< FeroxLog >

Timo Maas - Pictures

The Album Sees Some of Maas’s Strongest Work Yet and features Vocals from None Other Than Placebo’s Brian Molko as Well as Neneh Cherry and One of America’s Hottest Artists Kelis! Timo Maas is a Legend in the Remix World, Known for his Work on Classic Crossover Hits Such as ‘dooms Night’ and ‘mama Konda’ as Well as Being in Demand for Mainstream Work for the Likes of Madonna, Fatboy Slim, Tori Amos, Kelis and More Recently Depeche Mode’s ‘enjoy the Silence’ and Placebo’s ‘twenty Years’.

Dead Machines - “Mystery Of The Fall Off Island Pt One”

(Good luck finding this one, even if you did you’d hate it.)

Noise Unit - Voyeur

Not one to sit idle, Bill Leeb has been working on new Front Line Assembly and Delerium albums with band mate Rhys Fulber since December of last year. Finding time in between working on those releases, he managed to get together with former band member Chris Peterson (now of Decree) to revive their Noise Unit side project. The new Noise Unit album will be the first since 1997’s Drill. The aptly titled Voyeur, features spacious atmospheric melodies layered with flowing strings, whispered vocals, electronic noises and mutilations, along side bass-lines that range from a drum n’ bass vibe to an aggressive industrial assault. One can feel themselves peering into the lives and minds of other people and worlds while listening to the sonic anomaly. Perhaps the best album from a FLA side-project since Delerium’s Karma, Voyeur is sure to please fans of Front Line Assembly and Delerium, as well as all of those in between.

Jean Michel Jarre - Aero

Aero is a double CD format, a DVD (PAL/Region 0) and CD in one package. The DVD is recorded in 5.1 DTS, Dolby AC3 and PCM 9624 KHz Stereo and the CD is recorded in Super Stereo. There is an optional visual element on the DVD format, which offers an unusual visual experience. A pair of beautiful eyes, shot in high-definition cinemascope, gazing out at the listener and reacting emotionally to the music…for the entire 75 minutes of the album. WEA. 2004. * Please note you will need an All Code DVD player to view.

Squaremeter - Frozen Spark

‘The Frozen Spark’ will be a surprise to those who thought Squaremeter’s musical direction would be calculable. Mathis Mootz’s intention for this album was to create a 21st century ‘paradise disowned’ that is coupled with an imaginary soundtrack to a ‘the seventh sign’ sequel. Different grades of volume, and sometimes silence, are magnificiantly well-placed -forcing you to listen. ‘The Frozen Spark’ is a collection of ritualistic electronic compositions to accompany rituals you can’t imagine in your greatest nightmares.

Bronnt Industries Kapital - Virtute Et Industria

The debut album from Bristol’s first protagonists of Victorian-dancehall clockworktronica is finally upon us. A fug of apocrypha enshrouds this consciously faceless duo (recently transmogrified into a live electro-acoustic ensemble), and yet, amidst rumours of Masonic dabblings, bloodletting rituals and muscular quantities of backstage prescription high, all that really matters is ‘Virtute Et Industria’. Recorded and produced in Bristol, England by actual real humans Guy Bartell and Nick Talbot (Gravenhurst/Warp), ‘Virtute…’ is a stately summation of the mighty portents cast via previous limited edition releases on Silent Age, Clean Cut and Float Records.

1. Western Front - Mustard gas, attrition
2. Polaris - Lepping’s Patented Lapwing Harmonium “Good to chill out to”
3. Valmara 69 - Bounding landmines, old man dancing
4. Brocken - 51° 48′ 0″ N, 10° 37′ 04″ W
5. Rats in the Walls - Return to Castle Quest. You have always been the caretaker.
6. Endless Pressure - Night spent inside coffin
7. Maggots in the Rice - One-child policy
8. Palus Somnii - Warm Codeine Lido
9. Sunken Gardens - Earth, 2014
10. Song of the Easton Strangler - Star-chart, ritual

This is pure aural morphine of such monumental, Tarkovskian conceptual proportions it will make your stereo sob with uncontrollable existential rage. Equally at home on the contemporary dance floor as in the skin-flick cutting room or the lounge of a bohemian Chelsea Satanist, this is music to jump in front of trains to. Music to start fires on the faces of men.

Z-Plane - Variegation (1997)

Not much out there on this one but this:

The grooviest music can be produced with few instruments,
for Z-Plane from Munich this is a long-time fact.
Earthy percussions,dry 808-beats and relaxed melodies
arise from a laid back elektro-mix which makes moving
on the floor as exciting as in bed. Z-Plane is the Munich
house-DJ PUFO and his partner Peter Winkelmann.
For years, Winkelmann produced music in his private studio
which was not for public ears.
His friend PUFO persuaded him to produce some music under
the name of Z-Plane. Success came immediately.

Analogue Brain - ElectroShock

The wait is over! After having caused quite a stir in the scene with a line of floor fillers featured on several compilation releases – among them a flabbergasting remake of The Normal´s classic “Warm Leatherette” – and becoming world renowned as remixers for established cult groups, such as Icon of Coil, :[sitd]: or Agonoize, the German trio now finally release their full-length debut album. Where the two appetizers, “Fly in an Amber” (Machineries of Joy III) and “Dead Keen On (Cut One)” (This is Techno Body Music, Vol. I) were already foreshadowing grandeur, “Electroshock” does not disappoint the high expectations. Analogue Brain mingle the power of old EBM with the catchy melodies of synth pop, the fat beats of today with the minimalism of the Eighties and trance leads with analogue coolness. Olaf Wollschläger, who has been behind the helm for bands like Melotron, In Strict Confidence and as a remixer for Paradise Lost, provides the eleven floor shakers with a fat production that renders this electro shocker a small masterpiece. The band provides some ass-shaking tunes and takes the listener on a rollercoaster ride of thudding beat infernos, driving sequencers, atmosphere and emotion. Analogue Brain set out to prove that you do not have to be playing soft and whiny synth pop to create good melodies and to be able to conjure up the occasional goose bump, but that you can be tough and energetic at the same time. Welcome to the shock therapy – probably the first and only one that you will have fun attending and that will leave you hopelessly addicted! 2005 will definitely be under the banner of Analogue Brain.

Severe Illusion - Accomplishments of Leopold II

In this the year of the concept album, its good to finally see a band who actually has an original concept, something that goes beyond politics bling and fantasy. Something that moves you emotionally and mentally, with Accomplishments of Leopold II, Severe Illusion has created an album that is beautiful and complex musically pushing their sound with driving synths and distorted vocals. Based on the heinous acts committed by Belgium’s King Leopold II in the African Congo from 1885-1908, this disc captures the pain and torment the people of the region underwent during Leopold’s reign. The suffering of those who lost their lives is here along with the will to over come their oppressors and reclaim what was stolen from them. You can hear it in tracks like “Girl with a knife in her hand”, close your eyes and you can almost see a young girl fending off attackers as the bass pulses in your ears. You find yourself wanting to rejoice to “The King is dead” as the disc takes you through this page in world history, from the lowest of the low and the dizzying highs of freedom. This album is so good if your like me you’ll find yourself trying to find more info on this point in time. There is nothing more satisfying than being entertained while learning and with Accomplishments of Leopold II, Severe Illusion has accomplished just that.

Silencio - Grünezeit

The nine delicate, quasi-ambient soundscapes comprising Grünezeit invite comparison to works like Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series and Marsen Jules Herbstlaub. Silencio’s album departs from such company, however, by favouring organic development over loops; if anything, the group’s sound gravitates more towards Harold Budd’s, with the delicate piano ripples in the eleven-minute closer “The Day You Died” strongly reminiscent of his style. Though piano and guitar sounds dominate, Julien Demoulin and Nicolas surround them with a broad array of field sounds, voices, vibes, and strings. The mournful cry of a violin wafts through the contemplative “Memorandis,” for example, while a churning machine rhythm adds industrial dirt to the stately piano themes of “Tumbleweed.” Highlights include “June,” where softly glimmering, Satie-like chords are joined by the faint echo of vibes and violin, and “Like a Friday Night in La-la Land,” where a ponderous setting of piano and vibes in the first half is coupled with a beautifully haunting ambient episode in the second. Grünezeit is a lovely collection whose peaceful quietude (song titles alone—“Sleep It Off” and “The Day You Died”—suggest the music’s becalmed character) belies the careful attention to detail Silencio lavishes upon its material.