The foreboding title of Anthony Linell's latest EP doesn't come as an unnecessary warning. If you're inclined, 'Alienation From Self' presents a stern collection of tracks that thrill and bite in their severe austerity. For the less inclined, the machine-precise claustrophobia might just signal that it's time to leave.
Following on from this year's brooding debut, Anthony Linell gathers a storming double 12" of material to depth charge vacant participants and lilting movers. Leaving aside his well established Abdulla Rashim moniker, Emerald Fluorescents feels like an agile side-step into heavier terrain with a renewed sense of purpose. Scattered fractal stabs revolve around quietly furious low-end fit outs with enough sharp edges to let you know it's someone else's space.
Ever capitalizing on aerodynamic tactics, Anthony Linell's latest EP, 'Layers of Reality,' presents three tracks that exceed gravitational force with the slickest of manoeuvres. Tersely fluctuating and resoundingly austere, the EP has its moments of breezy volatility that punctuates the mesmeric rhythmic cycles to sweeping effect.
Anthony Linell's latest suite of tracks cruise and drift with their head up. With a dizzy palette of terse and winding melodies, 'Sculpting Energy' feels like another new avenue for Linell on his unbreakable run of EPs. Drone surveillance-style patterns remain intact this time around, hinting at the unmistakable frozen planes of his previous works, yet with the opening track there's the smack of bustling heat, as its title 'Therme' alludes to. The EP's closing piece, 'Vision of the Imminence', presents a familiar sullen theme. Perhaps the measure of his latest work's difference is in the modulating barbed wire-percussion and birdsong- synths that wrap the track's cold core?
Bandhagens Musikforening is the new project from Michel Isorinne and Martin Sander. Their debut record for Northern Electronics tangles mournful, surreal profiles with euphoric, sunset electro. Particular tracks map either end of the spectrum that is to be found, but it's the viscous mesh of emotive motion that is the most striking and perhaps singular feature of their first record.
'Total makt' is the molten new EP from Evigt Morker. There's plenty to be charmed by as the collection of tracks open out and tame our senses. Once the flirting fades, we are quite casually led down bumpy, aqueous routes into something, and slowly we are funnelled into Evigt Morker's terrain, eventually arriving in darker corners of the fantasy that first caught our eye.
A1 – Trading in Souls: The first of four tracks on the EP starts with an industrial drone track that has bags of suspense and drama right from the off. The main sound is a very metallic synth sound that has a real draw you in feeling. There are little vox sounds that bounce out of the main lead sounds and the use of these adds detailing that keep the initial sounds more interesting on the ear.
A2 – Peeled-off faces: Ok now this is quite a daunting title for a track and will probably conjure up a darker world from where this tune has come. You would be correct in thinking this way as this track is not for the feint hearted. Its not a hard track by any stretch of the imagination but its relentless in its styling. The rhythm is like a train chugging along and the effect sound of steam being vented seems to add to this vision. At times it almost sounds like spray can art captured in audio form. The groove is very cyclic and trance inducing, and this will certainly run around your brain in a slightly disturbed way.
B1 – They Need Tragedy: The “B-Side” begins with a very tribal techno piece that has a machine like quality to it. The groove of the percussive elements is very mechanical and sounds like a set of robotic machines pressing and forming some kind of metal structure. The grinding sounds also enhance the assembly line loop, when coupled with the tapping pop sounds gives more depth to the overall feeling of this minimal but some how addictive track.
B2 – White Success: The final tune of this 4 track EP goes down a more peaceful and ambient road. The spaced out soundscape is really drifty and pleasant to listen too. Think Blade Runner soundtrack and you’re not far off. Beautiful pads wash up and down the piece and the use of space fx sounds give a very pleasing and wondrous feel to this tune. This is a proper eyes shut and let yourself go moment and is a great way to end this EP.
Appealing to listeners who like their music coming from a darker more industrial zone, but dig a bit of curve ball, sci-fi ambience on the side. For people who want something slightly leftfield then check this EP out as there is a bit of variety here in terms of overall content.
Italy's Nuel, aka Manuel Fogliata, pairs swift kicks and balmy tumbles on his 'Toolkit: Selection' for Northern Electronics. Each track in the barrel is a succinct instrument to fold and pinch the dancefloor at every available angle. Whether you are cruising for a heart rate or falling off the grid, Nuel's sun-kissed snapshots are deft cargo.
Marking his first appearance on Northern Electronics, Copenhagen's Rune Bagge delivers a debut album of capricious rhythms set against the thrilling glare of an icy daybreak. There are some remarkably magnetic moments to be found in the ambient pieces on 'Pink Dreams,' though the friction burns from 'Five Elements' and the rest of the club numbers will demand urgent attention.
Some serious hot tracks on this fourth instalment of the Scandinavian Swords series. It breaks with its predecessors' forms. Deviating from the austere brevity that marks Northern Electronics out, Scandinavian Swords IIII: Atlas of Visions completes a survey of the label's confidants and components in the same breath as it introduces a swarm of new artists and genre-collisions. With the swell of the last 12 months behind them, Anthony Linell and Jonas Ronnberg have forged the compilation with a paradoxical formula: Atlas of Visions stakes itself as a milestone release that retains the sure-footed programming of its proprietors yet cuts a new silhouette for what the platform of a Northern Electronics release consists of. Presented across two volumes, Atlas of Visions courses through the hyper-pigmented and infectious fallout zone between club-focused works and the abstract territories of experimental modes. The release compiles egression and intensification into a pandemoniac whole, a refracting design for fractured times.
a1. Noah Gibson - Returning
a2. The Pelican Company - Temple Bells
a3. Varg2tm Vtss - VARGTSS1 (Do The Roar)
b1. Anthony Linell - Hallucinations
b2. Exploited Body - She Blames The River
b3. The Empire Line - Traet Av Lagen, Traet Av Systembolage
c1. Puce Mary - Violent & Delusional (feat Varg2tm)
c2. Fatal - Indolent
c3. Tusagi - Swetti
d1. E-Saggila - Blue Amps
d2. JS Aurelius - Crime Is The Highest Form Of Sensuality
Irrgang' is the highly anticipated debut album of Ossian Ohlsson's Vit Fana project. Representing a new generation of experimental musicians from Scandinavia pushing the limits of contemporary industrial music, 'Irrgang' is the culmination of a process perfected over several years. While the comfortless drones, ear-piercing noise bursts and razor-sharp synth work may be the album's backbone, the signature trademark of earlier Vit Fana recordings is present in Ohlsson's haunting vocals and the subtle hints of brutal beauty. A highly personal musical statement, 'Irrgang' stands with one foot firmly rooted in the tradition of early industrial noise music, while effectively creating a grotesque universe of its own.
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