australian musician and soundtrack composer Darrin Verhagen. It began in 1992 as a trio of Verhagen with Charles Tétaz and François Tétaz, taking its name from Nagisa Oshima’s film “Diary of a Shinjuku Thief,” and worked in a dark ambient and cinematic style, with several records conceived as soundtracks to imagined films. Verhagen released much of the project’s catalogue on his own Dorobo label and later through Projekt, alongside work for theatre, dance and film and a teaching post at RMIT University.

“The Call of Cthulhu” is the first release credited to David Thrussell & Shinjuku Thief.

hackedepicciotto – the duo of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto – release the album “Lichtung” on July 10, 2026, via Mute Records, on CD and limited candy-colour vinyl. The hackedepicciotto “Lichtung” album is the duo’s first collection to be sung entirely in German, and follows “The Silver Threshold” (2021). A new track and video for “Zeitenwende,” the fifth track on the record, is now available.

“Lichtung” – German for “clearing” – takes its name from the home the duo established on the outskirts of Berlin after fourteen years of nomadic life. Hacke and de Picciotto have described the album as marking a departure from repetitive drone-based approaches in favour of more complex sound structures and electronic terrain. The album is the duo’s most extensive use of the German language to date.

The full tracklist is: 1. “Lichtung” 2. “Vogelfrei” 3. “Wiederbelebung” 4. “Erntedank” 5. “Zeitenwende” 6. “Draussen” 7. “Einig” 8. “Der Marschall.”

A video for “Wiederbelebung” was released in March 2026 ahead of the album announcement.

hackedepicciotto tour dates 2026-2027

hackedepicciotto have announced a number of live dates to accompany the release, including June 27, 2026, at silent green Kulturquartier in Berlin (with Sonic Morgue), and July 10 and 11 in Portugal – Porto at KISMIF Museum of Science and Lisbon at Galeria Zé dos Bois. Below are all of the dates.

• 6 June – Frankfurt (DE), Ono
• 10 June – Regensburg (DE), Ostentor Kino
• 13 June – Düsseldorf (DE), Art:Walk Festival, Weltkunstzimmer
• 27 June – Berlin (DE), Silent Green – a celebration of LICHTUNG
• 10 July – Porto (PT), KISMIF Museum Of Science Of Porto
• 27 Aug – Poznan (PL), Estrada w Centrum
• 1 Sep – Geneva (CH), Cave 12 Festival la Bâtie – NEW DATE
• 12 Sep – Den Bosch (NL), William Twee – NEW DATE
• 15 Sep – Prague (CZ), Archa – NEW DATE
• 16 Sep – Brno (CZ), Kabinet Mu – NEW DATE
• 20 Nov – Amsterdam (NL), OCCI – NEW DATE
• 27 Nov – Sofia (BG), Club Pave – NEW DATE
• 30 Jan 2027 – Lübeck (DE), Treibsand

About hackedepicciotto

hackedepicciotto is the project of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto, partners in life and work. Hacke is a founding member of Berlin industrial act Einstürzende Neubauten and a contributor to numerous projects over four decades, including Crime and the City Solution.

De Picciotto co-founded Berlin’s Love Parade in 1989 and has released extensive solo work as a musician, visual artist and author; she also performed with Space Cowboys and the later incarnation of Crime and the City Solution.

The duo began presenting work as hackedepicciotto in the 2010s and released “Menetekel” as a 2LP in 2017. Side-Line covered the announcement of “The Silver Threshold” in August 2021 and the accompanying video for “Kirchhain” in November 2021; “The Silver Threshold” was released November 12, 2021, on Mute, and stands as the duo’s most orchestrally arranged record to date. Side-Line also covered the announcement of three reissues on Mute in 2023 and the release of their first live album in 2024.

“Lichtung,” out July 10, 2026, is their first studio album since “The Silver Threshold.”

Dessau old-school EBM project T.A.N.K., led by Reinhard Hüber, has released its third album “Broken Mirror” via Electro Aggression Records. The release is available as a digital order and CD order through the label’s Bandcamp page. We first reported the album in January 2025, when Electro Aggression Records announced a new batch of upcoming releases.

The Bandcamp pre-order already unlocked three tracks: “Fight or Suffer”, “Reject” and “Bloodsucker”. Electro Aggression Records has also posted the YouTube previews “Broken Mirror album snippets”, “Fight or Suffer | EAR 019 preview” and “Reject | EAR 019 preview”.

About T.A.N.K.

Reinhard Hüber, who has a 1990s German punk background, launched T.A.N.K. in Dessau in 2001. The name stands short for “Taktischer Angriff (auf’s) Nervenkostüm”. The first live appearance took place at the first Electric Tremor Festival in Dessau on March 22, 2002.

The self-released “T.A.N.K.” EP landed in 2002. It was followed by the debut album “Musica Denaturale” on Ars Electrique in 2003. In 2011, the project contributed “Game of Men” to the 4CD set “Old School Electrology Volume One”. The second full-length, “Return”, came out in 2017 on Electric Tremor Dessau.

In the Electro Aggression Records orbit, Hüber also turned up through remix work connected to R010R and Synaptic Defect before “Broken Mirror” moved into the foreground as the next full album. “Broken Mirror” is be the project’s third album holding 19 tracks.

Kristof Bathory brought Dawn Of Ashes to life in 2000. The first albums by this American artist were released through the now-defunct Noitekk label, immediately grabbing listeners by the throat with their raw, icy, and uncompromising blend of Dark-Electro and Aggrotech. More than twenty years later, this musical visionary can look back on a rich and successful career during which the project evolved through several distinct eras — from its original Dark-Electro-driven sound to Industrial-Metal, before ultimately returning to its Electronic roots on the previous opus, now infused with the Cinematic influences Bathory also explores in his solo work.

With over two decades of dark visions, sonic aggression, and constant musical transformation, Kristof Bathory remains one of the most uncompromising figures within the scene. With “Anatomy Of Suffering,” released on Metropolis this spring, he not only confirms his return to a more Electronic approach, but also delivers a remarkably mature work in which he continues his meticulous exploration of mental anguish and psychological suffering. Dawn Of Ashes has always remained a project with a striking visual identity, perfectly aligned with the disturbing themes it addresses. As a listener, you can feel the suffering permeating every aspect of the project, balanced by a profound artistic vision and emotional depth. Time for a conversation with the artist himself. (Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Dawn Of Ashes interview

Q: What does Dawn Of Ashes mean to you after more than a quarter of a century of existence, and what comes to mind spontaneously when you look back, even just for a moment? And, with the knowledge and experience you have today, what would you like to say to the young Kristof Bathory of the year 2000?

Kristof: Dawn Of Ashes is an ongoing, evolving reflection of myself, revealing the different phases of my maturity and growth through both the music and the lyrics. There are things I can unearth from the past and give new purpose to in the present, and there are other things better left buried deep within the tomb. If I could speak to my younger self, early Kristof, I would tell him to make wiser decisions and to have patience before making impulsive choices.

Q: Your new album “Anatomy Of Suffering” seems to leave little room for interpretation, but could you still tell us a bit more about it? What is the backstory of this opus, how personal is it, and how did you translate it into music?

Kristof: “Anatomy Of Suffering” is a descent into the mind of suicide, pain, and the grotesque rot that festers within as a result of severe mental corrosion. It is both a deeply personal expression and a means of connecting with those who endure this same inner decay.

Q: Psychological suffering has long been a recurring theme in your work, and I sometimes wonder how introspective and therapeutic music can be. Could it not also lead to even more suffering? What fascinates me is how obscure, dark, and even destructive themes can culminate in an artistic peak. How do you perceive that process?

Kristof: I suppose it all depends on how you interpret it and how you absorb it. Art is subjective—it can either reflect destruction or illuminate a path toward blissfulness. Sometimes, suffering is a necessary part of healing.

Q: Your music and influences have clearly evolved over the years, and your latest albums seem to represent a kind of synthesis: a return to the Dark-Electro of your early years combined with the Metal and Industrial influences that followed. How did this evolution come about, and what different stages did you go through to arrive at the final result of “Anatomy Of Suffering”?

Kristof: My return to Dark-Electro is not only a response to the demand from the fans, but also a result of all the work I’ve done in the Dark-Ambient world. My love for synthesizers and Eurorack modular systems reignited my passion for Electronic music. While I haven’t completely drifted away from Metal, I’ve become far more selective with it, finding myself increasingly drawn to Electronic and Ambient music instead.

Q: Now that Dawn Of Ashes is leaning more towards its Electronic side again, I assume this also impacts your live performances. How is that going these days, and do you notice a different audience or fanbase attending your shows?

Kristof: Dawn Of Ashes is now more focused on performing both the older Dark-Electro material and the newer Dark-Electro work. We’re putting live Metal performances on pause for now, as this approach makes touring easier and allows us to focus more fully on the Industrial side of the live experience.

Q: A final question that I consider quite important concerns the visual aspect that Dawn Of Ashes has always invested in. I’m thinking, for instance, of the music video for “Viral Decay” from the new album. What are your thoughts and experiences regarding a current zeitgeist in which ‘wokeism’ on the one hand and algorithm-driven censorship culture on the other stand in stark contrast to what you create?

Kristof: To be honest, I’ve been much more careful with the visual side of things, as I feel some of the early Dawn Of Ashes themes leaned too heavily into edgelord aesthetics and shock for the sake of shock. Now, everything needs to carry substance and meaning. If the content is controversial, it has to symbolize something deeper—something metaphorical rather than merely provocative.

Post-punk icon Peter Murphy has released “Swoon (Magic Wands Remix)” as a single via Metropolis Records. The track is a reworking of “Swoon,” the lead single from Murphy’s 2025 album “Silver Shade”.

The original “Swoon” was issued in February 2025, featuring Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails on backing vocals and album producer Youth on bass. The new remix comes from the U.S. dream-pop duo Magic Wands (Dexy and Chris Valentine).

“Our take on the song was about chasing a very specific feeling, like a kind of natural high,” the duo explain. “The goal was to build on the emotion in Peter’s vocal and surround it with a fast-moving, euphoric wash of guitars and synths, capturing the rush of a true swoon.”

About Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy is an English singer born in Northampton in 1957. He co-founded Bauhaus in 1978, and the band’s debut single, the nine-minute “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” was released in 1979. Bauhaus recorded four studio albums before splitting in 1983, and the band has reformed several times since. Side-Line has reported on the group’s activity, including a 2018 world tour announcement alongside David J and the cancellation of a 2022 North American run.

Peter Murphy’s solo career began in 1986 with “Should The World Fail To Fall Apart” (Beggars Banquet) and continued through “Love Hysteria” (1988), “Deep” (1989) — which included the U.S. single “Cuts You Up” — “Holy Smoke” (1992) and “Cascade” (1995). His later records reflected his interest in Sufism and his adopted home of Turkey, and the catalogue extends to “Lion” (2014), produced by Killing Joke bassist Youth. After a heart attack in 2019, which Side-Line reported as he announced his first live date back with Bauhaus, Murphy returned to recording.

His studio album “Silver Shade,” billed as his tenth solo full-length and reuniting him with producer Youth, was released by Metropolis Records on May 9, 2025, as Side-Line reported at the time. The record features contributions from Trent Reznor, Tool’s Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor, and Boy George, who duets on the closing track “Let The Flowers Grow.” That song was later issued in remixes by Juno Reactor and Delerium. The album was preceded by the singles “Swoon” and “The Artroom Wonder.”

Metropolis Records now issues “Swoon (Magic Wands Remix),” a reworking of the “Silver Shade” track, released on May 29, 2026.

Choke Chain (aka Mark Trueman) releases the EP “Decomposition” on July 10, 2026, via Negative Gain Productions, on CD, vinyl LP and digital. The “Decomposition” EP combines 1990s-style dark electro with hardcore punk.

Choke Chain describe the EP as raw, with no moment of relief. The release draws on the dark electro of Leæther Strip, :wumpscut: and Mentallo & The Fixer, set against hardcore punk aggression.

“The EP was mostly written during a time where I was very close to giving up,” said founder Mark Trueman. “Everything felt completely hopeless, and still does to some degree. I really tried to put all of that feeling into these songs.”

“Decomposition” can be previewed and ordered on Bandcamp ahead of the July 10, 2026 release on Negative Gain Productions.

About Choke Chain

Choke Chain is the dark electronic project of Milwaukee, Wisconsin musician Mark Trueman, founded around 2018. The act combines the dark electro of the early-1990s European scene – the Zoth Ommog and Wax Trax! lineage of EBM and industrial – with the energy of Trueman’s hardcore punk background. The sound is built on pounding rhythms, harsh textures and frantic vocals.

Side-Line covered the project with a review of its debut EP “Chain Tactics” in October 2020. Our reviewer Inferno Sound Diaries described it as “old-school EBM made in America and reminding me the golden years of Wax Trax! and more specifically Revolting Cocks; the mix of European EBM and American Industrial music,” adding that “even if this is old-style Electro, it has something refreshing.” Choke Chain followed with “Endless Death” and “Invoking Shadows” (both 2021) before collecting its material into the first full-length, “Mortality” (2023).

The project has performed at Chicago’s Cold Waves festival (Cold Waves X, 2022) and at Roadburn in 2025, plus the Substance and InFest festivals. The new EP, “Decomposition,” arrives on July 10, 2026, on Negative Gain Productions.

The Norwegian electro-industrial project TAZER has released a new single, “Raise The Voltage,” via Hellektrokution Records. The track is taken from the album “Taze Is The Rule,” released April 30, 2026.

“Raise The Voltage” is the fifth track on the full-length “Taze Is The Rule,” a ten-track album combining electronic rhythms with distorted guitars.

“Raise The Voltage” is available via Spotify, YouTube and Bandcamp.

About TAZER

This Norwegian electro-industrial project has been active since 2024 and is signed to Hellektrokution Records. The line-up consists of Calico InHell, Drumnibal and Oni X01.

The project’s debut single, “A Razor Can Slit, A Tazer Can Kill,” was followed by the self-published EP “9001 Volts.” The band first appeared on Side-Line in November 2024 with the single “A Razor Can Slit, A Tazer Can Kill”, and returned in October 2025 with a Halloween video for “I Put a Spell on You”.

The ten-track album “Taze Is The Rule” was released through Hellektrokution Records on April 30, 2026, and “Raise The Voltage” is taken from it. The standalone release date and format for the single were not specified in the press materials.

About Hellektrokution Records (HKR)

Hellektrokution Records (HKR) is an independent record label founded in 2026, focused exclusively on emerging artists working in industrial, dark electronic, and electronic metal. The label operates under the symbolic designation “Hell, Norway” – a reference to the actual village of Hell in Trondheim municipality, used as a conceptual anchor for the label’s aesthetic and geographic identity.

Besides TAZER, the label signed Toxxic Project (a dark synthwave project by Sebastián Cortez) and the US-based female EBM artist Cylia Vex.

Henrik Karlsson might ring a bell for fans of Seven Trees. However, it has been several years since this Swedish project released any new material. In the meantime, one of its members, Henrik Karlsson, began releasing his own music under the sonic alter ego Subverge. Four albums have since been released on his own label, Arcane Dirge. A selection of nine tracks from those albums has been brought together on this compilation, “Select”, and supplemented with three previously unreleased tracks, which also conclude the album.

Seven Trees and Subverge are not really comparable, except for their shared Electronic foundations. That said, Subverge appears to draw inspiration from the legacy of Cold Meat Industry. A pronounced Dark-Ambient influence runs throughout the album, although it rapidly evolves into a more Cinematic sound. The result is an overwhelming production built upon an extremely dark undertone, frequently supported by slow rhythms and powerful orchestral percussion. At times, I even detected subtle Tribal elements. Dark strings color the atmosphere, while more delicate piano arrangements provide contrast and depth. Repetitive sequences create a sense of foreboding and further reinforce the album’s gloomy mood. To be fair, I must admit that the three previously unreleased tracks—seemingly older compositions that simply never found their way onto an album—do not add much to the overall experience and therefore offer little real bonus value.

Nevertheless, “Select” presents an excellent overview of Subverge’s work and serves as the perfect introduction for newcomers, as well as an ideal opportunity for existing listeners to (re)discover the project. As far as I’m concerned, this is an absolute masterpiece. (Rating:8½).

Listen to “Silver Circles”:

https://aliensproduction.bandcamp.com/track/silver-circles

Starsign emerged in the 1990s and was driven by the German duo Oliver Teßmer and Matthias Blechschmidt. At the time, they released several EPs, along with an album that appeared in 2003. After that, things went quiet for more than two decades, but the duo revived the project a few years ago. Following several high-profile singles, they released “Silver Linings” earlier this year, featuring 10 tracks.

The influences running through “Silver Linings” are quite diverse, yet they fit perfectly within the Electro-Pop genre. The songs move between quiet, floating pieces on the one hand and more danceable tracks on the other. Depeche Mode can occasionally be felt lurking around the corner, while other tracks seem inspired by Mesh. However, Starsign is by no means a copycat; rather, they have managed to blend these diverse elements into a smooth and enjoyable whole. Some songs are beautifully crafted and reveal subtle details in the production. Personally, I prefer their ‘heavier’ tracks, and although I do miss an undeniable standout hit on the album, “Silver Linings” still has a great deal to offer. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Shiver”:

https://infactedrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/shiver

When The Neon Judgement called it quits in the late ’90s — although they would return regularly, mainly for live performances — Dirk Da Davo decided to continue solo with Neon Electronics. Over the years, he received support from Glenn Keteleer and Pieter-Jan Theunis. The first self-titled album was released in 1999, ushering in a career that now concludes in 2026 with this final record.

Neon Electronics has gone through several stylistic periods in terms of influences and genre, but on “Liberation” — which feels more like a mini-album — the project returns to ’80s influences. The music and atmosphere radiate Cold-Wave, driven by danceable beats. There is a fine balance between guitar and electronics, resulting in a dark atmosphere enriched by eerie vocals, while additional influences from Techno and EBM also emerge. More than ever before, I hear clear references to The Neon Judgement, though I doubt anyone will mind.

This release contains six tracks (only five on the vinyl edition) as well as two remixes by Ancient Methods and Patrick Codenys of Front 242. The album bids farewell to us with Neon Electronics at its very best, and somehow that genuinely hurts the listener. This is a highly accomplished and technically refined production filled with hidden gems waiting to be discovered. I would also like to highlight the excellent remix by Patrick Codenys, which, in my opinion, even slightly surpasses the original track. The bonus track included on the digital edition is likewise a brilliant piece of work in which melody and sonic chaos blend beautifully together.

“Liberation” is a brilliant release that immediately feels like the epitaph of Neon Electronics and, as far as I am concerned, a project that will be deeply missed. What’s next, Dirk? (Rating:8½).

Listen to “Liberation”:

https://oraculorecords.bandcamp.com/track/liberation

Swedish electronic artist EMMON and Zweite Jugend join forces on “Salz”, a reworked and reimagined version of a Zweite Jugend track released via Icons Creating Evil Art. What began as a remix idea turned into something far less predictable: a club driven, tense and physical piece that brings together Zweite Jugend’s reduced EBM architecture with EMMON’s high impact electronic language.

The result is a collision of methods, instincts and voices. “Salz” moves through repetition, desire, pressure and transcendence, carrying the severity of body music into a more expansive contemporary club space. In this interview, Emma Nylén of EMMON and Eli van Vegas of Zweite Jugend discuss how the track changed shape, why collaboration still matters in electronic music, and what older and newer currents in EBM can still learn from each other.

EMMON and Zweite Jugend discuss ‘Salz'”‘ collaboration

Karo: “Salz” began as a Zweite Jugend track and then became a shared work with EMMON. What was the element in the original version that had to remain intact, and what needed to be opened up, intensified or challenged?

Emma:We immediately fell for the groove and the repetitive vocals in Elis Transendenz’s version, and asked if we could do a remix inspired by that groove – but we failed completely, and it accidentally turned into a techno banger with Chemical Brothers influences instead.

Karo: At what point did this stop feeling like a remix or guest feature and start feeling like a new artistic statement with its own identity?

Emma: There was probably never a clear boundary – it evolved organically into something other than just a remix. Since we were never satisfied with our original remix version, we eventually let go of control completely instead. At first we thought it sounded like garbage, but the track kept growing on us until we started to love it.

Karo: Emma’s voice and production presence bring a very distinct kind of pressure to the track. How did EMMON’s contribution change the emotional temperature and physical direction of “Salz”?

Eli: I think, the lyrics are exactly that kind of universal that these can be used on different genres. Songs that represent this kind of black and white like intimacy and a night out at a club. I originally wrote the lines for Krischan Wesenberg‘s solo project which was progressive house in one way or the other. So yeah, it was meant to be fitting into a techno driven context. As the lyrics are about experiencing sexuality in a transcendental way, having a second person in the story makes perfect sense. It opens up the opposite perspective which is basically the same. Or, it wouldn’t be transcendent otherwise. So it wasn’t just a technical learning how to work together. It just felt natural. And I think that I love how it turned out with Emma‘s and my voice combined. Like as this version was always meant to be.

Karo: Zweite Jugend’s sound often works through reduction, analogue tension and direct physical impact, while EMMON brings a more expansive club instinct. How did you negotiate the space between austerity and excess?

Emma: We did not, we just had a flow creating the track aming it to be a dance floor banger and hoped (knew) that ZJ would like it, haha!

Karo: The lyrics in “Salz” move through repetition almost like a fixation. What does repetition allow you to express here that a more narrative structure would weaken?

Eli: It is a fixation. Yes. And that‘s the whole dried here. If you are at the border to transcendence you would not want to leave that mental and emotional space so you keep on going. It‘s like being at a rave at 5 a.m. and you close your eyes and the very next thing that you realise is that it’s noon. It‘s a state of euphoria.

Karo: The track feels built for the body, but the body it imagines does not feel simple, happy or purely hedonistic. It feels tense, driven and haunted. What kind of physical state did you want “Salz” to create?

Emma: Like that manic, inspiring, intense energy you could feel in your guts at an illegal rave party in the mid-’90s.

Eli: Well, the initial idea behind the lyrics was to keep it at the personal level. Now it has opened up to a two-pieced perspective with not only gives it different ingredients but also takes the song to a whole different level. I think, what only this new version brings into account is the complexity. It introduces it for the very first time. The described mental state can be either plain and simple our reflect on the holistic condition of the content.

Karo: EBM has always carried a certain severity, but “Salz” also has sensuality and atmosphere. How important was it to keep the track dangerous without turning it into pure aggression?

Emma: Not at all, it was just a happy accident that came from combining us together. The mood of the track is more like the forbidden feeling of doing something you desperately long for, but aren’t allowed to do.

Karo: Emma, your work has always carried a rare combination of control, force and elegance. In this collaboration, did you feel you were entering Zweite Jugend’s world, pulling them into yours, or creating a third space between both?

Emma: Since Jimmy and I were completely free creatively to do whatever we wanted, you could maybe say that we totally hijacked the track until it became its own creation.

Karo: Eli described inspiration as something that does not have to move in one direction. How important is reciprocity in a scene that often builds its mythology around strong individual identities?

Eli: I feel that the very ancestors of this genre (if you want to just call it one) were all about collaborations and featurings. People came in and left some elements to bring used and left again, or they stayed and became the myth that you are talking about. But behind that it wasn‘t that narrow minded at all. And I feel it is about time to collaborate more to create even greater arts, now that many of the ancestors are gone or retiring. To keep the spirit of this kind of music alive we need to embrace different approaches and let them clash into one work. Just to be separated in other cases.

Karo: “Salz” connects different generations and approaches within the electronic underground. What can older and newer currents in EBM still teach each other when they meet without nostalgia?

Eli: Nostalgia is a very emotional point of view. It can be useful to reflect on old days or to even learn something. But it doesn’t say anything about this present and the past. It‘s most definitely on us to create that future. EBM is more or less dead and now lives in way more open scenes that build on that. If that’s the question, let‘s just accept the past for what it is and build a future that we want to have. Let the younger generation of creators be expressive and successful.

Karo: Collaboration can reveal blind spots in an artist’s own method. Did working together change the way you hear your own sound, your limits, or your future direction?

Emma: What we especially love is working on all kinds of inspiring collaborations, because it’s such an effective way to gain perspectives and discover things you never would have found otherwise. That’s how Jimmy and I both love to work — together and with other artists.

Eli: I always wanted to work with bands like Emmon. Personally, you can’t tear me down to one genre. Today I would listen to NIN und tomorrow it might be Röyksopp. To be honest, I‘m always very disrespectful with my own work. That‘s the essence of being an artist. You have to be your biggest critic. A collaboration is a good way to break this a bit as you might find someone else in your own soul. And that‘s it exactly, colliding souls that build emergence. This just happened to me with Salz and Emma. We are now connected forever. I have left a print of my soul in hers and so she has in mine.

Karo: This collaboration sounds less like a side note and more like a possible threshold. Did “Salz” open any ideas for future work together, either in the studio or on stage?

Emma: Maybe, we’re totally open for all kinds of expressions that inspire us and try not to work with any limitations at all.

Eli: With Zweite Jugend we can now retire. That at least is our approach after we have now the feeling that our story has been told. Which opened up to take some time and see how we want to sound in the future and how to progress without losing the identity. As soon as I heard what Emmon would bring to the table, I was fascinated and inspired. I mean, the least to take from this is inspiration. You never know, probably we should do more collaborations. And we don’t talk about live featurings, because it‘s obviously a things that we most likely should and must do. As soon as our paths cross anyway or on purpose.

Zweite Jugend & EMMON release “Salz” on May 29, 2026 via Icons Creating Evil Art. The track revisits Zweite Jugend’s original version and pushes it into a shadowy, hypnotic club realm, where analogue EBM tension meets EMMON’s darker electronic drive. “Salz” will be available worldwide on major streaming platforms, with an official visualizer also released on YouTube

“Arousal” is already the third album by Italian duo Les Longs Adieux. With this new release, Federica Garenna and Frank Marrelli continue to build on their established sound while simultaneously allowing new influences and subtle evolutions to emerge.

The album still breathes the spirit of the 1980s, yet this opus perhaps leans even more toward Electro-Wave territory, enriched with wonderfully vintage synthesizer textures that create a certain sense of magic. Throughout the record, a melancholic atmosphere dominates, beautifully reinforced by melodic choruses that give many of the songs an emotional depth. One particular standout is “Le Soldat De Plomb,” which incorporates a few French lyrics and is, in my opinion, by far the strongest track the duo has written so far. The song feels like a genuine gem and showcases exactly what Les Longs Adieux is capable of achieving when everything falls perfectly into place.

After this high point, the album loses a bit of momentum, though it remains an enjoyable and atmospheric listen throughout, even if no additional tracks quite reach the same level.

Les Longs Adieux undeniably possesses potential. They may not have fully realized it yet, but “Arousal” contains at least one truly remarkable song that is bound to resonate deeply with listeners. (Rating:7½).

Listen to “Le Soldat De Plomb”:

https://leslongsadieux.bandcamp.com/track/le-soldat-de-plomb

Ljubljana EBM and electronic rock act Borghesia will see their 1989 album “Resistance” reissued by Matrix Music Arhiv (MMA) on 26 June 2026. The release is available across four formats: a limited purple-and-white double vinyl, a black double vinyl, a double CD, and a limited-edition cassette of 100 copies. The double vinyl and double CD editions include a bonus live album, “Dal Vivo a El Paso”, recorded in Torino, Italy in December 1988. The album has been remastered for this release.

The original album occupies LP1/CD1 across all formats. Tracks are: “Theme One (Resistance Mix)”, “Message”, “If”, “Konflikt (Conflict)”, “October”, “Rumours”, “Young Prisoners”, “Discipline”, “Mali Čovek (The Little Man)”, “PIAS”, “Police Hour”, and “More Resistance”.

The bonus live recording, “Dal Vivo a El Paso” – the title translates from Italian as “Live at El Paso” – makes up LP2/CD2 on the double vinyl and double CD editions. The recording was made during a European tour stop in Torino in December 1988 featuring very different, raw and at times ‘dubbed up’ versions of the band’s early tracks.

Tracks are: “Hunters (Lovci)”, “Am I?”, “Sentenced To Death (Na smrtno kazen)”, “Who Turned Off the Light? (Kdo je ugasnil luč?)”, “Him (On)”, “Naked Lunch (Pasto nudo)”, “So Young (Tako mladi)”, “Rugged City (Ogolelo mesto)”, “Mud (Blato)”, and “Naked, Uniformed, Dead (Goli, uniformirani, mrtvi)”.

The cassette edition, limited to 100 copies on purple MusiCassette, contains the LP1/CD1 tracks only.

About the original ‘Resistance’ release

Borghesia’s “Resistance” was first released in 1989 on Play It Again Sam (PIAS) in Europe, Wax Trax in the US, and Jugoton in Yugoslavia. It was among a sequence of Borghesia releases on PIAS between 1987 and 1991, which were also licensed to Wax Trax in the US and Canada.

The album’s production sounded like it was created in a bunker, using stolen military equipment and synthesisers. Matrix Music Arhiv connects the reissue to current political conditions: “The dark clouds of violence are already looming over Europe, they’ve never really left the Middle East, and the levers of power and capital ever so louder, not even covertly at all incite: war, war, war!”

Side-Line published a Click Interview with Borghesia in March 2019, in which Aldo Ivančič discussed the band’s history, their place in EBM’s early period, and the 2018 album “Proti Kapitulaciji” on Moonlee Records.

About Borghesia

Borghesia was formed in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) in 1982 by Dario Seraval (vocals, programming) and Aldo Ivančič (drums, programming), along with video artists Zemira Alajbegović, Neven Korda, and Goran Devide. The project grew out of the alternative theatre groups Theatre FV-112/15 and Teater Performans.

Early releases appeared on the Slovenian label Zalozba FV and the Italian label Materiali Sonori: “Ljubav je hladnija od smrti” (1985) and “Their Laws, Our Lives” (1986). From 1987 the band issued a series of records on PIAS: “No Hope, No Fear” (1987), “Escorts and Models” (1988), the single “Naked, Uniformed, Dead” (1988), and “Resistance” (1989). PIAS releases were licensed to Wax Trax in the US and Canada.

Borghesia and Laibach both appeared on “Trans Slovenia Express”, a compilation released on Mute Records in 1994.

Following “Resistance”, the band released “Message” (PIAS, 1990), “4×12” (Blind Dog Records, 1991), and “Dreamers in Colour” (PIAS, 1992). The band halted all of its activity in 1995 with “Pro Choice” on Zalozba FV.

The band resumed activity in 2009 and a retrospective double CD, “20th Century – Selected Works”, appeared on FV Music the same year. “And Man Created God” was released on Metropolis Records in 2014.

A year later Dario Seraval appeared as a guest vocalist on dreDDup’s track “Etika” for the Side-Line free compilation “Face the Beat: Session 2”.

“Proti Kapitulaciji” followed on Moonlee Records in 2018, and “Un Chant d’Amour” appeared on Final Muzik in 2021. The current touring lineup includes Irena Tomažin and Jelena Rusjan (vocals) and Andrej Mazi (guitar) alongside core members Seraval and Ivančič.

The MMA reissue of “Resistance” is released on 26 June 2026.

This single slipped our radar but is more than worth announcing. A few weeks ago the Belgian electronic project Kilmarth released “Avant de céder…“, a three-track instrumental digital single combining glitch, dark minimal, and experimental electronic textures. Written, produced, and mixed by Cedric Wattergniaux, the release is available on Bandcamp.

The three tracks are a first glimpse of ayet unnamed forthcoming album. Note that the third track is a reimagined version of an earlier Kilmarth piece.

Four months ago, in January 2026, Wattergniaux released the concept album “Cherophobia” through Adventurous Music, the Leipzig-based micro-label focused on experimental electronic works. That nine-track album explored the fear of happiness, and featured seven guest vocalists including Deranged Psyche, Mad Mac, Eeerisei, Silly Shadow, Heri B., Natasha Moreno, and Clémence Legrand.

About Kilmarth

Kilmarth is a Belgian electronic solo project founded in 2007 by composer, producer, and French teacher Cédric Wattergniaux. The project name references Kilmarth, the Cornish house at the centre of Daphne du Maurier’s novel The House on the Strand.

The project debuted in 2018 with the CD mini-album “Catharsis”. In 2021, Wattergniaux issued the EP “Derrière Le Miroir”, which pushed into minimal-electro and cinematic territory and later produced the video-focused single “M-Fia41”. A Side-Line interview from 2018, “Music Is A Legal Drug That Has The Immense Power To Make Us Escape”, offers further background on the project’s origins.

In 2022, he released the two-track single “Baryum”, introducing a darker post-industrial ambient angle. The 2023 mini-album “Better Days” introduced a singer for the first time in the project’s history.

January 2024 saw the release of “Sociological Veranda”, Wattergniaux’s first full-length IDM album, combining dark electro, glitch, ambient, drum and bass, and cinematic elements across its tracklist. That same year, the single “Vergessen” appeared with the jazz-infused B-side “ToExposeTheTruth”. In November 2024, the EP “My Son of The Moon” followed.

In early 2025, Kilmarth collaborated with D-Fried on the album “Micrometeoritic Flowerpot”. The “Cherophobia” concept album for Adventurous Music arrived in January 2026. “Avant de céder…” followed two months later and is available on Kilmarth’s Bandcamp page.

Along with the reissue of “Ritual”, which appeared on CD for the first time, Zoharum is simultaneously releasing this album by Wieloryb. “God’s Final Breath” was released only in digital format via Antyscena last year and is now finally receiving a CD edition as well, although without the bonus tracks.

If you are familiar with Paweł Kmiecik’s Polish project, you will immediately recognize his affinity for Rhythmic-Noise, while also appreciating the way he uses it as a foundation to incorporate Trance/Tribal influences alongside additional Electro elements. The result is an exhilarating production in which power and dark atmospheres merge with hard-hitting beats, provoking frenetic dancefloor energy in the listener. Here and there, raw, possessed vocals are added -and according to me these tracks are the best ones- while other tracks reveal subtle yet highly effective EBM influences. One particular piece even recalls the era when Ministry fully embraced an Industrial direction, although Wieloryb reshapes this into a kind of Industrial-Ambient/Cinematic experience.

This is an extremely versatile opus; perhaps not the definitive reference album in Wieloryb’s catalogue, yet still a highly successful release containing several essential and crushing musical gems. For me, Wieloryb remains one of the most visionary projects within the broader Industrial scene. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Break The Chains”:

https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/track/break-the-chains

SPKtR – the industrial and electronic project formed by Graeme Revell (SPK) and his son Robert J. Revell – has released “La Encantadora Furiosa” as its second digital single of 2026, against the backdrop of a Bandcamp ban that removed the project’s debut single “The Last of Men” after the platform’s AI detection tool flagged the human-produced track as AI-generated.

The video-single “La Encantadora Furiosa” is now available on Apple Music, iTunes, YouTube Music, and Amazon, among most major streaming platforms. It is not on Spotify.

The single preceded SPKtR’s first live appearance at Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, Germany, on 25 May 2026, where the band performed with special guest vocalist Evi Vine – who has previously collaborated with Graeme Revell.

SPKtR Bandcamp ban: ‘The Last of Men’ removed over AI flag

SPKtR’s debut single, “The Last of Men” – released in March 2026 as a two-track digital release comprising “The Last of Men” and “The Last of Men (video edit)” – was removed from Bandcamp on 11 May 2026. Bandcamp cited an alleged violation of its Acceptable Use Policy. The platform’s AI analysis tool had determined the track contained “Music or audio created, composed, or generated by artificial intelligence.”

The band replaced the Bandcamp page with this statement: “This 2-track release has been removed from Bandcamp for allegedly violating Bandcamp’s Acceptable Use Policy. Ironically, Bandcamp’s own deployment of an AI-generated analysis tool has determined that the track ‘The Last of Men’, written, performed, recorded and produced by the verifiably human musician and composer, Graeme Revell, contains ‘Music or audio created, composed, or generated by artificial intelligence.'”

The removal carries an additional layer of context: the video and artwork for “The Last of Men” were indeed openly AI-generated, a deliberate artistic choice by the project. When the single launched in March 2026, Revell stated: “AI is simply the contemporary coal face. It isn’t a shortcut or a replacement for artists. It’s an instrument.”

About SPKtR

SPK was founded in Sydney in 1978 by Graeme Revell and Neil Hill. The project moved to the UK in 1980, and released the “Meat Processing Section” EP, the 1981 debut album “Information Overload Unit” on Side Effects, and the 1981 live cassette “At the Crypt” on Sterile Records.

SPK followed with “Leichenschrei” in 1982/1983 and the compilation “Auto-Da-Fé” in 1983. In 1984, “Machine Age Voodoo” marked a clear shift toward a more electronic and dance-oriented sound, with Sinan Leong joining as lead vocalist.

SPK continued with “Zamia Lehmanni: Songs of Byzantine Flowers” in 1986 on Side Effects, followed by “Digitalis Ambigua: Gold & Poison” in 1987 and “Oceania Live” in 1988.

After SPK’s original run, Revell built a long career in film and game scoring including song credits for “The Crow”, “The Craft”, “From Dusk till Dawn”, “Sin City”, “Blow”, “Call of Duty”, and “Dune”.

Formed in Summer 2025 The SPKtR lineup consists of Graeme Revell and Robert J. Revell, now based in Auckland, New Zealand. A first single, “The Last of Men”, is out now.

“La Encantadora Furiosa” is The SPKtR’s second release, following the Bandcamp-removed debut single, and arrives as the project establishes its release and performance schedule for 2026.

Wieloryb originally started out as a duo sometime in the 1990s, but evolved into a solo project by Polish artist Paweł Kmiecik (also active within G.A.S.). The project gained some recognition through various hard Rhythmic-Noise releases on Hands. Over the past year and this year, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding Wieloryb: new material, but also reissues such as “Ritual”. Originally released in 2021 on Antyscena as a digital album, it was reissued by Zoharum on CD with three additional tracks.

Wieloryb has never stood still, and the Rhythmic-Noise influences have now expanded into an Industrial-Trance format, spiced with heavy kicks, hard repetitive loops, and spoken samples. It is an overwhelming experience from an artist who defies musical boundaries and, above all, expands them. He appeals to a broader audience, but one that appreciates power and darkness. The three bonus tracks do not offer much additional value, with the exception of the final track. Here, Wieloryb seems to have rediscovered some ambient-oriented material from his archives, while the closer delivers pure, primal power.

Wieloryb is the kind of artist who brings a breath of fresh air to the broader Industrial landscape, while also sounding right at home in an underground Techno temple. (Rating:8½).

Listen to “Fly – Bonus”:

https://zoharum.bandcamp.com/track/fly-bonus

Ivan Pavlov, who records as CoH, co-founded Soisong with the late Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in Bangkok in 2007. The project produced the octagonal “Soisong EP” tour CDEP in 2008 and the full-length “xAj3z,” which documented two European tours. The project held its final concert at Hau 2 in Berlin on June 5, 2010 – without Christopherson, whose health had declined to the point that he could not fly. Christopherson died in Bangkok on November 25, 2010.

A 2012 event at Bar Bonobo in Tokyo, the venue where the project’s first concert had taken place, marked a symbolic close.

On May 22, 2026, Pavlov released “Soisong Book” – a 160-page faux-leather hardcover limited to 222 numbered copies – through the official Soisong store. The book draws on email correspondence, private photographs, official announcements, manifestos, and items Pavlov describes as “fake documents”: promotional materials created during the project’s active years. Two CDs are affixed inside the cover: a 2007 Tokyo concert recording pre-dating Soisong’s formation, and a new studio album by trumpet player Julio Ecclesiast, who contributed to “xAj3z.”

Side-Line spoke with Pavlov about the archive behind the book, the nature of some of Soisong’s listed performers, the night in Berlin, and what follows this release.

Soisong interview

SL: The book draws heavily on email exchanges between you and Sleazy. How large was that archive, and what guided your selection process? Were there exchanges you wanted to include but felt were too private?

Ivan Pavlov: I have about a thousand emails in my mailbox filed under ‘Sleazy’, but since it’s a Soisong book, only those that relate to the process have been included.

SL: You described upscaling late-2000s cellphone photos and low-res Myspace images using current technology. Where did you draw the line between restoring what was there and altering it? Did any images come out looking wrong once upscaled?

Ivan Pavlov: Good upscaling algorithms do not alter images to anything one would be able to notice in print, so no, the printed images look the same as their low-res originals.

SL: The book includes what you describe as “fake documents.” Can you give a specific example – were these created during the project’s active years, or produced later for the book?

Ivan Pavlov: You can see them in the book. For example, as part of the campaign for Soisong album called ‘xAj3z’ we had published a so-called Report from an, obviously non-existent, Investigating Committee. The report speculated on and promoted the shape of the CD package as an extraterrestrial object, with multiple illustrations. This was all made back in 2009.

SL: 222 copies is a precise figure. Is there a reason for that specific number, or was it determined by print-run economics?

Ivan Pavlov: You may find in the book a rather extensive dialogue about choosing the name for the project. I won’t expand too much on that, but ‘song’ is ‘two’ in Thai language. As for the economics for any kind of small editions – it is tough, indeed.

SL: The first CD captures the 2007 Tokyo concert where CoH and The Threshold House Boys Choir performed as separate acts – a pre-Soisong moment. Why that recording specifically? Was it already in the archive, or did it require sourcing?

Ivan Pavlov: Back then, a few days after the show I received 2 CDs from the sound engineer who was at the main desk during the concert. One with a room recording, i.e. including the sound of the audience, one with the clean signal. I now made a mix of the two and I see it as a document well related to Soisong – in the book you will find a mention of the show, and the subsequent discussion on playing live.

SL: The second CD contains a new studio album by Julio Ecclesiast, the trumpet player from “xAj3z.” How did that collaboration come about – did you approach him, or did the idea come from him? How much input did you have in the direction of his album?

Ivan Pavlov: Just like several other participants in Soisong, Julio mostly exists in domains of imagination, listener’s imagination included. Which already back in 2009 had become a rather typical, important part of Soisong’s approach to choosing the performers.

SL: Soisong’s packaging choices were consistently unusual – the octagonal CDEP, the warning on “xAj3z” that it could only play in CD players with a flat horizontal tray. How much of that approach came from Sleazy, and how much from you?

Ivan Pavlov: I would usually come up with rough geometrical design ideas, which we then perfected through a mutually encouraging dialogue.

SL: The final Soisong show took place at Hau 2 in Berlin on June 5, 2010, without Sleazy. What do you remember about that night, and what was the decision behind going ahead without him?

Ivan Pavlov: There was no decision making as such, as far as I remember we were about to play a few shows in Europe, but then Sleazy’s health suddenly declined which didn’t let him fly. The show in Berlin was too late to cancel, so we went on with this kind of ‘remote version’. Sleazy recorded a video message to the audience, and a video stream for me to play during the show. I played the music. It felt quite lonely on the stage, I admit.

SL: Christopherson died in Bangkok on November 25, 2010 – the city where Soisong was based. How did you decide what to do with the project’s archive after that? Was there a point where you considered closing it entirely?

Ivan Pavlov: Soisong is pretty much closed ever since Sleazy’s departure. Whatever has been published afterwards – these are just echoes of the past on their way to the future. Soisong was only meant to last until 2012, so in 2012 we organised the symbolic final event at Bar Bonobo, in Tokyo. That’s where Soisong played the very first concert, commonly referred to as Test Run #7. During this final night at Bonobo in 2012, with the help of the bar’s owner Koichi Sei and a few other friends, the recording of Test Run #7 was released in a small edition of sealed Walkman CD players. Some years later, I also managed to put together the unfinished Soisong album ‘kAm1e’. Now comes the book, which is pretty much just a collection of artefacts. I believe we would have published this kind of the final statement if Sleazy was alive, too.

SL: Dais Records released a remastered deluxe 2LP of “xAj3z” in 2025, with one previously unreleased track, “Lom Tum Lai Kwee.” How did that reissue come about, and what was it like returning to that material?

Ivan Pavlov: Dais expressed interest in re-issuing the two Soisong releases on vinyl. I wouldn’t have been able to pull that off on my own, and the idea seemed attractive. So I agreed and we did it. As for coming back to Soisong material – be it email conversations, images or music – it always feels warm, feels like coming home.

SL: You said the book’s creation was fuelled by “the same joyful enthusiasm and sense of fun as every other publication.” How would you describe Soisong’s working method to someone who only knows the music?

Ivan Pavlov: Encouraging joyful enthusiasm in each other, and working with a sense of common fun – that is the only method we employed.

SL: Does “Soisong Book” function as a closing document, or is there still archive material that could surface in future releases?

Ivan Pavlov: The book is the final Soisong release. I might do a few more commemorative fake radio-broadcasts for soisong.bandcamp.com. I would also definitely like to work more with Julio Ecclesiast, which largely depends on how he feels about that… but officially as Soisong, there are no further releases planned.

About Soisong

Soisong was an experimental electronic music project formed in 2007 by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Ivan Pavlov (CoH), based in Bangkok, Thailand. Christopherson had previously worked with Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Coil, and The Threshold Houseboys Choir, while Pavlov released music under the CoH name. The project combined Pavlov’s computer-based composition with Christopherson’s work on artificial vocals and what the project described as “South Seas” instrumentation.

The first release, “Soisong EP,” was an octagonal tour CDEP issued in 2008 in disposable-design packaging, with the release title doubling as a password for additional material on the project’s website. The full-length “xAj3z” followed, in octagonal packaging and carrying a warning that the disc could only play in CD players with a flat horizontal tray. Live activity included the 2008 Test Run Tour – with dates in Tokyo, Rovereto, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Amsterdam, Moscow, and Athens – and a 2009 reunion tour with shows in Linz, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Wroclaw, and Cologne. The final concert took place at Hau 2 in Berlin on June 5, 2010, performed without Christopherson.

Christopherson died in Bangkok on November 25, 2010. A 2012 event at Bar Bonobo in Tokyo, site of the project’s first concert, served as a symbolic close: the recording of that original Tokyo show, Test Run #7, was issued in a small edition of sealed Walkman CD players. Pavlov subsequently assembled the unfinished album “kAm1e.” Dais Records reissued “xAj3z” as a remastered deluxe 2LP in 2025, with the previously unreleased track “Lom Tum Lai Kwee” added to the Bandcamp edition released on May 30, 2025. “Soisong Book,” released May 22, 2026, is confirmed as the final Soisong release.

Belgian duo Gare Noir is driven by Sam Claeys and Frits Standaert, both also known for their involvement with Red Zebra. After Red Zebra pressed the pause button, the pair began working on their own material, which first resulted in a series of singles and eventually culminated in the release of their debut album “This Is Gare Noir”, featuring twelve tracks.

It quickly becomes clear that both musicians draw heavily from the golden era of the 1980s and the New-Wave movement, yet they manage to inject enough personality and individuality to make the album feel remarkably diverse. Starting from a foundation of New-Wave and Post-Punk, the duo occasionally takes detours into Pop and Rock territory, creating a record that constantly shifts in mood and texture. The entire album is masterfully stitched together, alternating between harder moments and more ethereal passages. Several songs evolve toward genuine climaxes, largely thanks to strong arrangements, clever build-ups, and the sheer power of certain choruses. The charismatic vocals naturally add even more strength and identity to the material. Above all, however, these songs radiate a sense of enjoyment and spontaneity. At times, I can hear traces of Ultravox blended with elements reminiscent of Heaven 17, before the album gradually moves into darker and more distinctive territory.

Personally, I would not have minded if the album had leaned even further into darker atmospheres, but it is clear that “This Is Gare Noir” aims for a broader audience rather than confining itself to a specific niche scene. (Rating:8).

Listen to “We Spin”:

https://wagonmaniac.bandcamp.com/track/we-spin

Over the past few years, Ukrainian artist Dronny Darko has become a familiar name within the Drone, Cinematic, and Dark-Ambient landscape. Better known under his alias Dronny Darko, one has to go back to 2012 to find his very first release. Since then, he has evolved into an exceptionally prolific artist, unveiling countless albums, including a wide range of collaborations. His sonic universe serves as a platform where darkness, introspection, and existential unrest take center stage.

Dronny Darko’s latest album, “Dark Shadows Across A Disordered Mind”, released through Cryo Chamber, feels like an intense descent into the depths of a fractured mind: claustrophobic, emotionally charged, and at the same time hypnotically beautiful. With icy drones, distorted textures, and an almost Cinematic build-up of tension, he conjures an auditory nightmare that continues to resonate long after the final note has faded. As far as I am concerned, this is not only one of his darkest works to date, but perhaps also his most personal. What follows is the account of our conversation. (Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Dronny Darko interview

Q: As a Ukrainian artist, it feels only natural to begin by addressing the impact the war has had on you personally. To what extent has this situation influenced your music—perhaps even turning it into a form of emotional outlet? And what role have music and the act of creation come to play for you in times of war?

Oleh: Sound has always been an essential part of my life—it’s not something that emerged in response to circumstances, but rather something constant that I return to regardless of what is happening around me. The war didn’t fundamentally change my relationship with sound, but it did influence my internal state.

It introduced a certain weight, grounding me in a more immediate, physical reality. At times, it felt as though my perspective narrowed, becoming more focused and restrained. However, I see this not as a loss, but as a phase of recalibration. I’m currently working toward reconnecting with that broader, more intuitive ‘antenna’—that sense of openness and sensitivity that allows me to translate abstract emotional states into sound.

Q: Since your first release in 2012, you have built an incredibly prolific body of work, including numerous collaborations. Where do you situate your latest album, “Dark Shadows Across A Disordered Mind”, within this extensive discography, and what were you aiming to express or achieve with this new opus?

Oleh: Yes, there is a deeper personal connection in this work. While much of my previous material has been more focused on abstract or environmental landscapes, this album leans more into internal space. Perhaps aside from “Outer Tehom”, this is one of the few releases where inner emotional states played a more direct role in shaping the sound.

Current events inevitably left their imprint, and for once, I felt compelled to express something more introspective. Still, I tend to avoid over-defining these inner worlds—the listener should have space to interpret and experience them individually.

Q: The album title suggests something deeply introspective and psychologically charged. What is the underlying meaning behind it, and how closely is it connected to your own inner state during the composition process?

Oleh: Yes, there is a deeper personal connection in this work. While much of my previous material has been more focused on abstract or environmental landscapes, this album leans more into internal space. Perhaps aside from “Outer Tehom”, this is one of the few releases where inner emotional states played a more direct role in shaping the sound.

Current events inevitably left their imprint, and for once, I felt compelled to express something more introspective. Still, I tend to avoid over-defining these inner worlds—the listener should have space to interpret and experience them individually.

Q: To my ears, “Dark Shadows Across A Disordered Mind” feels like one of your darkest—if not the darkest—albums to date. How do you perceive this yourself, and how strongly is the atmosphere tied to the themes you explore?

Oleh: I believe the title reflects the sonic character of the album quite accurately. To me, it evokes the sensation of moving through an empty hospital corridor—sterile, quiet, yet charged with an underlying tension. Every small sound becomes amplified in that environment. There’s a sense of systems being overloaded, of something not functioning as it should, and that creates a kind of internal disorientation. The music mirrors that feeling: subtle, restrained, but constantly on the edge of unraveling.

Q: Did this album mark any significant evolutions or innovations in your creative process or sound? More broadly, how does the transition from one release to the next unfold for you? To what extent does innovation play a role—whether in terms of concept, thematic focus, or the use of new techniques and instruments?

Oleh: With each new album, I try to introduce some form of evolution—whether subtle or more pronounced. Experimentation is a core part of why I continue creating. For this release, I was particularly interested in working with tape-based processes. I had been wanting to explore that medium for some time, and conceptually, this project felt like the right space to do so. Tape introduces its own imperfections and textures, which aligned naturally with the themes of distortion, memory, and psychological fragmentation present in the album.

Q: You have collaborated with a wide range of artists over the years. What do you seek in a collaboration that differs from your solo work? And, picking up on the idea of evolution, are there specific collaborators who have pushed you artistically in new directions?

Oleh: Collaboration offers a completely different creative dynamic. It allows you to observe how another artist thinks, how they approach sound, and what techniques they rely on. For a collaboration to be meaningful, there needs to be a sense of complementarity—if both artists are doing the same thing, there’s little room for growth.

I tend to gravitate toward working with people who challenge me, often those I perceive as more skilled or experienced in certain areas. It’s less about being ‘pushed’ in a direct sense, and more about a mutual shaping of each other’s sonic environments. Through that interaction, new directions emerge naturally.

Q: I imagine you are already working on new material. Can you share anything about what’s ahead, and what other plans you have for the remainder of the year?

Oleh: At the moment, I’m working on a collaboration with my wife, Sasha, under her project ProtoU. This material is quite different from my usual work—we’re focusing more on acoustic elements and organic sound sources. The thematic direction is centered around Ukraine, which brings a different kind of emotional and cultural depth to the project.

We’ve also recently connected with a craftsman and musician who builds and plays traditional ethnic instruments. He shared a range of recordings with us, and we’re now in the process of integrating these sounds into a cohesive musical narrative. It’s an ongoing exploration—figuring out how to shape these raw elements into something that feels both authentic and meaningful.

Flemish trio Kregel was formed in 2016 and began releasing EPs in 2020. In the meantime, the band has already arrived at “#7,” a new release featuring four fresh tracks.

Kregel is quite a remarkable band because there are not many acts like them around. Musically, they are deeply rooted in the spirit of the 1980s, particularly the New-Wave and Post-Punk era. That alone is not unusual nowadays, but what truly makes the group stand out is their decision to sing in their native language while delivering wonderfully absurd and abstract lyrics although with a deeper and sometimes sensitive content. Of course, the concept is not entirely unprecedented. Fans of Aroma Di Amore and Arbeid Adelt! will immediately recognize where part of the inspiration originates. Still, Kregel succeeds in translating those influences into something that feels fresh and contemporary. “#7” sounds wonderfully Post-Punk throughout, with one of the tracks even containing a subtle nod to The Stooges. At times the music may appear somewhat simplistic, yet this is compensated by its sheer effectiveness and the dark, menacing atmosphere that runs through the entire EP. The songs gradually build toward hypnotic crescendos and repeatedly invite the listener onto the dance floor.

Kregel may ultimately remain a phenomenon primarily appreciated within Flanders, but I genuinely believe the band possesses enough originality and potential to break through much further. As far as I am concerned, this is one of the finest Belgian discoveries of recent years. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Dode Mus”:

https://wagonmaniac.bandcamp.com/track/dode-mus

Long Beach industrial metal band Heavenly Trip to Hell just released their new single and accompanying video, “Yo No Quiero Ir Al Cielo“. The track was recorded by Addasi Addasi at Fuel Music Studios and is available on all platforms.

Lead vocalist G Christ explained the concept behind the track: “The song was inspired by the fact that we do not want to go to heaven where certain people can’t get in. I want to go to a heaven where everyone gets in.”

The single is the band’s first confirmed release since “Millions of Flowers,” which we covered in November 2024 (Heavenly Trip To Hell drops new single & video, ‘Millions Of Flowers’).

About Heavenly Trip to Hell

Heavenly Trip to Hell – also known as HTTH – is a six-piece industrial metal band from Long Beach, California. The band blends industrial metal with goth and heavy metal. The band has been active for nearly 30 years.

The current lineup consists of G Christ on lead vocals, Sergio on bass, Vicky Vicious on synth and keyboards, Jose on drums, Kurt on lead guitars, and Frank on rhythm guitar.

In November 2024, we covered the band’s prior single, “Millions Of Flowers’“. The May 2026 release of “Yo No Quiero Ir Al Cielo” is the band’s newest single.

Heavenly Trip to Hell has had two songs placed in the soundtrack of the DC Comics and Warner Bros. animated film Batman Azteca: Choque de Imperios, directed by Juan Meza Leon. They also contributed the single “Yo No Quiero Ir Al Cielo” to the soundtrack of the thriller film Blackout, directed by Shane Aquino and released on May 5, 2026 via Uncork’d Entertainment.

The band has also appeared in Road Dogs, a documentary directed by Shane Aquino that follows touring bands on the road. Road Dogs has screened at multiple international film festivals.

Austin, Texas-based electronic solo artist SINE – the project of Rona Rougeheart – has released a new album, “La Mordre,” on Metropolis Records. The 10-track record is out now in digital and vinyl formats. An official video for the previously released single “Blood + Wine” also dropped, you can view it below.

“La Mordre” contains ten tracks, four of which appeared as standalone singles before the album release: “Trauma Bondage” (September 2024), “Succumb To Me” (September 2025), “Blood + Wine” (27 February 2026), and “Cruel” (3 April 2026). The remaining six tracks are new to this release.

Several tracks were self-produced by Rougeheart; others were co-produced with Curse Mackey (Pigface, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult) and AwareNess (calm.). Mastering was handled by Mark Pistel (Consolidated, Meat Beat Manifesto).

Rougeheart describes the album’s narrative arc like this: “When I started to gather the demos that I really wanted to include on the album, I saw a story unfolding. The songs, in order, put together a picture of someone navigating a new and exciting but seemingly treacherous path with eyes on this ‘big prize’ or breakthrough – and they’ll do anything to get it. It’s a seductive tale with vampiric tendencies and a little loosening of moral values; a glittery story that will hopefully make you want to know more.”

SINE Divine Creatures Tour – US dates August 2026

SINE will tour the US in August 2026 on the Divine Creatures Tour, joined by Seattle-based act Nuda. Curse Mackey will DJ at select shows. The confirmed dates are:

• 7 August – Seattle, WA – Funhouse
• 8 August – Portland, OR – Coffin Club
• 9 August – Eugene, OR – The Sparrow & Serpent
• 11 August – Reno, NV – Holland Project
• 12 August – San Francisco, CA – Above DNA
• 13 August – Bakersfield, CA – Jerry’s Pizza
• 14 August – Los Angeles, CA – Monty Bar
• 15 August – Coachella, CA – Red Falcon Dispensary & Lounge
• 16 August – Phoenix, AZ – Lighthouse Kava Bar

Further dates will be announced.

About SINE

SINE is the solo project of Rona Rougeheart, a drummer, vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Austin, Texas. Rougeheart uses the term “Electronic Boom” to describe the project’s sound, which blends sub-bass, beats, and industrial elements with lyrics that incorporate sarcasm, humour, and social commentary.

The project’s early releases appeared on Austin’s eMERGENCY heARTS label. SINE’s 2021 album “Desire, Denial and Paramania” was released on 7 October 2021 and featured collaborations with Curse Mackey, producer Sean Beavan (Nine Inch Nails, 3Teeth), and vocalist Chris Connelly (Pigface, Revolting Cocks). The album also included a Meat Beat Manifesto remix by Jack Dangers.

In January 2022, SINE released a remix of “Attack” by Adrian Sherwood on eMERGENCY heARTS, and in August 2022 issued the EP “Mantis 2” on the same label.

SINE signed to Metropolis Records ahead of the 2024 album “Luxuria”, released on 19 January 2024. That record was produced by Claus Larsen of Leæther Strip and included the single “From Beyond” featuring Leæther Strip.

Over the course of her career, Rougeheart has collaborated with Adrian Sherwood, Meat Beat Manifesto, Clan of Xymox, Chris Connelly, Mark Pistel, Andee Blacksugar (KMFDM, Blondie), Xiu Xiu, and the late Mark Stewart of The Pop Group.

“La Mordre,” her second Metropolis release, arrives roughly two years after “Luxuria” and marks a step into a longer, more expansive album format.

In my opinion, Trilogy is a rather underrated Electro project that emerged a few years ago. Founded and driven by former Trial member Erick Miotke and featuring vocalist Jens Müller (previously active in Human R3source), the German duo returned this year with the double CD “Forced Perspective”.

The main album contains no fewer than eighteen tracks, material the band worked on over the course of several years. As a bonus, listeners are treated to an additional disc featuring the exact same tracklist, but with every song reworked by a different remix artist. The album itself is an extremely elaborate and carefully crafted work in which inevitable Trial influences occasionally resurface, though the atmosphere feels distinctly different and the vocals give the project its own unmistakable character. Trilogy is not a continuation of Trial, but a band with a clear identity of its own. Musically, the influences move somewhere between EBM and Dark-Electro. Certain tracks evoke the atmosphere and precision of Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly, while I can also detect parallels with Yelworc. The compositions sound meticulous and polished down to the smallest detail. Dark string arrangements, refined icy bleeps, and old-school EBM elements merge seamlessly with pounding kicks and harsh vocals.

The extra disc is far more than a simple bonus addition. Not only does it revisit the complete tracklist, but each song is transformed by an impressive roster of remixers. I would especially like to highlight contributions from Sleepwalk, Serpents, Terminal State, AD:Key, Pyrroline, and Mildreda, all of whom deliver outstanding reinterpretations. Other notable appearances include T.A.N.K., Brain Leisure, Digital Factor, and the legendary Project Pitchfork. In some ways, this bonus disc may even surpass the original album thanks to the additional variety and perspectives it offers.

“Forced Perspective” is an absolute tour de force and an essential release for every connoisseur of intelligent Dark-Electro and EBM. (Rating:8½).

Listen to “Combat Surfer”:

https://electroaggressionrecords.bandcamp.com/track/combat-surfer

American harsh noise artist Richard Ramirez and Contagious Orgasm have released the collaborative noise cassette “Different Substances” via SSSM.

“Different Substances” is available as a cassette and digital album.

About Richard Ramirez and Contagious Orgasm

Richard Ramirez is an American noise artist originally from Houston, Texas. He brings a mix of harsh noise wall, power electronics and drone and has been active since 1989. Besides the projects Black Leather Jesus and Werewolf Jerusalem he is also the founder of Deadline Recordings.

We previously mentioned Ramirez in the review of the Maurizio Bianchi / Coalminer + Allies album “Antimateria” (out via Grubenwehr Freiburg), where Coalminer’s collaborations included Richard Ramirez on the track “Gaping Crevism”.

Contagious Orgasm is the project of Hiroshi Hashimoto from Japan. Contagious Orgasm has been active since 1987 and brings a mix of experimental electronic music, including noise, industrial, rhythmic noise and ambient. Hiroshi Hashimoto also runs the SSSM label.

We previously covered the project when the Contagious Orgasm single “Through The Cracks Of Entrapment” was released on Ant-Zen.

The Grab Society, the German dark electro and electropop project of Manfred Thomaser and Ulf Müller, today release the single “Reincarnation (Wiedergeburt)” on Echozone. The single contains two tracks: “Reincarnation (Wiedergeburt)” (3:16) and “Reincarnation (Wiedergeburt) (Instrumental)” (3:16).

An official video accompanies the release:

The central figure stands before two doors, each representing a passage toward a new existence: “On one side, the dark, stinking swamp bubbles; on the other, friendly synth tracks point the way toward the light.”

About The Grab Society

The Grab Society is a German electro and synth-pop project formed by Manfred Thomaser and Ulf Müller. Thomaser’s other active projects include !distain, Arsine Tibé, DEMOKRATIE, and The Independent Season. Müller has worked with Projekt Ich, M.U.N.T Connection, VOUL, SMOTCH, U.M. Fiedel, Tränenwelten, Mission Zanzibar, and 2MBK.

The project launched on 28 April 2023 with the debut single “Outsider (Außenseiter)” on Echozone. A second single, “Underrated (Unterschätzt)”, followed on 23 June 2023. The third single, “Room (Raum)”, was released on 26 January 2024. “Free (Gratis)” appeared on 2 August 2024. A fifth single, “Eternal,” featuring guest vocalist Annabelle, was released early May 2025.

On 30 May 2025, Echozone issued “Extended (Volume I)”, collecting extended versions of all five singles to that point. On 11 July 2025, the project released a cover of the Trio song “Da Da Da ich lieb dich nicht du liebst mich nicht aha aha aha”, which included an Arsine Tibé mix and the original B-side track “Dislocated.” “Reincarnation (Wiedergeburt)” is the first The Grab Society single released in 2026.

Soisong, the experimental electronic project founded by the late Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Ivan Pavlov (CoH), have announced “Soisong Book,” a hardcover publication documenting the project’s history. The book is released on May 22, 2026 through the official store and is listed as available from 22:05 CET.

The release is not exactly a standard music album. “Soisong Book” is a 160-page full-colour, faux-leather hardback edition, limited to 222 numbered copies. It documents the project from its first planning stages through later “after-effects” and draws largely on email exchanges between Christopherson and Pavlov. The book also includes private travel and concert photos, official announcements, manifestos, fake documents and audience photographic contributions.

Ivan Pavlov gives us some more info: “It took me quite some time to find and put together all these late-2000s cellphone photos and low-res images made for Myspace, to upscale many of them with the use of today’s technology, to select from a thousand of emails as few as possible… but the work didn’t feel hard at all.” And he adds: “The book is a proper Soisong release in the sense that the process of its creation has been fueled by the same joyful enthusiasm and sense of fun as every other publication, or action documented within”.

The book contains two compact discs affixed inside the cover. The first disc presents a pre-Soisong recording of a 2007 concert in Tokyo, where CoH and The Threshold House Boys Choir performed as separate acts. The second disc contains a new post-Soisong studio album by Julio Ecclesiast, the trumpet player who also appeared on the final album “xAj3z”.

About Soisong

Soisong was an experimental electronic music project formed in 2007 by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Ivan Pavlov, also known as CoH. Christopherson was known for his work with Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Coil and The Threshold HouseBoys Choir, while Pavlov worked under the CoH name. The project was located in Bangkok, Thailand.

The duo’s work was a combination of Pavlov’s computer-based music and Christopherson’s approach to artificial vocals and “South Seas” instrumentation.

The first release was “Soisong EP,” an octagonal tour CDEP issued in 2008 in disposable-design packaging. The release also used the title as a password for additional material on the project’s website.

The duo followed with “xAj3z,” the project’s first full-length album. The CD used octagonal packaging and carried a warning that it could only play in CD players with a flat horizontal tray.

The duo’s live activity included the 2008 Test Run Tour, with dates in Tokyo, Rovereto, Copenhagen, Bilbao, Amsterdam, Moscow and Athens. A 2009 reunion tour followed with shows in Linz, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Wroclaw and Cologne. The final Soisong show took place at Hau 2 in Berlin on June 5, 2010, without Christopherson.

After Christopherson’s death in Bangkok on November 25, 2010, later project-related releases continued to document the project’s archive. “Soisong Split” was published in 2012 and included Pavlov’s CoH “Soisong” EP together with unpublished Christopherson sketches made available through the project’s website. The official store lists the CoH “Soisong” EP as a two-disc octagonal release recorded in 2010 and 2012.

Dais Records announced the first wide vinyl reissue of “xAj3z” in 2025 as a remastered deluxe 2LP edition with one previously unreleased track. The Bandcamp edition was released on May 30, 2025 and added “Lom Tum Lai Kwee” to the tracklist.

PIG, the industrial rock project led by Raymond Watts, has released the new album “Hurt People Hurt” today, May 22, 2026 via Metropolis Records. The album is available as LP, CD and digital release and holds 10 tracks.

The album was written by Watts and Jim Davies, known for his work with The Prodigy and Pitchshifter. Watts says: “”Hurt People Hurt” is the shepherd to pain, shoehorned between the masochist and the drama queen within. It’s full fat PIG where the weak will walk and the sick will see.”

Two singles were released before the album. “Tosca’s Kiss” was the first preview, with a video directed and edited by E Gabriel Edvy for Blackswitch Labs. The second single, “Sex & Suicide“, was released on April 10, 2026. The lyric video was directed by Grete Stitch Laus.

PIG 2026 tour dates

PIG will play two sold-out Tokyo shows on June 25 and 26, 2026. The band is also scheduled for Cold Waves XIV on September 25, 2026, with Stabbing Westward, Acumen Nation, 16 Volt, Purest Form and Kaput.

UK dates have also been announced for December 2026:

• 10 December – Manchester, Rebellion
• 11 December – Bradford, Nightrain
• 12 December – Glasgow, Ivory Blacks
• 13 December – London, The Lexington

About PIG

PIG is the long-running industrial rock project of English musician Raymond Watts, which he formed in 1988 after earlier work in London, Hamburg, and West Berlin. Before launching the project, Watts had already worked on early KMFDM material with En Esch and Sascha Konietzko, and had also been active as a live and studio sound engineer for Einstürzende Neubauten and Psychic TV. He later toured with Foetus on keyboards and guitar.

The first release was “A Poke in the Eye… with a Sharp Stick”, followed by “Praise the Lard” (1991), “A Stroll in the Pork” (1992), “The Swining” (1993), “Sinsation” (1995), “Wrecked” (1996), “Genuine American Monster” (1999), and “Pigmartyr” (2004), later reissued as “Pigmata”. Small detail, several 1990s releases first appeared in Japan, including “The Swining” and “Wrecked”.

Watts is also a founding member and recurring collaborator of KMFDM. He rejoined that orbit in 1994 for the PIG vs KMFDM release “Sin Sex & Salvation”, later worked with the Japanese projects Schaft and Schwein, and also wrote music and sound design for fashion and exhibition work, including Alexander McQueen’s “Plato’s Atlantis” and the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “Punk: Chaos to Couture”.

After the Watts release “Pigmartyr”, the project resumed under the PIG name with “The Gospel” on September 9, 2016, followed by “Risen” on June 8, 2018 and the covers album “Candy” on June 21, 2019. The project then returned with “Pain Is God” on November 20, 2020, followed by “The Merciless Light” on September 23, 2022. That run continued with “Red Room” on May 17, 2024, the “Feast of Agony” EP on September 27, 2024, the remastered “Wrecked” on March 7, 2025, and the remix album “The Merciful Night” on November 14, 2025.

Jim Davies was a recurring collaborator the past few years. And now there is the brand new album “Hurt People Hurt”.

Flesh Field, the US electronic/industrial project led by Ian Ross, release the limited physical 2CD artbook edition of “On Enmity” today, May 22, 2026, via Dependent Records. The album was first released digitally on February 20, 2026. The physical edition is issued as a 48-page hardcover artbook with two audio CDs and a bonus disc containing seven exclusive tracks. The edition is limited to 500 copies.

The bonus disc adds “Hegemony” featuring Tom Shear of Assemblage 23, “Molten Resolve (16 Volt Remix),” “Supplication (Lost Signal Remix),” “Ballad Of The Renegade (Mildreda Remix),” “Unwanted (Orchestral),” “We Will Be Forgotten (Schneider Remix),” and “Supplication (Omen Code Remix).”

Ross describes “On Enmity” as an album that “documents the aftermath of trauma” and adds: “It’s not about recovery. It’s about adaptation to ruin.” The album was recorded and mixed by Ian Ross at Deadwyre Studios in Northern Virginia. Da5id Din mastered it at Corrosive Audio in San Francisco. Colin Ross contributes backing vocals on “Indestructible” and “A Boy Named Resurrection.”

On June 4, 2026 Flesh Field will play at The Renegade in Arlington, Virginia, with Lost Signal.

About Flesh Field

Flesh Field is an American electronic/industrial project formed in Columbus, Ohio, in 1996 by Ian Ross. The project name refers to a non-medical term Ross coined for psychological defence mechanisms in rape victims. Rian Miller joined in 1997 as vocalist. The early line-up released “Viral Extinction” in 1999, followed by “Redemption EP” in 2000 and “Belief Control” in 2001 through Inception Records and Trisol/Matrix Cube.

In 2004, Wendy Yanko replaced Miller as vocalist. Flesh Field released “Strain” that year through Metropolis Records and Dependent Records.

Ross announced the retirement of Flesh Field in 2011. That same year, the project issued “Tyranny Of The Majority” as a free internet release. Flesh Field tracks kept appearing in media and games, including “Beneath Contempt” in “True Blood” and “Uprising” in the 2023 film “The Mill.”

Flesh Field returned in 2023 with “Voice of the Echo Chamber” on Metropolis Records. In 2024 the project released the EP “Voice of Reason”. The current core studio line-up is Ian Ross, who handles vocals, keyboards, programming, instruments, and production.

Meanwhile, it has already been nine years since Freakangel released their last album, but the Estonian music phenomenon has finally sprung back into action. Over the past few years, the band has released a couple of singles, now brought together on this new EP alongside an additional brand-new track.

“Control” is a somewhat surprising song if you are used to the brutal and ruthless intensity of this band. It leans more toward a dark and atmospheric approach: moody, layered, and driven by a compelling male-female vocal interplay, before culminating in a finale where everything completely explodes. “Death Bloom” then takes us straight back to the essence of what Freakangel stands for: a steel-hard sound with the perfect balance between electronics and guitars, topped off with a possessed vocal delivery. Fans of Combichrist will definitely appreciate this track. The final song delivers a powerful combination of sheer aggression and Cinematic atmosphere, closing the EP on an intense and memorable note.

Now all that remains is to look ahead and hopefully start counting down to a brand-new full-length album, because Freakangel has certainly been missed within the scene. (Rating:8).

Listen to “Control”:

https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/track/control-9

Combichrist have released “Only Here For A Good Time“, a new industrial metal single, via Out Of Line Music. The track is taken from the forthcoming album “The Venom In The Mouth Of God“, due July 24, 2026.

The single follows “Demons Wanna Be Summoned“, the April 2026 collaboration with King 810 frontman David Gunn. Other previously released singles that will appear on the new album include “Desolation”, “RISE”, and “Feraline”, which arrived on June 5, August 28, and November 25, 2025.

The video for “Only Here For A Good Time” was produced by G13 Production House.

“The Venom In The Mouth Of God” will be available as digipak CD, Yolk Splatter Vinyl 2LP, and Picture Vinyl 2LP.

Combichrist headlined Dark Force Fest 2026 on Friday, May 1, 2026 in Parsippany, New Jersey. The band is also listed for Alcatraz Open Air in Kortrijk on Friday, August 7, and M’era Luna in Hildesheim on Saturday, August 8.

About Combichrist

Combichrist is an aggrotech and industrial metal project formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 2003 by Norwegian vocalist Andy LaPlegua. LaPlegua had already worked with Icon of Coil, Panzer AG, Scandy and Scandinavian Cock. The studio project is centered on LaPlegua, with a changing live lineup. Current listed members are Andy LaPlegua, Eric13, Elliott Berlin and Jamie Cronander.

The project’s first material developed from the track “Thanx to my Buddies”, originally written under the name D.r.i.v.E. The name later changed to Hudlager and then Combichrist before the debut album “The Joy of Gunz” appeared on Out Of Line in 2003. It was followed by “Kiss The Blade”, also in 2003, “Blut Royale” and “Sex, Drogen Und Industrial” in 2004, and “Get Your Body Beat” in 2006.

The next studio albums included “Everybody Hates You” in 2005, “What the Fuck Is Wrong with You People?” in 2007, “Today We Are All Demons” in 2009, “Making Monsters” in 2010, “No Redemption” in 2013, “We Love You” in 2014, “This Is Where Death Begins” in 2016, “One Fire” in 2019 and “CMBCRST” in 2024. Note that “No Redemption” was released as the official “DmC: Devil May Cry” soundtrack.

In 2016, “This Is Where Death Begins” was announced in CD, deluxe 2CD digipak and colored gatefold double vinyl editions. The album was produced by Oumi Kapila of Filter and Andy LaPlegua, with guest vocals from Chris Motionless of Motionless In White and Ariel Levitan of MXMS, and mastering by Vlado Meller. A separate limited 3CD+DVD edition added the Summer Breeze Festival 2015 live recording on CD and DVD.

In 2019, “One Fire” was announced in 3CD boxset, 2CD and 2LP picture vinyl formats. The album included Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory on “Guns At Last Dawn”. Our “One Fire” review said that “Combichrist remains a very unique experience, mixing different genres and songs all together on one album.” We rated the album 8.

The single “Compliance” arrived in 2021 and “Modern Demon” in 2022. In 2024, Combichrist released the double album “CMBCRST”.

Chicago rock singer Essex has released “Eighties,” his first solo single for Cleopatra Records. The track is a cover of Killing Joke’s 1984 single “Eighties,” issued on E.G. Records.

The release follows an appearance with Cherie Currie of The Runaways on “When You’re Young.” “Eighties” was produced by Jürgen Engler (Die Krupps). Marcus Nand tracked the vocals, while Vicente Cordero worked on the video.

Engler says this about the collaboration: “Essex’s vocals add a raw energy to the old favorite Killing Joke track ‘Eighties’, the likes we haven’t heard in a long time! It perfectly fits the urgency of the song, deeply rooted in the 80s but with a very contemporary feel! I have the feeling Raven would have approved of it, and maybe he would have even played the bass on it… heaven only knows.”

Essex adds: “Reimagining a cover while still respecting the original was important to me, and having collaborators like Marcus Nand and Vicente Cordero helped bring that vision to life. Even though the song is rooted in the ’80s, a lot of its themes still feel incredibly relevant today, and the video helped amplify that atmosphere.”

Killing Joke released “Eighties,” in spring 1984 on E.G. Records, before it later appeared on the band’s fifth studio album “Night Time,” released in 1985. The 12-inch version included “Eighties (Serious Dance Mix),” “Eighties,” and “Eighties (The Coming Mix).” The similarity with Nirvana’s 1992 single “Come As You Are” was striking. Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg later said Kurt Cobain was nervous about releasing “Come As You Are” as a single because it sounded close to a Killing Joke song; Killing Joke complained, but the matter did not become a settled court case. The original “Eighties” shows Jaz Coleman behind a U.S. flag-draped podium, with Soviet imagery and footage of political, religious, military, and nuclear symbols cut into the performance.

About Essex

Essex is a Chicago rock singer who is influenced by Marc Bolan, Billy Idol, David Bowie, and James Brown.

On November 3, 2025, Essex announced “Rock n’ Roll” as his debut single and described it as the first track from an EP planned for 2026.

On January 30, 2026, Essex announced that he had signed with Cleopatra Records. He had been working with the label for two months before the announcement and also said that he would return to the studio for new material.

In February 2026, Essex’s site announced “When You’re Young” with Cherie Currie. Cleopatra Records later hosted a Pirate Radio Cleopatra interview titled “Introducing Essex,” which focused on the Currie duet and Essex’s musical references.

In May Essex realesed “Eighties.” A full-length debut album is planned for later in 2026.

Christian Death, the Los Angeles County gothic rock and deathrock band, have announced “The Baby Bats Parade”, a U.S. tour running from June 3 to June 28, 2026. The Christian Death Baby Bats Parade tour includes support from Gene Loves Jezebel, Descartes a Kant and Black Season Witch. The run starts at Red Flag in St. Louis, Missouri, and ends at Electric Haze in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The live line-up includes Valor Kand on male lead vocals and guitar, and Maitri on female lead vocals and bass guitar. The band will perform material from its catalogue, including tracks from “Evil Becomes Rule”, released by Season of Mist on May 6, 2022.

Tickets are available through Christian Death upcoming tour dates.

Christian Death ‘Baby Bats Parade’ tour dates

• June 3, 2026 – Red Flag, St. Louis, MO
• June 4, 2026 – Xray Arcade, Milwaukee, WI
• June 5, 2026 – Crucible, Madison, WI
• June 6, 2026 – Harpo’s, Detroit, MI
• June 7, 2026 – Woodward Theatre, Cincinnati, OH
• June 8, 2026 – Record Bar, Kansas City, MO
• June 10, 2026 – The Vanguard, Tulsa, OK
• June 11, 2026 – Come & Take It, Austin, TX
• June 12, 2026 – The Rock Box, San Antonio, TX
• June 13, 2026 – RBC, Dallas, TX
• June 14, 2026 – White Oak Music Hall, Houston, TX
• June 16, 2026 – Culture Shock, Atlanta, GA
• June 18, 2026 – QXT, Newark, NJ
• June 19, 2026 – Webster Theatre, Hartford, CT
• June 20, 2026 – Jewel, Manchester, NH
• June 21, 2026 – Acruz Events, Pawtucket, RI
• June 24, 2026 – WC Social Club, West Chicago, IL
• June 25, 2026 – Black Circle, Indianapolis, IN
• June 26, 2026 – A&R Music Hall, Columbus, OH
• June 27, 2026 – The Vortex, Akron, OH
• June 28, 2026 – Electric Haze, Worcester, MA

About Christian Death

Christian Death formed in Los Angeles County, California, in 1979. Rozz Williams founded the band, with early members including guitarist John “Jay” Albert, bassist James McGearty and drummer George Belanger. Musically the band mixes gothic rock, deathrock and art punk. Williams, McGearty and Belanger later regrouped with guitarist Rikk Agnew, formerly of the Adolescents. That line-up appeared with “Dogs” on the 1981 L.A. compilation “Hell Comes to Your House” and released “Only Theatre of Pain” through Frontier Records in 1982.

The band’s early line-up changed after “Only Theatre of Pain”. Williams was later joined by members of Pompeii 99, including Valor Kand and David “Glass” Parkinson. Gitane DeMone also joined the group in this period. This line-up recorded “Catastrophe Ballet”, released in 1984, followed by “Ashes” in 1985. Williams left after “Ashes”, and Kand became the band’s frontman.

With Valor Kand as frontman the band recorded “The Wind Kissed Pictures”, followed by “Atrocities” in 1986 and “The Scriptures” in 1987. The band then released “Sex and Drugs and Jesus Christ” in 1988, the two-part “All the Love All the Hate” in 1989 and “Insanus, Ultio, Proditio, Misericordiaque” in 1990. Maitri joined Christian Death in 1991 and first performed with the band in Florence, Italy, on July 12, 1991. Later releases included “Sexy Death God”, “Prophecies”, “Pornographic Messiah”, “Born Again Anti Christian” and “American Inquisition”.

Christian Death released “The Root of All Evilution” in 2015. “Evil Becomes Rule” followed in 2022 and remains the latest studio album.

Belgian Post-Punk outfit The Ultimate Dreamers released their latest album last year, featuring thirteen tracks produced by Len Lemeire of Implant. Initially, Lemeire was only asked to remix a few songs, but the collaboration eventually evolved into a complete metamorphosis of six original tracks. Calling them mere remixes hardly does the project justice, as each composition has been entirely reconstructed from the ground up.

The concept is particularly intriguing because Implant and The Ultimate Dreamers do not exactly operate within the same musical universe. As a result, the songs are submerged in an electronic bath where Len Lemeire is clearly given complete artistic freedom. The outcome shifts between dark atmospheres and experimental textures, but above all feels like a daring artistic challenge. Personally, I am especially drawn to the heavy bassline and Minimal-Electro approach of “Kids Alone,” as well as the seamless cross-pollination between Post-Punk and Implant’s Electronic universe throughout the release. “Spiritchaser” adds an unexpectedly danceable dimension, further broadening the scope of the project.

In my opinion, every track—except perhaps the final one—feels like a genuine experience. This release sounds less like a remix EP and more like an entirely new album by what almost feels like a new band, one that ultimately convinces me even more than the original versions themselves. (Rating:7½).

Listen to “Kids Alone (Late Night)”:

https://alfamatrix.bandcamp.com/track/kids-alone-late-night

Venus Fly Trap, the Northampton alternative rock duo of Alex Novak and Andy Denton, release “Deja Vu 1986-2026” on Glass Modern as a 20-track re-collection and rarities compilation on CD and digital download on 12 July 2026. To mark four decades since their first gig, Venus Fly Trap will play a special show at the Black Prince in Northampton on 12 September 2026, with special guests. The date marks 40 years since the band’s first live show, at Stax in Northampton on 12 July 1986.

“Deja Vu 1986-2026” draws tracks from across Venus Fly Trap’s eight studio albums and selected releases spanning four decades. The compilation is available on CD and digital download via Glass Modern. Preview tracks are available via the Glass Modern Bandcamp page at glassmodern.bandcamp.com.

Full tracklist:

The compilation title references the neurological phenomenon the band describes as “a temporary glitch in the brain’s memory causing a new experience to feel like a familiar past memory.”

The compilation opens with “Morphine” and “Desolation Railway” (tracks 1 and 3), both originally released as 12″ singles on Tuesday Records in 1987 and 1988 respectively, then re-recorded for the debut album “Mars” on Danceteria. “Rocket USA” (track 5) is Venus Fly Trap’s cover of the Suicide song, first released as a single by the band in 1989 on Danceteria.

“Control Addicts” (track 19) is a cover of a Religious Overdose song originally released as a 7″ single in 1980. Alex Novak was vocalist in both bands. The cover was recorded to mark the 40th anniversary of Glass Records and appeared on the Glass compilation “Glass: Re Make/Re Model” in 2021.

“Bebe” (track 20) is dedicated to Bebe and Louis Barron, who composed the pioneering electronic score for the 1956 MGM science fiction film “Forbidden Planet” and are credited with creating the first wholly electronic score recorded in the United States. The track was released on Glass in 2025.

Official videos exist for the following tracks included on “Deja Vu 1986-2026”:

• Venus Fly Trap – “Morphine” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Desolation Railway” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Europa” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Achilles Heel” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Moscow Menagerie” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Sabotage” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Human Fly” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Vitesse” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Control Addicts” (Official Video)
• Venus Fly Trap – “Bebe” (Official Video)

About Venus Fly Trap

Venus Fly Trap formed in Northampton, England, in 1986. The founding lineup brought together Alex Novak on vocals – previously vocalist with Religious Overdose and Attrition – and John Novak on guitar and vocals, with Tony Booker on bass. Their first live performance was at Stax, Northampton, on 12 July 1986.

The band signed to Tuesday Records, a sub-label of the French label Danceteria, and released the debut 12″ single “Morphine” in 1987, followed by the three-track “Desolation Railway” 12″ EP in 1988. Both were re-recorded for the debut album “Mars” on Danceteria.

“Totem”, the second album, was recorded at Raven Studios near Norwich and produced by Howard Turner (Nivens). It was released on Danceteria in 1989. The band then produced a single covering Suicide’s “Rocket USA”, produced by Kevin Haskins of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, and featuring Pat Fish of the Jazz Butcher.

The lineup changed frequently during this period, with key contributors including Curtis Johnson and Dave Freak on guitar, Chris Evans on bass, Nathan Bundy on keyboards, and Andy Denton, who joined initially on drums before moving to guitar, programming, and vocals. In early 1991 the band toured Czechoslovakia, resulting in the live album “Jewel – Live In Prague” (1991, A.Z.Y.L.).

“Pandora’s Box”, the third album, was recorded at SDH Studios near Rouen, France, by Jean-Louis Greif and produced by Pat Fish. “Luna Tide”, the fourth album, was released on Spectre Records (Germany) in 1994. It was recorded at Outrider and Far Heath studios in the UK, and at Hansahaus in Bonn, Germany, by Angus and Manni. “Dark Amour”, the fifth album, was recorded at Cage Studio in Coventry and produced by Martin Bowes of Attrition. It was released on Soundbuster (Germany).

By the 2000s the permanent members were Novak and Denton. “Zenith” (2004) was recorded at Villers Wood in Northampton and released on Big Blue/SPV (Poland/Germany). “Nemesis” followed on the same label, recorded at Villers Wood and Hot Rock in Northampton.

“Icon” (2018) was released on Glass Modern, the first of the band’s albums on that label. Side-Line covered the single “Vitesse” ahead of the album, and reported on the band’s distribution move to Plastic Head and forthcoming new album in 2016. In 2015 a Side-Line article covered the vinyl compilation ‘Metamorphosis 1987–2010’, an earlier retrospective on Big Blue.

“Control Addicts” (2021) and “Bebe” (2025), both released on Glass, complete the catalogue run represented on “Deja Vu 1986-2026”.

“Deja Vu 1986-2026” is released on CD and digital download via Glass Modern on 12 July 2026.

French cold wave and dark wave project Dawn + Dusk Entwined, led by David Sabre, released the digital album “Prove me wrong” today, May 20, 2026. The release is available on Bandcamp.

The album was originally planned as an EP. Sabre described it as bringing the project’s comeback era full circle – a period that began in 2020 when he reactivated Dawn + Dusk Entwined with a more electronic and cold wave-oriented sound.

“This album, originally planned as an EP, aims to bring D+DE’s ‘comeback’ era full circle, a period that began in 2020 with a more electronic sound,” Sabre says. “Today, in 2026, the reinterpretation of ‘Crossed Paths’ as ‘Remains of Loss’ – its definitive version – brings an era to a close. Nevertheless, there were still a few unfinished tracks, and I wanted to truly exhaust the vein by finalizing them before embarking on a new musical path.”

The album also includes what Sabre describes as a “playful nod to the good old days of the ‘extended versions’ typical of the 1980s,” and a cover of a Gary Numan track “Down in the Park”. “Down in the Park” was originally released by Tubeway Army, with Gary Numan as writer, vocalist and producer. It appeared on the album “Replicas” and was released as a single in 1979 on Beggars Banquet. The song is one of Gary Numan’s early dystopian songs.

The album release is digital only.

“Prove me wrong” follows two releases from the comeback era. “Let Fall What Must Fall,” released on March 28, 2025 as a CD in a 6-panel eco-digifile limited to 400 copies via Dark Vinyl Records. “Remains Of Loss,” released on January 16, 2026 as both a digital and CD release on Dark Vinyl Records, is a complete reworking of the 2020 album “Crossed Paths,” with all tracks receiving new mixes and arrangements and four additional tracks added to the original nine.

About Dawn + Dusk Entwined

David Sabre founded the project in 1994 in France under the name Dawn & Dusk Entwined. The project debuted in 1999 on the UK label World Serpent and later signed to Cold Meat Industry, offering a mix of neoclassical, martial industrial, and dark folk. Releases from that period include “A Leftover of Gaia,” “Remergence” (2007), and “Lost and Found” (EP). Sabre took a break from the project in 2013, citing dissatisfaction with the musical direction.

In 2020, he returned with a restructured project under the name Dawn + Dusk Entwined – replacing the ampersand with a plus sign to mark the change in direction – and released “Crossed Paths” in October 2020 as a CDR. The new incarnation moved away from martial industrial toward electronic and cold wave sounds, mixing cinematic arrangements with a 1980s dark wave influence and lyrics in both English and French.

In May 2022, Sabre compiled the “Fin de siècle” releases into a 19-track album. “When I die, burn me in the clothes of my youth” followed in early 2023.

“Let Fall What Must Fall” followed on March 28, 2025 on Dark Vinyl Records, while the reworked and expanded “Remains of Loss” followed in January 2026. “Prove me wrong,” released digitally on May 20, 2026, concludes the arc that began with “Crossed Paths” six years earlier.

German band Days Of Sorrow first emerged in the early 1980s before disappearing from the radar, much like many other acts from that era, only to resurface years later. “Raptures” already marks their second album since this resurrection and delivers ten impressive songs.

I will admit immediately that this opus completely blew me away. You could categorize the group as Electro-Wave, but Days Of Sorrow clearly inject their own identity into the genre, making everything sound harder, darker, and far more powerful. The result is a wonderfully danceable fusion of dark Electro-Wave and EBM. The album benefits enormously from its strong production and a series of irresistible choruses, leaving hardly a weak moment throughout the record. This is top-tier Electronic music, elevated even further by commanding vocals that occasionally remind me of Steve Naghavi from And One. Here and there, subtle and moody guitar elements are added to give the songs even more depth and intensity.

“Raptures” contains several absolute gems and is, without question, one of the strongest albums I have heard in this genre in recent months. Nothing but praise and respect from my side. (Rating:9).

Listen to “Love 4 Sale”:

https://daysofsorrow.bandcamp.com/track/love-4-sale

The Los Angeles darkwave/post-punk solo project Shadows Hold will release the debut album “Bound in Chains” via Cold Transmission Music. The album is listed for digital and digipak CD release on June 12, 2026, with the limited ultra-clear vinyl edition shipping around July 31, 2026.

The vinyl edition is limited to 200 copies and comes as a 12-inch ultra-clear 140-gram LP with a black inner sleeve.

“Bound in Chains” contains ten tracks on the physical vinyl edition. The download and CD release holds the ten main tracks plus bonus material consisting of these 3 tracks: “Your Chain Your Shadow”, “Far Away”, and “What Do You See”.

Two tracks are already available from the album pre-order “Haunt Me” and “Nosebleed”.

And here are the videos for “Stigmata” and “Haunt Me”.

Shadows Hold is confirmed for Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2026 in Leipzig. The project will play at the Moritzbastei on Sunday, May 24, 2026, at 21:45, on a bill with André Alabaster, Hinfort, and Pahl!.

About Shadows Hold

Shadows Hold is a darkwave/post-punk solo project based in Los Angeles, California. The project brings a mix of darkwave, post-punk, and EBM, with vocals, atmospheric textures, and melodic leads as core elements.

Early releases include “Visceral,” “We Don’t Exist,” “Not To Be Remembered,” “Fog,” “Your Chain // Your Shadow,” “Faceless,” “Bloodsoaked Memories,” “Glass,” “Far Away,” “Your Lips Against Mine,” “Divine,” and the 2024 EP “Shadows Hold.” The self-titled EP was released on April 28, 2024 and contains “Take My Hand,” “Faded Moonlight,” “Fallen Twilight,” and “Tearfall.”

In 2025, the project released “Stigmata” on February 14 and followed it with “Nexum” on August 29. “Nexum” contains “Closed Eyes,” “In The Cold,” and “What Do You See.”

In 2026, the “Nosebleed” single was released. “Bound in Chains” follows as the project’s debut full-length album, with Cold Transmission Music handling the physical editions and digital distribution.

The Greek darkwave/synth-pop duo Midnight Poetry will release the limited black-vinyl LP edition of their 8-track debut album “Dive into the Darkness” on May 29, 2026 via Manic Depression in a limited run of 200 black-vinyl copies. The project features Cleopatra Kaido and John Spanos.

The album was already released digitally on April 17, 2026 with a CD edition released as a three-panel digipack.

The album’s original release came accompanied by videos for their debut single “Black Hole” and “Dracula’s Poison”.

About Midnight Poetry

Midnight Poetry is a Greek dark electro/post-punk duo formed around Cleopatra Kaido and John Spanos. The first release was the single “Black Hole”, issued on March 25, 2024.

Before starting this project, Cleopatra Kaido released “Artificial Galaxy” in 2013 with Drama Queen and “System Anomaly” in 2020 with Meat Injection. John Spanos had already released five albums and appeared in goa/psychedelic trance compilation releases with Radical Distortion, alongside solo work in ambient, chill-out and future-garage material.

The band was also selected to appear on “Resurgence”, a massive 7CD post-punk boxset with the track “Black Hole”.

“Dive into the Darkness” is the duo’s first album. It follows “Black Hole” and “Dracula’s Poison”.

A Certain Ratio, the English post-punk and funk band from Greater Manchester, will release two companion albums, “The Joy of Sextet” and “Force Majeure,” on 28 August 2026 via Mute. The releases mark 45 years since the band entered Revolution Studios in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport, to record “Sextet,” and 40 years since the release of “Force.”

A Certain Ratio companion albums on Mute

“The Joy of Sextet” is a new companion release to “Sextet,” the band’s 1982 Factory Records album. Andy Meecham, also known as The Emperor Machine, mixed the material from the original 1981 two-inch multitrack tapes. Meecham says the process involved “adding some new dynamics” while keeping “the original raw energy and feel.”

“Force Majeure” is a nine-track companion release to “Force,” the band’s 1986 Factory Records album. The release includes previously unreleased original versions, including “Force,” a title track that did not appear on the original 1986 album. The material comes from four-track recordings made by the late Stuart “Jammer” James, who co-produced “Force” with A Certain Ratio. Martin Moscrop says the recordings were made to “review the songs for a possible album” and “practice playing them live.”

“The Joy of Sextet” and “Force Majeure” will be available on limited edition “Unforced Purple” coloured vinyl sets, CD and digital formats.

‘The Joy of Sextet’ tracklist

1. “Lucinda (EM)”
2. “Crystal (EM Night Version)”
3. “Gum (EM)”
4. “Knife Slits Water (EM)”
5. “Tumba Rhumba (EM)”
6. “Day One (EM)”
7. “Below the Canal (EM)”
8. “Waterline (EM Dub)”
9. “Knife Slits Water (EM 12” Version)”

‘Force Majeure’ tracklist

1. “Only Together (FM)”
2. “Bootsy (FM)”
3. “Naked and White (FM)”
4. “And Then She Smiles (FM)”
5. “Take Me Down (FM)”
6. “Anthem (FM)”
7. “The Runner (FM)”
8. “Force (FM)”
9. “Nostromo A Go Go (FM)”

‘Sextet’ and ‘Force’ anniversary tour dates

A Certain Ratio will tour the UK in October 2026 for the “Sextet” and “Force” anniversary tour. The band will play both albums in full, with an interval between the two sets.

• 7 Oct – Birmingham, Castle and Falcon
• 8 Oct – Bristol, Exchange
• 9 Oct – London, Dingwalls
• 10 Oct – Lewes, Con Club
• 13 Oct – Newcastle, The Cluny
• 14 Oct – Edinburgh, The Voodoo Rooms
• 15 Oct – Glasgow, Oran Mor
• 16 Oct – Blackpool, Bootleg Social
• 17 Oct – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
• 22 Oct – Hebden Bridge, The Trades – sold out
• 23 Oct – Stoke, Sugarmill
• 24 Oct – Manchester, Band on the Wall – sold out
• 25 Oct – Manchester, Band on the Wall – new date added

About A Certain Ratio

A Certain Ratio was formed in Greater Manchester in 1977. The early line-up also included Peter Terrell on guitar and electronics, Simon Topping on vocals and trumpet, Jez Kerr on bass and vocals, Martin Moscrop on trumpet and guitar, and Donald Johnson on drums, with Martha Tilson joining soon after. The band brought a mix of post-punk with funk, disco and Latin percussion. They soon got picked up by Factory Records.

The group released “All Night Party” through Factory Records in 1979, with Martin Hannett producing. “The Graveyard and the Ballroom” followed in 1980 as a cassette release, before “To Each…” arrived in 1981. “Sextet” was released in January 1982 by Factory Records and was recorded at Revolution Studios in Cheadle Hulme. The album spent eleven weeks on the UK Independent Albums Chart and reached number 1.

“Force” followed in November 1986 as the band’s fifth studio album and final Factory Records studio album. It was recorded and mixed in July and August 1986 at Yello 2 Studios in Stockport. Stuart James co-produced the album with A Certain Ratio. The album introduced Tony Quigley on saxophone and was the last ACR studio album to feature Andy Connell as a full-time member before he focused on Swing Out Sister.

After Factory, A Certain Ratio moved through A&M Records, Rob’s Records, Creation, Soul Jazz and later Mute. Mute began reissuing the band’s back catalogue in 2018. The band released “ACR Loco” in 2020, followed by the “A,” “C,” and “R” EPs in 2021, “1982” in 2023 and “It All Comes Down to This” in 2024.

In 2023 A Certain Ratio also released Emperor Machine’s reworking of “Constant Curve”.

The band currently consists of Jez Kerr, Martin Moscrop, Donald Johnson, Tony Quigley, Matt Steele, Ellen Beth Abdi and Viv Griffin.

Italy-based industrial rock and alternative rock trio Noir Addiction have released the new single “How She’s Got It” via SoulPunx Records. The track is taken from the forthcoming six-track release “Pretty Things Don’t Last”, due July 16.

The single follows “Serve Me Some Crime”, which we covered in March 2026. “How She’s Got It” is available through Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. The official video, directed and edited by Jack Lucas Laugeni, is available below.

Noir Addiction frontman Sonny Lanegan says this about the new single: “‘How She’s Got It’ is about that moment when something or someone loses its meaning, but you’re still caught in it. In the song, you’re observing, questioning, maybe even letting go, but at the same time you’re still drawn to it. That push and pull is what drives the whole track.”

He adds: “It’s not really about a person it’s about perception. How we project meaning onto things, how that meaning shifts, and how sometimes we just stop believing in it. The repetition in the chorus almost feels like trying to convince yourself of something, while knowing deep down it’s already gone.”

Lanegan also has this to say on the recording approach: “When we recorded it, the focus wasn’t on impact it was on distance. We approached the track almost like a fading memory, something that feels real while you’re inside it but starts to lose definition the more you look at it. The arrangement was intentionally built to feel circular, like you’re stuck in the same thought pattern, going over the same questions without ever getting a clear answer.”

And he continues: “We leaned into repetition and subtle shifts instead of big moments. Small changes in texture and slight variations in vocal delivery carry the emotional weight. The idea was to create a sense of emotional drift, where everything feels close but unreachable at the same time. Nothing fully resolves, and that’s intentional. It leaves you in that suspended state the lyrics are coming from.”

The lineup for this single and the upcoming EP consisted of Sonny Lanegan on vocals, guitars, synthesizers and programming, Nessie Zorba on keyboards and percussion, and Roberto Catanzaro on drums. “Pretty Things Don’t Last” was produced by Sonny Lanegan, engineered, mixed and mastered by Damiano Paoloni, and recorded at Sound Distillery in Italy.

About Noir Addiction

Noir Addiction are an Italy-based industrial rock and alternative rock project founded by Sonny Lanegan. The current lineup listed by the band consists of Lanegan on vocals, guitars, synthesizers and programming, Nessie Zorba on keyboards and percussion, and Roberto Catanzaro on drums.

Before Noir Addiction, Lanegan worked as singer-songwriter for White Pulp and co-founded The Dead Good, both connected to his Los Angeles period. His Bandcamp biography also lists Slow Roar and states that his music was used in television and film productions including “Mozart in the Jungle”, “Iron Fist” and “Z Nation”.

Noir Addiction’s public release timeline begins with “Chemical Bride”, released on June 27, 2025. “Lust Of The Flesh” followed on August 6, 2025. The 11-track album “Decadent Desire” was released on September 9, 2025. Bandcamp credits for “Decadent Desire” list Richard Christ on vocals, Sonny Lanegan on guitars, programming, backing vocals and production, Nessie Zorba on synthesizers and percussion, and Roberto Catanzaro on drums.

Side-Line reported in March 2026 that the previous lineup had split over a “difference in vision” and that Noir Addiction was fronted by Lanegan at that point. “Serve Me Some Crime” followed on March 20, 2026, as the first preview of “Pretty Things Don’t Last”. And now there is “How She’s Got It”, the second confirmed track from the July 16 release.

A few weeks ago we announced that Chicago collective The Joy Thieves hade released the single “The Wrong End of Your Rifle“, the first preview of the full-length album “Apocalypse Pending”, due June 5, 2026 via Armalyte Industries. Today the collective have released the video for “No Anchor“, featuring Chris Connelly of Finitribe, Revolting Cocks, Ministry and Pigface.

The video was created by Joel Lopez at Lumbra Productions with additional production by Derek Christopher, Mark Pistel, Jeff Harris, Steven Archer, Dee J Nelson, Jane Jensen and DJ Darryl Hell.

The new The Joy Thieves album “Apocalypse Pending” will be available as a digital album and as a digipack CD which is limited to 300 copies.

The album was produced, engineered and mixed by Joy Thieves Productions at Populist Recording + Mastering in Wheaton, Illinois, and mastered by James Scott.

Chris Connelly and Dan Milligan on ‘No Anchor’

Here’s what Chris Connelly says about the new The Joy Thieves track: “These days, it seems like people are capable of being pushed or tempted to exist in a state where they are alone. No moral compass. No ethics. No empathy. No forgiveness. No anchor. In a society where guilt seems to be gone, people can act however they want.”

Dan Milligan adds: “When I was writing the music for ‘No Anchor,’ I purposefully used ever-changing, off-kilter guitar riffs that seem to stray farther and farther from the song’s key as it progresses. Because the music never truly repeats, or settles down, it creates the sickening sense that everything is unresolved, and it’s only going to get worse.”

About The Joy Thieves

The Joy Thieves began in Chicago in December 2017, when drummer and musician Dan Milligan started assembling contributors for a new industrial rock recording project. Early contributors before the first release included Chris Connelly, David Suycott, Howie Beno, Matt Noveskey, Andy Gerold and Louis Svitek.

The project signed with Armalyte Industries around 2018 before its first release. The debut EP “This Will Kill That” followed on June 28, 2019.

The band followed with “Cities In Dust” on October 4, 2019, “A Blue Girl” on March 13, 2020, and “Genocide Love Song” on May 15, 2020. The first full-length album, “American Parasite”, was released on July 23, 2021 via Armalyte Industries, with Chris Connelly handling all lead vocals.

More releases followed, “Nemesis” in 2021, “6 To 3” in 2022, “Dissent-ertainment: 6 To 3 Remixed” in 2023, “The Heart of the Worm” and “Return To Needle Park” in 2024, and “Spilt Milk” on June 28, 2024.

The group revolves around Joy Thieves Productions, the production team of Dan Milligan and James Scott. The Joy Thieves roster includes current, former and touring members connected to Ministry, Stabbing Westward, The Rollins Band, Killing Joke, Pigface, Revolting Cocks, PIG, David Bowie, Machines of Loving Grace, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Naked Raygun, Foetus, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Pegboy, Nitzer Ebb and other projects.

Bob Data is a solo project by Aleksandrs O. Berzins, whom some may know from other projects such as Irklis, Audioscope, Formā Anonym, and Negative Values. Following two previous EPs—which felt more like mini-albums—he has released this new EP this year, featuring six brand-new tracks.

Bob Data’s sound is rooted in old-school Electro, where vintage textures strongly define the atmosphere. The music is somewhat minimalist, partly because there are no vocals or samples involved, yet it remains highly idiosyncratic. The tracks feel like a fusion of different influences and styles. Overall, the release leans toward Electro-Experimental music with pronounced Ambient elements that transport the listener into a space-like dimension.

I do miss a trace of vocals on this release, which otherwise alternates between several very strong tracks and, unfortunately, two weaker ones. (Rating:7).

Listen to “Kinetic Rush”:

https://bobdata.bandcamp.com/track/kinetic-rush

Berlin-based NNHMN have built their recent work around movement, tension, and transformation. With “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow”, the duo continue to expand a sound that connects darkwave, electronic body music, performance, and club discipline without reducing itself to nostalgia. As “Cold Like Steel” prepares to open a slower, more melancholic side of the project, Lee and Michal speak about theatrical writing, genre evolution, live tension, Grauzone 2026, and “UNTERWELT”, their Halloween event at Festsaal Kreuzberg in Berlin.

NNHMN interview

Karo: Your new single “Cold Like Steel” is about to arrive, and from the way you introduced it, it seems to lean into a slower, more nocturnal emotion. What drew you toward that mood right now, and where does this track sit in relation to the material on “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow”?

Lee: Yes, you are right. The sound is indeed quite different here, and the tempo of “Cold Like Steel” is much slower. The mood is also a bit more nostalgic and melancholic. After all, the album is called “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” so this track definitely belongs to the Art of Sorrow side of it. But I still feel that, when it comes to our wave-oriented approach to electronic music, we keep the quality and the convention intact. I hope it will naturally fit with the rest of the record.

Karo: With “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” you created a release that feels sensual, theatrical, and emotionally precise rather than simply dark for darkness’ sake. Looking back at it now, what do you feel that album opened up for NNHMN that earlier releases only hinted at?

Lee: I think the theatrical element has always been present in our music, because already at the stage of writing lyrics, I am thinking about atmosphere. Maybe it comes from the fact that I spent around ten years working in theatres, with dramaturgs, as an actress, so perhaps I always feel like I am constructing a tiny performance when I write my texts. So yes, I think it has always been there in our work.

But now, after quite intense touring, we have really started to understand how our relationship with the audience works. And it is beautiful to deliver high-energy, dance-oriented tracks that still have enough space inside them, little ambient lakes where the audience can breathe for a moment, cool down, and then rise with us again.

Also, I think being blind to the evolution of genres within the dark scene is a serious limitation. We are very much in favour of modernising the sound, of letting it evolve naturally. We are not a dark band in the sense of simply recreating the ’80s. Many bands do that. I do not mean it as better or worse. Some artists are simply faithful to the original sound. We are evolutionists.

Karo: The path from singles like “Bring It On” and “The Secret” toward “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow” felt deliberate rather than random. When you release music this way, do you think in terms of chapters, tension, or narrative?

Michal: Yes, that is a good point. We do try to choose the songs we reveal in a more organised way. The idea is that the tension should grow, that one song completes the previous one or announces the one that will come next. Each single gives a short, still slightly hidden piece of information about what can be expected. It does not happen randomly. It happens in a considered way. That is it.

Karo: You played Grauzone 2026, one of the strongest meeting points for darkwave, minimal synth, and related scenes. What did that appearance mean to you, and did it sharpen your sense of where NNHMN stand in the wider European landscape?

Lee: What has been happening with our project for some time now, headlining and co-headlining festivals like Ombra, Extramuralhas, and Grauzone, does not sharpen our sense of who we are. It shows that the audience appreciates us, that promoters see it, and that we have our own public. During this year’s Grauzone, I honestly did not see the church filled so completely for any other show as it was for ours. It can be overwhelming, but it is motivating. It gives us energy to continue. At the same time, we still play very small clubs for totally enthusiastic audiences. This scene is still a niche. These festivals are the jewels in its crown. We appreciate them very much.

Michal: Grauzone is one of the best festivals in Europe, not only for alternative electronic music, but also for rock. After playing Ombra at the end of the year, then Grauzone in a beautiful church, it felt very special. It is a big family. We meet artists and fans we have known for years. Does it sharpen our sense of where the project is now? I do not know. But it motivates us to work more, to release the ideas already waiting on our hard drives, and to develop the new ones in our heads.

Karo: Your live sets often work through tension, atmosphere, and slow escalation rather than immediate impact. When building a show, what matters most: dramaturgy, physical pulse, emotional contrast, or the ritual dimension?

Michal: That comes from the kind of DJ sets I like most. The ones that feel magical never start with a huge impact, because then what? It is better to invite people into your world and then slowly increase the tension. Once they are inside, you can raise the tempo, increase the emotional dose, and we can all get carried away together. In the end, it is like a trip into another world. More or less, this is how we build our live sets. It is a recipe I keep from my DJ years.

Karo: Looking at the songs shaping your current setlists, is there a newer track that unexpectedly became central on stage?

Lee: A few tracks from “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow Part One” work really well live. “Maybe Late” works perfectly. “Demon Your Demon” has been strong from the beginning. We even tested it live before releasing it, and the audience reacted immediately. “The Secret” has also become a strong point in our set.

Karo: Your schedule now includes Italy, Spain, Sweden, and then Berlin for “UNTERWELT” on Halloween. Do different cities pull different versions of NNHMN out of you?

Lee: Yes, absolutely. We think a lot about the audience before we land in different countries. Reactions are completely different. You cannot compare an audience in the Netherlands with one in Mexico, Colombia, or Poland. In some places you need much stronger contact, more speaking, more closeness. In others, people sing so loudly that I almost cannot sing myself. Recently in Italy and in the UK, people climbed onto the stage. It was sweet and funny, never unpleasant. Audiences differ in temperament and temperature. We pay attention to that.

Karo: “UNTERWELT,” set for 31 October at Festsaal Kreuzberg, already feels bigger than a simple date on the calendar. What do you hope it becomes?

Lee: For me personally, I would love it to be like a dream come true. A dark, shining dream. I would love it to become the best Halloween darkwave festival in Europe.

Michal: This year Halloween falls on a Saturday, so the date aligns perfectly. We want to create a place that presents underground artists and gives the audience a chance to discover what is still underground today but may soon become widely known. Some acts are completely fresh and already amazing. Others are legacy bands that built this scene. None of this comes from nowhere. We are all a continuation of something. We hope future editions will allow us to bring even more artists who inspire us.

Karo: Berlin has no shortage of dark events, but many rely either on nostalgia or purely on club functionality. What gap do you feel “UNTERWELT” can fill?

Lee: Festivals that inspire us most are Grauzone, Ombra, and Extramuralhas. They proved you can build a festival that does not rely only on established names, but mixes young unknown artists with respected ones. This creates a beautiful atmosphere. Underground is forever alive. There is an audience for this. We are the best example, one hundred percent self-made, no backing daddies in the shadow. Good music should never belong to one age group. We want variety and space for growth.

Michal: We want a very mixed audience: fans of EBM, gothic music, darkwave, coldwave, heavier electronic sounds, and different generations under one roof. After the concerts, the night continues with dance-oriented live acts and DJs. We hope even techno fans will join us for Halloween in a different way. This is for every soul that loves alternative electronic pleasure. Many acts will simply give joy.

Karo: NNHMN often balance seduction with severity. How conscious are you of that balance now?

Lee: Six or seven years ago, we made much more experimental music, something like rhythmic ambient, but it did not speak to many people. So yes, we think about readability. Music is communication. We are not extremely socially developed people, so art is our way of communicating with the world. You want to be communicative. But the most important thing is to agree with what you create. If you do not stand behind your work, it becomes a heavy sin. You feel ashamed. So the foundation is honesty with your own creation.

Michal: Our earlier projects were very avant-garde and existential. That has always been our trademark. With NNHMN, we want the songs to be more communicative, but the darkness still comes naturally. We evolve because we change as people. That is life.

Karo: Looking ahead, are you extending the world of “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow,” or are the new songs already pointing toward your next evolution?

Lee: The thought always moves forward. We often talk about Kraftwerk and how they evolved from a krautrock band into what we know today. You cannot create as a person from your past. You are already different from two years ago. That is the nature of life. So yes, we are evolutionists. The sound changes with us.

Michal: Now we are in the world of “Opera of Lust and The Art of Sorrow Part Two,” but the material for the new album already exists. It will be more shiny than what we have done so far, but still dance-oriented. After releasing Part Two and touring, we want to return to the studio quickly. We no longer want to wait. We want to release these ideas as soon as possible. Life does not always align with your plans though.

Stabbing Westward, the Chicago industrial rock band, have announced the Wither ReWired Tour – a 15-date US run in July 2026 celebrating 30 years of their 1996 album “Wither Blister Burn + Peel” (Columbia Records, produced by John Fryer). The tour opens July 9 in Flint, Michigan, and closes July 25 in Atlanta, Georgia, with support from Priest and Acumen Nation. Note that Carlton is back on guitar. Alongside the tour, Stabbing Westward has announced “Wither ReWired,” a complete re-recording of the 1996 album, due later in 2026 on COP International.

Wither ReWired tour dates

The 15-date tour covers the Midwest, East Coast, and the South.

• July 9 — Flint, MI — Machine Shop
• July 10 — Grand Rapids, MI — Pyramid Scheme
• July 11 — Indianapolis, IN — HI-FI Annex
• July 12 — Columbus, OH — The King of Clubs
• July 13 — Lakewood, OH — The Roxy
• July 15 — Boston, MA — Brighton Music Hall
• July 16 — New York, NY — Gramercy Theater
• July 17 — Baltimore, MD — Baltimore Soundstage
• July 18 — Philadelphia, PA — Underground Arts
• July 19 — Amityville, NY — AMH
• July 21 — Millersville, PA — Phantom Power
• July 22 — New Kensington, PA — Preserving Underground
• July 23 — Asheville, NC — Eulogy
• July 24 — Nashville, TN — Exit/In
• July 25 — Atlanta, GA — The Loft

Ticket information is available via the official website.

‘Wither Blister Burn + Peel’ at 30

Released on January 23, 1996 on Columbia Records and recorded at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, “Wither Blister Burn + Peel” was Stabbing Westward’s second studio album and their first to achieve RIAA Gold certification, which it received on September 27, 1996. The album reached number 67 on the Billboard 200 and number 1 on the US Heatseekers chart, with US sales reaching approximately 747,000 copies.

The two singles, “What Do I Have to Do?” and “Shame,” drove the album’s commercial reach. “What Do I Have to Do?” peaked at number 7 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 11 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, while “Shame” matched the number 7 Mainstream Rock peak and reached number 14 on the Modern Rock chart. Both received heavy rotation on MTV and radio.

The album was produced by John Fryer, who had also produced Stabbing Westward’s debut album “Ungod” (1994) and would later produce the band’s 2022 comeback record “Chasing Ghosts.”

‘Wither ReWired’ – a complete re-recording

“Wither ReWired” is not a remaster or remix of the 1996 album. According to the band, it is a ground-up reinterpretation, with production and mastering currently in their final stages. No release date has been confirmed.

Vocalist Christopher Hall described his approach to revisiting the material: “The idea of reimagining Wither triggered equal amounts of excitement and trepidation for me. I know the powerful effect music has on young people. The music we hear in our youth imprints on our brain and our souls, forever merged with the memories that accompanied it. When you hear a song, it takes you back to that party or that lonely time spent in your headphones where the music was your only friend. The crazy makeout session to your best mix tape and the other mix tape for the inevitable heartbreak that followed. How could we ever hope to improve upon those memories? Well, we can’t. And we didn’t try. We chose to create new ones. I hope everyone makes some new memories to these new songs.”

Keyboardist Walter Flakus addressed the emotional weight of returning to the songs: “It’s amazing how powerful these songs still stand up 30 years later. I had a very tearful evening while working on ‘Sleep’ and the gravity of the song. These songs feel aligned with where we’re at as a band today while embracing our original industrial foundation. Some of these songs never hit the way they were intended. They do now!”

A tracklist for “Wither ReWired” has not been confirmed. The album will be released on COP International.

About Stabbing Westward

Christopher Hall and Walter Flakus formed Stabbing Westward in 1985 while being students at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. The original name came from a phrase encountered at the college radio station WIUS-FM. After relocating to Chicago, Stabbing Westward built an early lineup including Hall on bass and vocals, Flakus on keyboards, and Jim Clanin on guitar, later adding bassist Jim Sellers and drummer Angelo Negrette. Hall briefly toured with Die Warzau as a percussionist before returning to Stabbing Westward, and the band recruited Chris Vrenna of Nine Inch Nails on drums for the demo recordings that secured their deal with Columbia Records.

With the lineup stabilised around Hall, Flakus, Sellers, guitarist Stuart Zechman, and drummer David Suycott, Stabbing Westward recorded their debut album “Ungod” in 1993 at Eden Studios in London with producer John Fryer. Released on February 15, 1994 on Columbia Records, “Ungod” was followed by an opening slot on Depeche Mode’s Devotional Tour in summer 1994. After Suycott left the band, Andy Kubiszewski stepped in as drummer, eventually becoming a permanent member. Zechman’s departure left Stabbing Westward without a primary guitarist; at Bearsville Studios in 1995, Hall, Flakus, Sellers, and Kubiszewski handled all the guitar parts themselves for what became “Wither Blister Burn + Peel.”

The Gold-certified 1996 album established the band as a key act in the US alternative and industrial rock mainstream of the period. Their third album, “Darkest Days” (April 7, 1998, Columbia Records), also reached Gold certification and produced the Mainstream Rock Top 5 single “Save Yourself.” Their self-titled fourth album followed on Koch Records in 2001, but the band formally announced their dissolution on February 9, 2002.

After more than a decade away, Hall and Flakus reconnected with former members and officially reunited for two shows in 2016, starting with the Cold Waves Festival in Chicago on September 22, 2016, marking the band’s 30th anniversary. The reunion lineup – Hall, Flakus, Mark Eliopulos, Johnny Haro, and Carlton Bost – continued touring through 2017 and 2018. Bobby Amaro joined on drums in 2018 after Haro’s departure, and Cyamak Ashtiani joined on guitar in 2024.

The band signed to COP International in May 2020, as covered by Side-Line in our article “Stabbing Westward signs record deal with COP International to release first 1st new LP since 2001 – produced by John Fryer“. The covers EP “Hallowed Hymns”, featuring versions of tracks by The Cure, Ministry, and Echo & the Bunnymen, followed in October 2020. “Chasing Ghosts,” the band’s first new studio album in 21 years, was released on March 18, 2022 on COP International, again produced by John Fryer. The lead single “I Am Nothing” was previewed on Side-Line. The subsequent single “Ghost” followed in January 2022.

Hall’s production work beyond the band has continued in recent years. He produced the unitcode:machine single “Cold” in 2023, and appeared as a featured vocalist on the Metamorph single “Dance of a 1000 Miracles” in May 2025.

The Wither ReWired Tour opens July 9 in Flint, Michigan with Carlton back on guitar. “Wither ReWired” will be released on COP International; no date has been confirmed.

somemagicalshit, the bilingual synthpop / dark electronic project of Houston, TX-based artist Courtnii Veronica Rose, has signed to Re:Mission Entertainment. A debut full-length album is due fall 2026.

Courtnii Veronica Rose launched somemagicalshit in 2022 as a solo endeavor built around a computer, synthesizers, and sequencers. She handles every element of the project – writing, recording, mixing, and creative direction – and describes the project’s intent as combining English and Russian lyrics into music that is “atmospheric and emotionally intense”.

Courtnii Veronica Rose: “The goal from the beginning was to create something atmospheric and emotionally intense while incorporating the beauty and emotion of the Russian language into alternative electronic music. That mission hasn’t changed. It’s only getting louder.”

The choice to write in both English and Russian is central to the project’s identity. Courtnii says that Russian carries an emotional register into the material that shapes its character in a distinct way. Re:Mission Entertainment names Le Tigre, TR/ST, Adult., Pussy Riot, and Kaelan Mikla as reference points for the project.

In 2023, the project expanded from a solo studio format into a full live band, with additional musicians brought in.

somemagicalshit tour dates 2026

• May 22, 2026 Scout Bar – Houston, TX with The Cruxshadows, SINE, The Radio Broadcast, DJ Whisperwish
• June 5, 2026 The Crypt – New Orleans, LA with Blood Lovely, Phoenix Phantasma
• July 10, 2026 The Mix – San Antonio, TX with Shelly Webster + more TBA
• August 28, 2026 Crow Bar (Raven Room) – Houston, TX with In The Shadows, Andrako, DJ Whisperwish

About somemagicalshit

somemagicalshit is a bilingual synthpop / dark electronic project from Houston, TX, created by Courtnii Veronica Rose. Courtnii began writing music at age eleven, starting on guitar before expanding into synthesizer and drums.

She launched somemagicalshit in 2022 as a solo studio project, writing and producing all material independently. Prior to the Re:Mission signing the project released independent material, including tracks under Russian-language titles: “Я ненавижу себя.” (I Hate Myself), “Мечтаю О Тебе” (I Dream of You), “МАГИЯ” (Magic), and “БЛАЙНД БЛИСС” (Blind Bliss).

In 2023, the project added live band members for stage performances. The signing to Re:Mission Entertainment was announced May 15, 2026. A debut full-length album is scheduled for fall 2026, and marks the project’s first release on a label.