Morning, folks! No sooner do we get back home from Terminus than the next installment of Industrial Summer Camp (Back To School Edition) is unveiled. Yes, Das Bunker’s 20th anniversary festival was such a success than John, Franck, & co. are getting things together for another anniversary party. The DB21 line-up, headlined by Suicide Commando and Das Ich, has just been unveiled. We’ll be talking about the whole roster (including a once again intriguing undercard) on the podcast this week, as well as some chat about the recently announced Cloak & Dagger festival, but for now let’s get to this week’s Tracks.

Blac Kolor bending space inside your headphones

Comaduster, “Heat Death”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Comaduster’s sophomore LP Solace, as Réal Cardinal has had to postpone for a week or two to get it ready for wide-release. Good news though, as Cardinal has just released a non-album single, which he calls a “recursive remix” of the record, a document of the sounds, rhythms and ideas that shaped the full length. Few artists pack as much complexity into a single track as Cardinal does in terms of rhythm and modulation, but take special note of the lyrics to this one (which you can read while you’re picking it up on Bandcamp) which provide hints to the overarching concepts of the new material.

Liebknecht, “ICE Over Erfut”
The long-awaited LP from Daniel Myer’s techno-EBM Liebknecht project is still awaiting release, but Myer’s thrown a bone to antsy heads such as ourselves. The just released, digital-only Produkt-EP features “versions that will not appear on the album, but are, in [his] opinion, just as good”. There you have it! Above and beyond the running theme of tracks named after European cities, the style of Liebknecht is on full display here: a hybrid of sounds which eschews the grime and distortion which are often found in techno-EBM overlap for the precisely targeted and elegantly sculpted echoing sounds only Myer can produce.

Divider, “Undermind”
Speaking of Myer-related biz, we were big fans of Divider’s Europäisch​-​Amerikanische Freundschaft on the Haujobb boys’ Basic Unit Productions label. It’s stripped-down and tensely pinched classic
EBM style felt uncannily contemporary despite owing a good deal to the genre’s progenitors (as if the title wasn’t enough of a clue). Divider’s new single on RND. Records picks up where it left off quite pleasantly; some squelchy passes are added but what ain’t broke isn’t being fixed here.

Blac Kolor, “Dark Sky feat. DSX”
There’s a hot joint from the new Blac Kolor EP streaming right now featuring DSX, aka Dejan Samardzic. We’re longtime supporters of Blac Kolor and his particularly monochromatic take on the world of body music, especially when considering how ahead of the curve he was on the hot sound du jour which is approaching saturation. New EP Violate is due August 24th from Basic Unit Productions, and if his past work is any indication will feature steps forward in structure and presentation without losing the cool minimalism that has marked the project’s work up ’til now.

Azar Swan, “Passages”
US darkwavers Azar Swan get lowkey on their new single, “The Golden Age of Hate”. The band’s LPs have been marked by the duo’s dedication to combining pop hooks with uneasy electronics and big drums, as strident and sticky as the song required. These new songs break from that formula a bit, they still have some of the woozy energy we expect, but with a sneaky build-up and release that really maximizes Zohra Atash’s remarkable voice.

Boar Alarm, “Left Alive”
Good-natured maniac Fredrik Djurfeldt founded Boar Alarm while on sabbatical out here in Vancouver as an opportunity to explore sounds similar to those of his primary project, Severe Illusion, without his long-time musical partner Ulf Lundblad. The first EP under the moniker touched all of the brutal bases we love in Djurfeldt’s music, and it looks like even though he’s back home in Sweden, Boar Alarm will continue. Here’s a blast of Dive-like brutality from the forthcoming second Boar Alarm EP.