Genetic Selection: Darwin’s Voyage | electro industrial on Ant-Zen

One of the great thing about art you love is how you can interpret it in your very own and highly personalised way.

One of my most prized paintings, for example, depicts a scene on the surface of an unknown planet, stars and interstellar space behind it, with a few streaks meant to be space craft zipping by the distant sky.

This piece took less than 10 minutes to create and cost me around $20 from a street artist in Sydney. The medium? A couple of cans of spray paint on glossy paper, along with inventive use of spray can lids to create perfectly round shapes.

It’s a simple painting, made on the spot according to a formula. I also suspect the artist churned out several dozen of these by-the-numbers creations every weekend. Yet for me that in no way diminishes its artistic value.

Art is what you love. And art that you love is what you make of it. Indeed, over several years I have derived enjoyment from the fact that this piece hung on display in my man-room. At various times, when I found myself staring at the wall (something I did probably far more than I care to admit), I would occasionally imagine what was going on in that scene. What was this strange planet that was being colonised? What degree of technological advancement had this civilisation attained? And what else could be going on off the frame?

The artist who made the painting undoubtedly had no backstory in mind when he used the round bases of spray cans to create planetary shapes. Nor would his motive for creating it have been for a buyer to subject his work to serious intellectual evaluation. It’s just a space scene, churned out on demand for a tourist audience.

But that’s ok by me. Not all art has to be open to interpretation. If something can make you do that, then great, so much the better.

I suppose that’s why it’s called art, not science.

The same applies to music.

If you let it.

How good is the artwork? Absolutely stunning! Painted by Michael Hutter.

Imagination and artistic interpretation: Genetic Selection by Darwin’s Voyage

These very thoughts occurred to me after I began listening to the 2005 album Darwin’s Voyage by German electronic artist Genetic Selection.

Released on the experimental Ant-Zen label, it’s an instrumental industrial album that merges techno, rhythmic noise, smatterings of ambient, industrial (in all its wonderful manifestations), and other moderately dark and nasty sounds. And no, I hadn’t heard of Genetic Selection either until then.

Now I must emphasise that the sound and style didn’t blow me away. While I love all sorts of electronic industrial music, including the hard-hitting and stomping noisy varieties, I’m often drawn back to the EBM cheese and more synth-centric terror banana melodic stuff.

However, this album intrigued me. The hook was the album artwork, which you can see above.

“One thing music collectors learn over many years of accumulating physical media is to be wary of unfamiliar artists that bear exceedingly good artwork and intriguing names. Sure, it’s not an absolute rule, but in the imperfect world we inhabit it’s sometimes a sign of things being too good to be true.”

My copy of Darwin’s Voyage was acquired as part of a bulk purchase of EBM and industrial CDs from a mate. There was no pre-conceived sussing out of what this album sounded like. I did not look at it online nor (if like me you’re still into physical media) did I make some value judgement when holding it in my hands prior to acquisition. In fact, I only discovered that it was in my possession when I went through the collection after it had come home with me.

One thing music collectors learn over many years of accumulating physical media is to be wary of unfamiliar artists that bear exceedingly good artwork and intriguing names. Sure, it’s not an absolute rule, but in the imperfect world we inhabit it’s sometimes a sign of things being too good to be true.

After a first listen, my first impression was that my suspicions might be correct. Darwin’s Voyage is entirely instrumental and while it combines hard techno, rhythmic noise, EBM, electro-industrial and a whole range of other electronic music sounds that I generally approve of (plus minimal and generally very short use of samples) it wasn’t my cup of tea.

The album sounded kind of stiff. It’s hard to describe without listening to it (which you can totally do here on the official Bandcamp page). I guess it sounded to me like a techno album having a go at industrial. If that’s your bread and butter, then good for you. It wasn’t quite for me, and with something like another 100 CDs to get through, I was on the verge of passing this off as just another album that might get a few listens and then most likely never get aired again. Believe me, I own and have paid money for many such releases. Yet, I was captivated by that fantastic cover art. I’m a sci-fi nerd and that creepy, dark, human-alien hybrid was fantastic.

With that in mind (in more than one sense), I listened to it again. Thinking of the artist’s name — Genetic Selection, what a name — got me thinking, especially when I imagined the album title to be a reference to distant space travel.

Wonderful Alien, Aliens and It-inspired track names here. 

My interest really got piqued though when I paid proper attention to the track titles (I rip all my physical media to lossless but the actual listening occurs predominantly via my phone, where it’s easy to forget track names).

Now I found that I was getting really interested. I found that I was starting to ‘construct’ a story for each track, based solely on the titles.

There was the slow intermittent sound of the track Drop Ship, which in my mind could happily pass for mechanical processes of a descending vessel slowly floating to the surface of a distant planet. Or there were the somewhat wilder sounds of the opening track Xenomorph Attack, which in my mind (and I do mean, in my mind) could pass for the chaos of a violent confrontation with an alien aggressor.

I found I got into this imagination play so much that I was somewhat obsessively checking back on track names, which is not something I usually do with purely instrumental albums.

Eventually, by the time I had ‘learned’ this album, I’d constructed my own story. While it was nominally a concept-album, I allowed my imagination to fill in the blank spaces.

Incidentally, the liner notes do contain a short description (in German) of the album theme. It details how colonists are attacked on a distant planet by an irresistible and predatory alien creature. It differed slightly to the way I imagined it, but I wasn’t too far off.

Imagination and track selection

I have since listened to another Genetic Selection album: Orbital Ground Attack. This second on was the Genetic Selection debut album

It too is an instrumental album and while its songs bear titles that are entirely hard sci-fi themes (which I love) — earth under attack, interstellar combat, human resistance — it was much more ambiguous. I couldn’t quite spurn my imagination in the same vivid detail that I did for Darwin’s Voyage.

Perhaps Orbital Ground Attack wasn’t the artist’s best work, what with it being his debut work? I felt it was a bit different, but I didn’t regard the quality to be any different.

More likely, I feel that I preferred one over the other their entirely instrumental nature meant there was a ‘gap’ that could be filled with imagination and personal interpretation. Let’s be honest with the fact that the track names could have been anything. Yet, the artist chose to call them Xenomorph Attack, Through Hyperspace, Drop Ship, The Creature, etc.

The song names on Darwin’s Voyage are clearly inspired by Alien, Aliens, It and other sci-fi-horror greats. I love that stuff and I allowed myself to imagine things accordingly. Orbital Ground Attack, with its ambiguous track names, is not inferior in any way musically. I just couldn’t get my imagination to envisage things on this album in the same way.

And with less imagination, there was less enthusiasm.

Art is what you make of it

I’m apprehensive when it comes to talking about an artist’s ‘vision’ or intent. We live in a time where, more than ever, art and culture is arguably seen as more consumable and about immediate gratification. From the nature of music streaming to what passes for pop music, it’s easy to lose sight of the intention of art, and how we value it.

And yet, as I said previously, good art is what you love.

Art is not rational. It’s not a scientific experiment with measurable results. It’s not a definable or quantifiable. There is no art without imagination (except perhaps in the machine-learning art sense).

Art is what you love. And if that fires your imagination in a fulfilling way, then it’s art that is worthwhile, regardless of whether it’s a masterpiece that took years to create, or a painting made with spray cans in a couple of minutes.

“I forgot how good they were” | When you re-discover music you’d forgotten or dismissed

One of the wonderful things about being into awesome music is how it’s possible to ‘rediscover’ a band that you’d either forgotten about, or otherwise thought you knew well enough to have dismissed.

While I can only speak for myself, I suspect many others may have experienced this same phenomenon. It usually occurs years after you became familiar with an artist — and inevitably, the rediscovery manifests in a random or unexpected way.

Do any of these sound familiar?

Maybe you re-assessed a band after you saw them at a gig or festival?

I had this precise experience after seeing Rammstein at their final Big Day Out appearance in Australia, all the way back in 2011. I love much of the Rammstein discography but at the time I’d dismissed 2009’s Liebe Ist Für Alle as mediocre — that was, until I saw much of it played live.

That show changed my perspective about this album. I can, with full confidence, say that I got back into Liebe Ist Für Alle with a whole new level of appreciation post-concert, precisely because I saw half of it played live in all its fiery glory (tragically, almost 10 years have elapsed since the last full-length Rammstein studio album, so until then we at least have the wholesomely glorious cheese of Lindemann).

Similarly, a good friend saw Gary Numan and subsequently had an even more electric experience. It began when she went to one of his gigs even though she was not familiar with his discography. Having elected to see Gary Numan with no preconceived expectations, she emerged as a true believer. Now she's the proud owner of vinyl test pressings and hand-written lyric sheets.

I never gave Sabaton much thought until I saw them live on the 70000 Tons Of Metal cruise. What they lack in technical wizardry they make up for with the right attitude. And songs exclusively about military history.

Maybe a friend or acquaintance got you into a new group?

Those who are into fantastic music tend to gravitate towards others who are also into fantastic music. To ask someone “are you into so-and-so artist” or “have you heard the latest this-and-that?” is not so much a conversation starter as a way of life. On the other hand, when you've figuratively heard it all, and when you’re so deeply and heavily into your music that you rarely get surprised by new sounds, it’s inevitable that new and old things occasionally get tuned out.
One way to filter out the noise is to have a trusted source, such as a respected friend, invoke your full attention and articulate a new perspective.

Indeed, I would struggle to list the vast number of artists and tracks that I’ve gotten into as a direct consequence of one-on-one conversations and recommendations from good friends.

In fact, one of my all-time favourite activities with one of my best mates involved him bringing over a bag of CDs (yes, physical media), whereupon we would have a few beers while chilling out to and talking about tunes. While on almost every occasion the evening’s proceedings would close with’90s Eurotrance YouTube videos, I rate it as one of the very best ways imaginable to discover new music.

Maybe you forgot how good an artist was until you heard track played in your randomised shuffle playlist?

My shuffled playlist, more than any other factor, brings me back to music I’d tuned out, dismissed, mentally put aside, or otherwise forgotten about for months or years. I have facts to back this up: my playlist logs the Last played date next to each track, so when I see albums and artists that I know and love, I’m often surprised by how many years have passed since I last played them.

By that I mean track six from an album I’d long forgotten about suddenly grabs my attention in ways it never had previously, and for no other reason but that it came on unannounced in that shuffled playlist.

Left to run its natural course, this phenomenon often concludes with words that might best be paraphrased as “I forgot how good they were” and “I never really paid much attention to them until...”

This once more got me listening to Hocico. Pic: Discogs.

My Hocico ‘re-discovery’

This very thought occurred to me after I’d ‘re-discovered’ Mexican EBM electro-industrial champions Hocico the other day.

I was going through some photos on my hard drive of old music purchases (I’m just that kind of person) and I came across this single from EBM industrial outfit Hocico, purchased a few years back. The single is Dog Eat Dog, released in 2010.

Many months had passed since I’d last listened to big blocks of Hocico, and two things happened after I re-listened — or ‘re-discovered’ — this single.

Firstly, it immediately reminded me of how fantastic the Hocico discography is. Indeed, I’ll concede that, in this instance, it wasn’t a case of appreciation for a band that I’d dismissed but rather a case of “I forgot how good they were”.

To the point: I’d never dismissed Hocico. They are superb. It’s just that, for whatever reason, Hocico are a group I regularly revisit, but probably not regularly enough because there remains an unimaginably vast volume of awesome music still waiting to be discovered or revisited. Indeed, my hardrive playlist, consisting almost exclusively of music copied from my physical music collection, lists 55 continuous days’ worth of music.

As I said, it’s a bit too easy to filter out things when you’re so heavily into it. Other times, things just gather dust in the archive.

55.1 days of continuous music. If I played my entire collection 24 hours a day, I would get to listen to each track just 6.6 times per year.

The other thing to occur with the ‘re-discovery’ was that I was reminded of how privileged I was to have seen Hocico live in Australia. In 2012 I caught them at the Melbourne leg, a show that I thought was fantastic even though there were some technical difficulties throughout the gig. Despite sustaining a minor back injury — not from moshing-induced action, but merely from wearing a sombrero covered in gaffer tape — I had a fantastic time and you can see more about it in the above links.

Album art and association

In conclusion, a very small stimulus can be a powerful evoker, be it a track that stands out from the shuffle playlist, or actually picking up the *gasp* album art in your hands.

Not to denigrate digital and streaming (I am a heavy Spotify and Bandcamp user as I find both are excellent ways to discover artists that I then spend money on), but I feel the very nature of the physical presence of physical media is one edge it has over digital.

To get really metaphysical for a moment: the physical release is art that you’re holding, whereas the digital release is a representation of that art. Both are entirely valid and have advantages in that they’re equally capable of fulfilling whatever it is you’re hoping to get out of them.

Of course, for those of us who still love physical media, or who listen to their digital versions of legitimate purchases in the full format that they were created in, there’s still the dilemma of how to enjoy the historically maligned single.

Here’s how I get the most out of a release that consists of four remixes and a b-side: how to appreciate the much-maligned CD single.

How to re-appreciate the maligned CD single with four remixes and a b-side

I had a nice ‘re-discovery’ moment recently when I was unexpectedly reminded of how excellent electro-industrial and EBM music can be. As is so often the case with such things, it occurred by chance after I came across this 2010 Hocico single, Dog Eat Dog, that I’d purchased some years previously.

I love physical media but I still copy all my legitimate music purchases onto my hard drive in lossless format. So, when a track from this release got played at random from my playlist, I ensured that it in turn it in turn led to the rest of the release getting played, which in turn led to more of the Hocico discography getting played.

It was one of those moments where I could genuinely say that “I’d forgotten how good they were”. Yet for all the quality and brilliantly sinister depths in Hocico’s dark and nasty EBM electro-industrial, I was confronted with an ancient dilemma faced by people who still accumulate physical media: how does one enjoy and derive the most out of a single?

All these tracks are, individually, quite good.

Played back-to-back in this original format, though, they get a bit samey. Pic: Discogs.

The CD single in the digital streaming age

The single is an anachronism in the streaming age. It’s been that way for years, ever since the advent of digital music. Indeed, I recall how the biggest physical media music chain in my home country of Australia announced almost 10 years ago that it would cease stocking CD singles.

Yet for those of us who still love physical media, or are artist or label completists, the single represents a nice break from innumerable full-length albums.

This particular single is the CD version of Hocico’s Dog Eat Dog release from 2010. A ‘lead track’ (or rather, a fairly decent track) from the Tiempos De Furia album, it was released in two versions: the six-track version here in a digipak; and a two-track seven-inch, limited to 666 copies (of course). Incidentally, both are in formats that the label and distributor can conveniently refer to as limited edition.

As I said, the single in its traditional form is an anachronism.

Dog Eat Dog

Dog Eat Dog has six tracks: the lead track, four remixes, and what would in old-parlance be referred to as the b-side.

All the tracks on Dog Eat Dog are reasonable on their own merits. Since Hocico remain a high-profile electro-industrial harsh EBM act, it’s not surprising that comparable high-profile names contributed remixes: Solitary Experiments, Aesthetic Perfection and Arsch Dolls (the latter I know nothing about other than that they seem to be a Tamtrum-related project).

Of the remixes, the most interesting is by mysterious Japanese act Diabolic Art. While the remix itself is okay-ish, its most intriguing element is the way it is indicative of Diabolic Arts’ wider style. What original material I’ve heard of this artist — and there is extraordinarily little original material out there — is an incredibly dark and Satanic-sounding mix of dancey industrial and psy-trance. Maybe you’re best to check it out yourself…

As stated, all the tracks on this release are on their own merits quite decent. Yet one lead track, four remixes and a b-side easily makes one’s attention waver.

Singles are a throwback to radio airplay days, when proper exposure for an artist meant attempting to capture as many ears as possible to lock onto one track via a medium controlled by third-parties.
Selling more singles was one way to achieve that aim. Consequently, not only did a CD single contain a track that was already available on the more expensive full-length, but it was often the only ‘good’ item on the release, with the ‘filler’ on singles notorious for consisting of forgettable remixes, acapellas, instrumentals, live versions and dubious b-sides.

Naturally that wasn’t always the case and this release is a good example of where that hadn’t occurred. However, the fact that it was such a routine occurrence goes a long way to explaining why the CD single was so maligned.

Getting the most out of the old CD single

So how do you get the most ‘satisfaction’ out of five variants of the same track and one probably-not-their-best-work b-side?

What works for me is this: get a single that isn’t inherently crap. I suggest that the best way to go about this is to embrace a simple solution. Namely, listen to good music.

No seriously, by not listening to rubbish music you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how rarely you encounter this problem.

So, assuming you are in possession of a decent release, how do you then beat the repetition while still retaining the enjoyment?

If you’re still into music the old way and have a multi-disc CD player, or if you’re actually a normal person and just streamed it or ripped it onto your device, take the single, then select an album from the same artist. Ideally, it’s not the same album from which the single originated.
For best results, pick an album with which you’re not super-familiar, or that you feel has been relegated to the not-their-best-work bin.

Then play them on shuffle.

You can now kick back and get more out of both the album and the single. The sum of their parts will be greater than their whole.

It works for me and it could work for you

There are some people who cannot abide by shuffling full albums. That’s perfectly fine. All I would say is: the combination of both, shuffled and mixed at random, spreads out the repetition of the single, while potentially providing a new perspective on a full-length album you might have otherwise dismissed.

I’ve mentioned how one of the greatest things about being into awesome music is how it’s possible to ‘rediscover’ a band that you otherwise thought you knew well enough to have dismissed.

The method of listening to singles described here does exactly that. We all have or know (or thought we know) albums that aren’t necessarily among our greatest and most beloved, but which we still know. It might be a lesser-known item from a long discography or it could be a newer album that didn’t meet expectations the first time round. Inevitably, said album does not get listened to for months or years because it presumably got dismissed long ago as not warranting further investigation.

Then a track from the second half of the album one day pops up in your playlist. In my experience, when this happens, I’ll often hear new elements and subtle things that I might have tuned out previously. At its most rewarding, when a track comes on unseen at random (because it’s hidden behind another window) my response will be “wow, that sounds amazing, what is it?” — followed by the realisation that it was an artist I’d dismissed long ago.

I could go on endlessly about why randomness and unexpectedness is such an effective way to re-appreciate music (at its most molecular, I believe it has a lot to do with deciding what our expectations will be). In practical terms, not having the half-hour block from the first half of the album to ‘desensitise’ or distract us from the second half can very much lead to a new-found appreciation for a track that I thought I knew.

That can in turn (hopefully!) lead to new-found appreciation for the previously-dismissed album as a whole and, if you’re really up for it, even further appreciation for the artist and their discography.
Personally, my ideal mix (where applicable) is a full album, a live album, and a single, all played at random and mixed in at unpredictable intervals.

Incidentally, this is one reason while I love EPs. Whereas singles are inherently short, EPs can be repeated far more often. Enough has elapsed — not just in terms of measurable, chronological time (the best kind of time), but also variety — for the first and final track on the attention-meter to reset.
An EP can be re-listened to multiple times throughout the day and it doesn’t feel like your brain is leaking out of your head from repetition.

Plus there’s a subtle kind of satisfaction to be had from completing an EP. Sort of.

Isn’t there?

As for that other much-maligned release, the full-length remix album. Well, the potential for both glory and failure is so much more pronounced there. That may require a different approach.

That time the speakers at the Hocico gig had blown up but it was still a great show

I was going through photos of music purchases the other day (I’m just that kind of person) and I came across this single from Mexican EBM industrial outfit Hocico that I’d purchased a few years back from Heartland Records — Dog Eat Dog, the first single off the 2010 Hocico album Tiempos De Furia.

The nice cover art — note the surprising lack of biohazard symbols, campy socialist realism and industrial wasteland landscapes — in turn gave my brain sufficient stimulus to motivate me to play a few tracks from it. That, in turn, reminded of when Hocico toured Australia in 2012. But before I get onto that, allow me to digress.

Hocico - Dog Eat Dog. A rare instance of the cover art on an industrial release not featuring biohazard symbols - or even an industrial wasteland. Also, Heartland Records is an amazing shop that's still going.

It's all about expectations

I recently posted how what we get out of a gig can very much depend on what we decide ahead of time we will make of it, and a lot less on what actually occurs while we’re there.

The genesis of that thought was my wholly unexpected and recent impromptu attendance at a gig by New Zealand thrashers Alien Weaponry. It was a performance on a weeknight in the middle of winter at a small venue for a band I knew almost nothing about, so I’d attended not so much with low expectations but rather with no expectations.

It turned out to be a marvelous evening, despite the fact that I wasn’t a massive fan of Alien Weaponry’s mid-tempo thrash-lite. The reasons why are amply described in the above link.

If you want the short explanation, though: essentially, those aspects that ultimately determine how we rate a gig — these being the things that are best articulated as quality and fulfilment and fun — are in many ways dependent on whether those aspects meet the expectations that we set ourselves in our mind, rather than what actually occurred.

I feel strongly about it because I am indeed privileged to live in a town that has a legitimately world-class live music scene. Seeing that photo, which in turn made me play some Hocico, which in turn made me think of the 2012 Hocico Melbourne gig, brought up some long-buried thoughts about that show.

For one thing, it was a divisive show.

It doesn't show that well in this shot but those were some sick visuals.

Hocico in Melbourne

Hocico is a big deal in EBM and industrial music. For years they've headlined or otherwise notched top-level billing across Europe. So when the first ever Hocico Australian tour was announced it was preceded by significant (and by all accounts, justifiable) hype. In particular, much was made of the energy and vigor of the live performance. Those who weren’t overly into Hocico were urged to check them out on that strength.

I will skip ahead and emphasise that I thought it was a brilliant performance. Except for a back injury which, I discovered the next morning, I’d acquired on the dancefloor as a result of my decision to wear a sombrero covered in industrial safety tape (seeing a Mexican industrial band naturally means wearing an industrial sombrero, right?), it was one of those memorable shows.

Here’s what I said about it in 2012:

“When you see live bands that you don’t avidly follow, it’s so often a case of getting into those songs you recognise and maybe even liking a few you don’t recognise. “They’re not bad,” is as absolutely stock-standard behaviour at a gig as is having a vaguely appreciative and not-very-responsive crowd for much of the time. But not so with these guys. I own a few Hocico releases and yet I can honestly say I recognised all of two songs that were played. Yet at every moment there was this powerful you-had-to-be-there energy, this awesome, dark, killer world complete with sensory-depriving lights and visuals. At the risk of running off an old cliché, it was much of a case of you could “feel” it rather than just see and hear it.”

When looking back at things I said or wrote more than half a decade ago, I sometimes get a slight cringey feeling, perhaps due to some long-passed naivety? But not this time. It really was a great show.

This was despite the fact that it was a show marred by a couple of mishaps and technical problems.

Throughout the evening, before I got there, at least one speaker had proverbially blown up. Consequently, bands started late. The Hocico show was eventually shortened — and throughout, the sound cut out more than once. On top of that, only one ‘official’ member of Hocico supposedly formed part of the show.

Years later, I was talking about that gig with a friend. A seasoned gig, festival and club goer, he said, much to my surprise, that he had not liked it and how he felt genuinely embarrassed by what transpired onstage (and presumably behind the sound console).

And yet I rate it as one of the best electronic shows I’d ever seen.

In my view, all the elements came together to form an atmosphere that was dark, heavy, foreboding and intense. This was the nightmare underworld of Hocico’s music in an audio-visual manifestation. It absolutely was, in every sense, a performance where it didn’t matter whether you knew any of their music. As I said, I have for years cultivated the view that I am exceedingly fortunate to live in a town where dark, heavy and nasty music is a regular occurrence.
Looking back at that show from years ago, it reminded me once again that what you make of a gig has a lot to do with what you tell yourself it will be, before

• As a gig-goer you cannot control what goes on with the sound. 
• You cannot prevent a speaker from blowing up. 
• You cannot make a gig start on time. On the other hand, you’re seeing (as was the case here) an international act.
• Nor can you make a missing band member materialize on stage. 

Did any of these things matter? Not to me they did. Not one little bit.

You can't control the sound or whether the band starts on time.

You can control how you feel about it.

A good gig is inherently about what you make of it, whether it’s an international electro-industrial act like or a group of teenage thrashers.

And incidentally, I’m reliably told that the correct pronunciation is hɔ-si-kho.

I played Cards Against Humanity in my first ever VIP meet and greet

An acquaintance recently paid 2531$ — that’s $3278AUD — for the privilege of meeting Metallica and scoring a front-row seat. I can’t say I’d pay that much to meet my idol, but to each their own I guess.

The concept of the pre-show VIP meet and greet is, when you think about it, an odd one. A disparate group of fans who have never met each other pay a premium to spend a short time with an artist who in all likelihood is hideously sleep-deprived and who almost certainly doesn’t know the first thing about any of the people who paid money for the intimate time together.

What usually occurs in these situations is this: most of the fans are either overwhelmingly polite, shy, or in some way in awe of the person they’ve come to see. While in a few rare cases you do get a boisterous douche mouth fan, it’s a fact that in most scenarios all eyes are on the artist. As a fan you don’t want to inadvertently be a dick by drawing the wrong kind of attention onto yourself by uttering something embarrassing or inappropriate. So you bite your tongue. The result is an almost enforced air of silence inside the room.

The onus, therefore, is on the artist to entice their fans out of their comfort zone.

Given the appalling state of music industry revenue for artists, VIP meet and greets are practically an integral part of touring. Indeed, a good touring artist knows how to talk to giddy or nervous (and quite often, very drunk) fans while maintaining a down-to-earth and fun persona. The artist is essentially a ‘host’ to a group of strangers doing something very far out of their comfort zone.

I imagine it’s hard work. Certainly, it’s something I would struggle to do, if somehow I became an even moderately successful touring act.

VIP meeting Joe Letz from Combichrist

VIP encounter with Combichrist drummer Joe Letz in a meet and greet.

Thus it was that a mate and I paid for a pre-show VIP package to meet and greet Combichrist drummer Joe Letz prior to his Incursion DJ gig in Melbourne.

As it turned out, initially all the observations above about the intricacies and awkwardness of a meet and greet turned out to be true. While I had the security blanket of attending with a familiar buddy, I had never seen Joe perform, so I was curious as to how this close and intimate experience would pan out.

Turns out, part of the ‘experience’ was a stroke of genius. In fact, it’s something I would recommend to anyone considering a meet and greet — a game of Cards Against Humanity.

I’m a huge fan of board games at social occasions for the simple reason that they work wonders in bringing people together. Now apply that to a group of strangers meeting someone ‘famous’ and you’ve given them a genuinely non-awkward reason to interact. And with Cards Against Humanity you get the added bonus that the interaction is replete with unspeakable revelations about people’s true character.

Basically, it’s the ideal ice breaker.

The look of concentration could kill a small rodent.

Pic: Kierra Thorn.

Our game went for an hour, and when our time came to an end and concluded with the mandatory poster signing and photo op, I came away with enough tour stories to write my own EBM industrial draft equivalent to This Is Spinal Tap.

There were glimpses of the tour shenanigans with Rammstein. There was fascinating insight into the causes and consequences of falling asleep in the tour bus toilet cubicle — or at an international airport. And best of all, we learnt about the vital importance of always having your own toilet paper on tour.

Towards the end of the night I realised I’d been telling people about how I’d gotten to VIP meet and greet Joe. Allegedly, he was operating on less than two hours of sleep after he’d flown in the night before from Brisbane (1300km away), he didn’t drink, and he was quite lovely to be around as he hosted a bunch of nervous strangers to a game of Cards Against Humanity.

I waited a decade to finally hear the Scooter remix of Rammstein’s Pussy in a club. Life mission accomplished.

Pic: Kierra Thorn.

And his set was great too. I’ve waited almost a decade to hear the Scooter remix of Rammstein’s Pussy in a club. So that life mission accomplished. The epic cheese glory of that track defies description. You need it in your life.

But yeah.
We also found out that it's vital to keep an eye out on your toilet paper when you're on tour.
“Someone stole my toilet paper!” exclaimed Joe.

I wasn't there. But I know happened...

True story.

True story.

Pic: Kierra Thorn.

Awesome club moment #3 | I discover magical summoning powers at the Aesthetic Perfection gig

I’m going to call this post “I discover magical summoning powers at the Aesthetic Perfection gig”. Alternatively, “a funny thing happened to me on the way to the Aesthetic Perfection concert” will do. Or even “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not at the Aesthetic Perfection gig anymore.”

In 2010, which is a date that feels like it was far more recent than it actually was, I got to see EBM-industrial-pop outfit Aesthetic Perfection on their Australian tour. The show was organised by Rivetting Promotions (sic) and Fiend, and since it was the Melbourne leg, it was attended by a bunch of people, including Gerry (aka Lobotomy) from Fiend. Try to remember that bit because it relates to the rest of the story.

Aesthetic Perfection front-man Daniel Graves demonstrates the correct procedure for initiating the summoning ritual. Pic: Ruth.

To be clear: this post isn’t strictly about the gig. Just take my word that it was a fantastic show and Daniel Graves is a top front-man. This was despite a couple things not being quite in favour of the band. For one, the stage was very small, so much so that I vaguely recall that the drum kit may even have been positioned somewhat less frontal for everything to fit. Also, the sound wasn’t the best, though through no fault of Aesthetic Perfection or the promoters — the room in which they played simply wasn’t intended for thumping industrial music.

The gig wasn’t sold out but when Aesthetic Perfection did their thing it felt massive. This was an industrial music outfit beaming with energy and I genuinely believe that for a not inconsiderable amount of time the whole room was up and at it.

And, of course, Aesthetic Perfection make great music. Plus, Daniel Graves seemed like a lovely chap who was nice enough to hang out with the fans afterwards. I even have a selfie with the lads buried somewhere in my archives.

But as I said, this isn't about the band, as good as they were.

What really makes a great gig?

Great gigs are often memorable because of something unusual or unexpected. Ozzy Osbourne and Dream Theater have played thousands of concerts but the individual shows that are still talked about are when Ozzy bit the head off a bat (and incidentally got tons of publicity from the rabies shots) or when Dream Theater unexpectedly played the entirety of Master Of Puppets or The Number Of The Beast before actually doing a full-length‘proper’ set.

So too was it with this occasion. That’s because the Aesthetic Perfection show will for me always be the time I discovered I had magical summoning powers.

And just in case you were wondering, yes, a higher than average volume of alcohol was involved.

2010? Was it really so long ago?

This peculiar discovery occurred during the last break between bands — Sirus had finished and Aesthetic Perfection were up next. I’d gone outside to grab some fresh air, which of course meant hanging out with the smokers who stampeded to the exit the moment Sirus had finished.

I’d struck up a conversation with an old mate. You may know the type — a gig acquaintance who you don’t see outside of shows but you always get along with fine at shows. We were talking about music (of course) and people and ‘the scene’ (because I was significantly younger then) when one of us just happened to refer to someone by name.

At that precise moment, the person we had just mentioned by name casually emerged from the venue entrance.

“Well,” old mate and I conveyed to each other, as we metaphorically slapped each other on the back.

As I said, we’d had a few drinks.

We continued our banter, dropping more names and bands and more bands, when the same thing occurred. Again, someone we’d referred to by name mysteriously exited the venue and was standing in the door way.

“Good Lord!” we both thought, which is quite probably a polite interpretation of the words we actually uttered.

Again, we’d had a little more than usual to drink. So, naturally, we drew attention to this occurrence by making a noisy and obnoxiously big deal of it.

Obviously, we then thought it’d be pretty funny if we channelled our collective consciousness and attempted to make somebody else materialise in the doorway.

It went something like this.

Old Mate: “Gerry!” (referring to Gerry the promoter)

Me: “Great idea, let’s summon Gerry!”

Old Mate: “Ok. Bring me Gerry. Gerry, Gerry, Gerry. Gerry Gerry. Bring me Gerry!”

Now, most likely it was coincidence. Or maybe there was some other influence.

Either way, sure enough, standing right there in the doorway, was Gerry.

By now you can probably imagine how we responded. And when Old Mate and I finally calmed down we explained what had just occurred.

And Gerry, with brilliant wit and perfect timing, responded.

“Yeah, I was just standing in the venue when I had this sudden urge to step outside,” he said.

"Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu Gerry Gerry Gerry R’lyeh wgah’ngl fhtagn!" Pic: Ruth

Did I mention it was a great gig? Aesthetic Perfection put on a killer performance despite being challenged for space on stage. No one left disappointed that night.

Plus, you never know when you'll discover that you have magical summoning powers.

• Previous awesome club moment #2

• Next awesome club moment

My $180 shopping spree at Heartland Records

I’ve mentioned numerous times how Heartland Records in Melbourne, Australia, is my absolute favourite record store. So much so that once a year when the festive season rolls by, when asked by relatives what gift I would like, I imply that a Heartland Records gift vouchers wouldn’t be sneezed at.

Consequently, it’s around this time every year that I go on a Heartland Records shopping spree and end up with some killer new music. Here’s this year’s haul.

My annual pilgrimage to Heartland Records.

This is what I ask for every Christmas.

Bathory — Bathory

First cab off the rank: the first album in the Bathory discography and arguably one of the first true black metal albums.

I decided to buy this after I recently renewed my interest in Under The Sign Of the Black Mark (Bathory album number three) after owning it for several years. With this I’m expecting primitive, low-fi, Venom-inspired proto-evil noise. I don’t expect it to have aged well but I do hope to get a deeper understanding of what it must have been like to hear this for the first time all the way back in 1984 — that’s more than 30 years ago, in case that wasn’t painfully obvious.

Bathory — The Return…

Second cab off the rank: the second album in the Bathory discography. I’m familiar with just one track from this album, a cover version of the title track from the Marduk – Glorification EP. I’m expecting more evil low-fi noise, but of an improved calibre compared to its predecessor. Again, I’m going to try and imagine what it must have been like to be bludgeoned in the face for the first time with such an infernal racket when this was released in 1985.

Bathory — Blood Fire Death

When the discussion arises, I like to point out that Quorthon (Bathory main-man, guitarist, song-writer, etc.) is one of the very few people who can take partial or full credit (the jury is still deliberating) for creating not one, but two styles of heavy metal: black metal, which originated in the first three Bathory albums, two of which are listed above; and Viking metal (more of a term, yes, but still a thing), which has been agreed on as starting with the 1990 Hammerheart album.

I’m a fan of the melody, epicness (a heavy metal album entirely about Vikings, which gave rise to a thing called Viking metal, is as epic as it gets) and solid song-writing on the Hammerheart album. Blood Death Fire was its predecessor and was an in-between album. It bridged the rawness and downright evil vibe of the first three Bathory albums, and led to the more melodic Viking sound / concept / vibe of the Hammerheart album.

Bathory shirt

I don’t own a Bathory t-shirt, so this was an opportunity to correct that. What's that, wearing a Bathory shirt but not being intimately familiar with all Bathory albums makes me a poser? So far I’ve probably spent more money supporting this band than most people under 25.

Motörhead — Rock ‘N’ Roll

A couple of years ago I made a conscientious effort to appreciate more Motörhead, so I figured a good starting point was a neat box set containing the first six full-length albums in the Motörhead discography. I’m glad I did that because not only did I love these classic Motörhead albums, I’d also grown to appreciate and understand enough of Lemmy and Motörhead to be able to genuinely consider myself something of a fan before he died.
At the start of the year, I could genuinely say I'd gotten into Motörhead, yet there were something like 14 more Motörhead albums out there that I still needed to get to know. After Lemmy’s recent death, I made the point of getting to know more of his music, which is how I picked up this and another Motörhead album (below).

Coincidentally, I had a copy of Rock ‘N’ Roll on multi-generation dubbed cassette tape when I was all of 11 years old. I can’t recall what happened to my copy but I do recall when listening to it that it didn’t leave a lasting impression. More than 20 years later, I’m really loving Rock ‘N’ Roll, having fast-tracked this album to be listened to first off the pile.

Motörhead — March Ör Die

March Ör Die is the second of two newly acquired Motörhead albums. Apparently long-time Motörhead album cover artist Joe Petagno was incredibly unhappy with this one.

I haven’t listened to this one yet but I’m tipping it’ll be a great album. It’s not merely Motörhead, but it’s Motörhead doing the track Hellraiser, among other things. If you haven’t seen it, do make an effort to watch the video. As I said previously, no matter how awesome you think you are, you’ll never be Lemmy-winning-at-cards-against-the-Cenobite-Hellraiser-himself-awesome.

Various — Extreme Sündenfall 10

The Germans put out some superb EBM / industrial / goth compilations. Compilations like the Gothic Compilation, which hit at least 61 volumes, come to mind, as does the Extreme series (Extreme Sündenfall, Extreme Clubhits, Extreme Traumfänger, Extreme Störfrequenz, Extreme Lustlieder, and more).

This one appears to be one half of the 2010 edition. Like every Extreme Sündenfall volume, it’s got cringe-inducing cover art (every cover has a different nekkid lady or two for some reason), but that’s balanced out by what will hopefully be some decent music and new artists worth investigating.

Those wacky Germans. I guess a bit of flesh helps them keep the scene alive.

Marilyn Manson — The Beautiful People

In 1996, shows like MTV (when MTV still played music videos) and Rage began airing a disturbing music video from a then relatively unknown American artist calling himself Marilyn Manson.

At the time, Nine Inch Nails was a big deal, two years after the release of 1994’s The Downward Spiral. By extension, industrial metal was attempting to break into the mainstream. The much maligned creation called nu-metal was also busily being the bane of ‘serious’ metal heads who thought whining and wearing dreadlocks was an affront to heavy metal. It’s also worth noting that Kurt Cobain had been dead for two years and the grunge phenomenon was petering out.

Into this environment arrived former music journalist Marilyn Manson with his hit single, The Beautiful People. Produced by both Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) and Dave Ogilvie (Skinny Puppy), its unmistakeable guitar riff to this day hangs like a chain around Manson’s neck, forever the Marilyn Manson signature track.

The shocking-rock imagery and theatrics, the heavy but accessible metal / hard rock sound, and extremely savvy publicity machine (Brian Warner, before he took the stage name Marilyn Manson, was a music journalist with an uncannily sharp nose for how rockstardom worked) ensured Marilyn Manson was constantly in the headlines. And with that, he managed to get himself successfully lapped up by an entire new alternative music generation.

I was never much of a Manson fan to be honest. I don’t own a copy of Antichrist Superstar, from which The Beautiful People is taken, probably because I recall borrowing a mate’s CD copy not long after it came out and not thinking very much of it.

The single that is The Beautiful People represents a throwback to a time when three-track physical releases, put out on the cheap in cardboard sleeves like this one, were a viable way for record labels and distributors to promote themselves, and for pre-streaming / downloads / torrents / YouTube / etc. kids to get their hands on new music.

Those were the days. A widespread alternative music culture was alive and kicking all over Australia — embodied by the tremendous variety and credibility that was The Big Day Out, when it was a genuinely cool alternative festival.

1996 was a good time for a kid to be into alternative music.

Ministry — Twitch

Ministry are a group that its devotees rant and rage over with all their heart, and which I personally took a very long time to ‘get’.

I never actively disliked Ministry. It’s just that they had a sound that kind of didn’t do much for me. The combination of Al Jourgensen’s raspy vocals and the heavily processed, kind of second-fiddle guitar tone just didn’t excite me.

Then one day I had a Ministry breakthrough moment after buying The Last Sucker album, incidentally as part of a previous Heartland Records stash. The first and closing tracks from The Last Sucker — they’re very different but both stompingly good tunes — got me interested in Ministry again, and from there I ‘reverse engineered’ things. I re-discovered classic Ministry albums that I’d previously purchased on reputation alone and from there grew to appreciate all this great music from the Ministry discography that had previously not done much for me.

That’s one of the reasons why I collect physical media. I feel that a predominantly digital-format collection is too ephemeral for my needs. You might not love or appreciate something at the time but you may grow to love and appreciate it later in life.

With digital media it is too easy to forget, which means it is too easily deleted. A physical collection, by virtue of its physical presence, forces you to revisit and re-evaluate. Indeed, I can’t recall the number of times I have bought a release, not thought much of it, shelved it temporarily, and then re-discovered and genuinely re-appreciated it at a later time.

Ministry’s Twitch album is (apparently) a predominantly electronic album. I don’t know how I’ll feel about it compared to later-era, guitar-based Ministry, given that Ministry for me wasn’t love at first sight. And what if it doesn’t grip me first time?

Then I'll shelve it for now and stumble across it at a later time.

Ministry — The Land Of Rape And Honey

Ministry album number three and also the album released immediately after Twitch (above). It’s Ministry’s first attempt to get serious with industrial metal by way of guitars. As with Twitch, I’m not sure what to expect on this one. It’s from Ministry’s early days and is bound to sound remarkably different to later releases.

As for the appalling name… apparently it’s taken from a slogan for a real, actual, genuine location somewhere in America that specialised in rapeseed and other agricultural products. Trust Al Jourgensen to come up with that.

Various — Celebrant 2003 Der Mittelalterliche Klangkörper Zum Wave-Gotik-Treffen

I'll buy you a cookie if you're a non-German speaker and you manage to pronounce "Der Mittelalterliche Klangkörper Zum Wave-Gotik-Treffen" that without inadvertently spitting on yourself.
There are few places in the world where a full-length compilation of artists making Medieval and Medieval-inspired music makes financial sense; there are even fewer places that will host an entire stage playing this style of music at a major international festival.

Germany is one of those very few places. Or possibly the only place.

Wave-Gotik-Treffen is the famous international ‘black scene’ (as the Germans call it) festival where once a year every incoming flight to Leipzig is transformed into Flight Number 666 as thousands of black-clad-wearing freaks invest the city to catch 150 or more bands playing ‘dark’ music, from noise to industrial to goth to — you guessed it — medieval-inspired.

“Der Mittelalteriche Klangkörper” roughly translates as “The Medieval orchestra.”

There are 15 tracks on this compilation from the 2003 “celebration” of the festival. Other than that I have no idea what to expect. I recognise one group here: Corvus Corax, a group associated with Tanzwut, who in my view play the greatest bagpipe / Neue Deutsche Härte rendition of the Beethoven’s Ode To Joy ever recorded.

Medieval-inspired German Medieval music. What’s not to like?

Metallica — Death Magnetic

A few years back I saw this at JB HiFi for the princely sum of $14. At the time I felt that was too much, not because it’s fashionable to trash everything Metallica has touched in the last 20 years (which is laughably easy to do) but because I’d heard so many terrible reports about the dreadful audio compression that Metallica, for all their financial power and production nous, neglected to get right on this album.

Death Magnetic is the album that, apparently, has an unbearably messed up dynamic range. Fans hated it because it could have been a decent album, if only it didn’t sound like arse. Famously, an earlier release of this album's music — released for a video game, no less — didn't get the final dynamic range-ruining, ultra-compression treatment. That is, the video game version sounded far superior.

Nonetheless, I’ve heard worse albums — albeit not from the world’ most successful and best-resourced heavy metal band. For this reason, I felt Death Magnetic shouldn’t be entirely discounted, so I decided to give it a go when I saw it at Heartland Records for the equivalent of $8.

Various — Maschinenfest 2002

Maschinenfest is an annual festival in Germany (of course — where else?) focusing on industrial, noise, experimental and other extreme electronic music.

I’ve got some great stories about Maschinenfest after I went there with a mate in 2013. It was my first ever European festival and the gig (and the trip there and back) was one of my memorable.

I totally had an intriguing, fascinating, thigh-slappingly funny account all written down and ready to share. Then some lowlife burgled our house and stole my stuff. I lost my backup hard drive with a whole bunch of treasured holiday pics.
So that was a bit discouraging.

One day I’ll retell the story of our adventure to Germany and Maschinenfest 2013.

I believe the Maschinenfest organisers release an annual compilation of featured artists. The version here is the 2002 edition, released 10 years before the event I attended, when music (and by music I mean noise) creation technology was less sophisticated. I’ll be interested to see how it stacks up to the 2013 edition, which I vaguely recall I have lying around somewhere.

Imminent Starvation — Nord

Talking of noise, I know of at least one person who claims that hearing this album changed their perspective on industrial music. I don’t know much about Olivier Moreau, the artist behind Imminent Starvation (later renamed just Imminent) although I own his triple seven-inch ‘cowboy-noise’ collaboration with Synapscape. It’s an odd release, being a collaboration of two artists playing rhythmic noise (do the kids still call it powernoise?) and twangy cowboy guitar. For real.

I get the impression that Nord was something of a watershed movement for a lot of people. The individual mentioned above, for example, claimed he lost interest in ‘regular’ EBM after hearing Nord. I’ve heard comparable views, though not quite as drastic, from others over the years.

Nord is eminently dark and foreboding. I heard a few tracks some years back but I was into other, more accessible electronic music at the time. I imagine Nord still holds up today and is as nasty and cold and intense as it was when released in 1999.

God Module — The Magic In my Heart Is Dead

I own the below God Module tour shirt and it makes me feel really old. It’s from God Module’s 2009 Spooky Down Under, which, by my calculation, is getting on to seven years ago. The gig doesn’t feel like it was that long ago, hence why it makes me feel old.

God Module circa mid 2000s was a first-tier name that was routinely mentioned on flyers and in conversations when talking about EBM, terror EBM, terror banana, or any other synth-based danceable music with distorted cookie monster vocals.

It feels like yesterday, just seven years ago.

God Module releases up to 2005’s Viscera album were good, but I thought the follow up, 2007’s Let’s Go Dark, wasn’t as strong. It was fun and had a couple of good tracks, but I felt it didn’t have quite the same strong song-writing qualities from previous releases.

The Magic In my Heart Is Dead was a follow-up EP released in 2010, the first major new release after Let’s Go Dark. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m keen to know where God Module went with this.

Mz O and Her Guns — Damnation / Salvation

Despite the fact that I spent years attending goth clubs and gigs, spent a lot of time hanging out with goths, and for some time back there probably devoted considerable energy (or at least, considerably more than I should have) to dressing like a goth, I really didn’t get that heavily into goth rock.

I loved all the new EBM and industrial music that I was discovering every week; I loved the huge stripe of alternative music that got played at goth clubs; and when bona fide gothic actually rock got played, I rarely objected to it. However, I just wasn't that heavily into gothic rock. The most extensive collection from a gothic rock artist that I own amounted to half a dozen or more CDs from Australians Ikon. I’ll happily concede that this anomaly in my collection has a lot to do with them being a local group that I gladly wanted to support and which I saw play live on numerous occasions.

Otherwise, my CD collection lacks a significant guitar-based trad goth component (at least as a proportion to my heavy metal and EBM / industrial collection). It’s a shame really, because there is so much excellent trad goth music out there outside of club floor hits.

I wonder sometimes if this dearth in appreciating trad goth rock music had something to do with the radical anti-EBM stance of some of the traditional purists from my clubbing days. Without mentioning names, there was (as is commonly the case with alternative groups) a certain group of people who loudly trumpeted the traditional gothic rock cause, and who were openly hostile to anything that sounded EBM-related. It led to dramas and arguments and silly feuds, and I suspect they played a part in putting me off gothic rock for so long.
Now this was all a very long time ago. We've all grown older and more chilled out. I’d like to think that all parties kissed and made up, or at least feel they could do if called on to do so.

More to the point, it’s never too late to get to love new music. And while one CD from a Christian Death vocalist is a small start, it’s a good starting point nonetheless. I hope Mz O and Her Guns does an unprejudiced job of opening my mind to more trad goth rock.

Assemblage 23 — Defiance

Assemblage 23 is one of those prime offenders who specialised in the above-mentioned EBM devil’s music. I owned the mandatory EBM-goth-industrial club floor filler that was the Disappoint single (more of an EP really) – specifically, that Funker Vogt remix that wows you when you hear it when you enter a club for the first time, and three years later makes you cringe because they’re still playing it. Like come on, they could at least play one of the other six remixes, right? Oh wait, no one will dance if they do that.

Alas, what’s the old adage? The DJ can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but never all the people all the time.

Tom Shear (that’s Mr Assemblage 23) is a cool dude. I saw him perform live once and I follow his witty, clever, and genuinely interesting Facebook posts. Apart from the Disappoint single, I own one other Assemblage 23 album, 2004’s Storm (along with two accompanying singles).

I’m not that familiar with his earlier material, like Defiance here, or his later three albums, so this is a good start for a ‘staple’ of the EBM / future-pop that I love and danced to so much.

Nine Inch Nails — The Day The World Went Away

Have you ever listened to an album and thought, wow, how I wish I’d discovered this artist all those years ago when I was an angry teenager / was going through a hard time / was still into good music / etc?

My proper introduction to Nine Inch Nails was when a friend lent me The Fragile double-album. It was 1999, I was in the final stretch of my last year of school, I was desperately trying to figure out where I fit into the world by way of establishing my identity, and I was grappling with all the intense anxieties that come with being 17 years old.

At the time, I thought the first disc of The Fragile was ok. I especially liked (and still do) the epic track We’re In This Together. However, this was pretty much my first foray into electronic music and I vaguely recall wondering just what the big deal was with this band called Nine Inch Nails. CD burning and ripping, let alone file sharing, wasn't prevalent, and I eventually returned my borrowed copy to my mate and didn’t think much of it.

Believe it or not, it wasn't until year later that I got to hear the masterpiece that was The Downward Spiral. Sure, I’d heard Closer and other tracks from the album a million times in clubs, but I’d never sat down to appreciate and properly listen to The Downward Spiral in my own time.

Which is a real shame. In fact, the very thought makes me genuinely sad.

That’s because there is no doubt in my mind that I would have absolutely latched onto the angst and dark themes and sharp, contrasting moods that make up The Downward Spiral. Looking back at my 14 to 17-year-old self, I can easily imagine being blown by away this album, reading into every skerrick of subtext, interpreting every minute part, and totally identifying with this album’s nihilistic meaning, man.

14 to 17 years old is a profoundly formative age. Among the many, many, many things going on at that age that shape who you are and who you become, it’s also the age when you figure out what music works for you. We all move on to discover and love new and exciting music as we move along (or in some cases, tragically leave it all behind), but the albums that we discover and angstily identify with when we’re young will always occupy an unassailably special place in our hearts.

I know that The Downward Spiral should have been one of those albums for me. But alas, somehow it flew past me. By the time I finally got around to listening to The Downward Spiral, it was too late to become a ‘formative’ album. I got The Fragile instead.

As I said, The Fragile wasn’t a bad album. And now that I got my hands on The Day The World Went Away single here, the first single from The Fragile, I genuinely appreciate the mellowness, rich guitar production, and vibe of this track.

But without trying to diss Trent, The Fragile was — for this confused 17-year-old boy who, like others like him, didn’t know his arse form his elbow and therefore based a large part of his identity on the music he loved — the wrong introduction.

Various — The O-Files

Once upon a time I bought 25kg of music from an independent record store. They were closing down and decided to sell their remaining stock by the kilo.
There was I, patting myself on the back for thinking what a fortune I would make on ebay. Then I gradually discovered that this scheme didn’t quite work as planned.
I’m embarrassed to say though that I did this more than once (see my story on buying too much music).

One of the collections I purchased contained a large amount of early to mid-90s industrial and EBM. This was music from an era when goth and industrial were still stewing (sort of) in similar black cesspits. They were less culturally distinct than they were by the turn of the millennia, and bright, fluffy, fluoro raver and graver gear wasn’t a common thing (yet).
The O-Files is a compilation, named after releases on the Off Beat record label.
This record label is known not only for its influential roster, but also because it led directly to the creation of Dependent Records after its demise. Based in Germany, Off Beat and especially its 'spiritual successor' released multitudes of synthy, danceable, future-pop-like or cookie-monster-vocal-accompanied EBM and industrial from artists that became a big deal in the first decade of the new millennium.

Often in concert with the enormous (relatively speaking, anyway) Metropolis records, Dependent released a whole bunch of albums from the likes of Seabound, Covenant, VNV Nation, Suicide Commando, Velvet Acid Christ, and many more.

All of these artists had originally either appeared in some way on the Off Beat roster (either signed or at least distributed through it in some way), or otherwise took their cue and inspiration from the artists on this label.

Having said that, the industrial and electronic music from this era doesn’t blow me away. The production and recording equipment has that distinct ’90s filter, something which I think you had to be around for at the time to genuinely appreciate.

This isn’t to say that there wasn’t a shortage of ripper music released during this time, only that I personally prefer a late ’90s and onwards sound when it comes to EBM / industrial / aggrotech / whatever terror banana sound.

The O-Files is four singles from four artists: Numb, Click Clic, Individual Totem and New Mind (albeit with several remixes). This is always a nice way to better understand the breadth of an artist because, despite being ostensibly a compilation, this makes it almost album-like. Indeed, anyone who collects compilations knows that the old one-track-per-artist compilation is a notoriously hit and miss method to appreciate an artist.

Of course, this being a singles collection, I’m expecting some filler from the remixes. Then again, I may strike obscure gold.

Skinny Puppy — Too Dark Park

Talking of a ’90s filter, how about a late ’80s filter? Like Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy was a Big Deal in industrial music, yet they’re a group I was never into. With Nine Inch Nails it was a case of just two ships passing in the night, whereas with Skinny Puppy it was a case of missing the boat entirely.

I suspect I just wasn’t quite old enough to Dig It with Skinny Puppy (see what I did there?). That is, Nine Inch Nails was a big phenomenon when I was around that I somehow missed, whereas Skinny Puppy was probably five to ten years before my time for me to be really in the right state of mind, at the right time of life, to ‘get’ them.

I’ve bought a couple of Skinny Puppy albums over the years. Some of their early, ’80-era material in particular has me wondering in amazement just how a couple of miscreant kids managed to create such varied and messed up sounds with nothing more than a minimal music setup that they brapped away at over the weekend.

Too Dark Park was Skinny Puppy album number six. I’m wondering if it will be my breakthrough Skinny Puppy moment. If not, like so many releases before it (and as has been mentioned several times already) I’ll simply relegate it until it calls me again at some other time, which in this instance will hopefully be the right time.

C-TEC — Cut

Cut is the second album from this industrial EBM ‘super group’ that was at various times called Cyber-Tec Project, C-Tec, and (according to some releases, albeit listed incorrectly) Cyber Tec.

Their track Let Your Body Die, released in 1995, was popular club hit with a sound that still stands up today — no small achievement given that it’s more than 20 years old!

Cyber-Tec Project counted amongst its members the unmistakeable voice of Front 242 vocalist Jean-Luc De Meyer, plus at various times (live or in the studio) members of Cubanate and even the drummer from Nitzer Ebb.

In addition to Let Your Body Die, which featured its own EP and numerous remixes, I was also a fan of a few tracks on C-TEC’s first album, Darker, a mellow electronic album that takes some getting used and which has long moments that sound nothing like barn-storming, dancefloor-hit stomping dance tracks.

Jean-Luc De Meyer’s vocals, as I said, are unmistakeable. I feel that even a lousy EBM track is made better thanks merely to his contribution. Given the talented pool of people involved in the creation of Cyber-Tec Project / C-Tec material, Cut is unlikely to sound dated, despite being more than 15 years old. It might, however, take some getting used to.

Sunn O))) — Void

So I’ve mentioned three or so times on this page already that the best thing to do with a release if you don’t dig it right away is to hold onto it and revisit at a later time.

This is one of the reasons I trash and criticise albums outright. How you feel about music — even music you don’t like — is so very subjective and dependent on countless external factors not strictly related to how an album sounds.
These factors can range from what your personal expectations are about a release you’ve been waiting for, to whether you’re stressed that day, to whether something meaningful is happening in your life at that moment, which just happens to coincide with you playing a particular lot of music on repeat. The significance and prevalence of all these factors and so many, many, many more can change from week to week or from year to year. Their combined mass amounts to how you would otherwise feel about a certain artist, release, song, or genre. Hence, as I keep saying, if you don’t like something one day, it’s always a good idea to revisit it later; and hence, this is one reason why I love physical media, because it’s harder to delete and forget a physical item.

But once in a while I will come across something that, try and try as I do, just is not for me.

Drone metallers Sunn O))) are apparently one such group.

A mate strongly recommended Sunn O))). So did a record store owner.

And as far as I can tell, abandoning a guitar next to an amp to make feedback noise for an hour is not too dissimilar to this studio-recorded Sunn O))) album.

Perhaps I’ll revisit this 10 or 15 years from now, like I did with the Ministry and Nine Inch Nails releases listed here. Maybe then Sunn O))) will finally sense.

Until then, I’ll stand by the adage that if one doesn’t have anything nice to say, it’s best not to say anything at all.

Clearly drone metal isn’t for me. Goodness, what a snooze fest!